Genii Weblog

I'll ask again: Is Notes booming or bombing?

Wed 18 Feb 2004, 09:10 PM



by Ben Langhinrichs
Way back in May, I first asked whether Notes was booming or bombing.  Nine months later, the evidence seems even more clear to me that Notes is booming.  At Lotusphere, people were cautiously optimistic about Workplace, and flat out enthusiastic about Notes/Domino.  Gone were some of the fears (dare I say, IBM-fed fears) about the imminent demise of Notes.  Sessions featuring Notes/Domino topics, including my own, were packed to overflowing.  

Aside from the enthusiasm at Lotusphere, which could easily be said to be biased, I have little to go on except for the direct evidence of my own business and the indirect evidence of those I know and admire.  The past nine months have (easily) been the best of the seven plus years I have been in business, and the year ahead is shaping up to be as good or better.  Evaluations of Midas are up.  Enthusiasm for @Midas Formulas is up (and would be up further, I imagine,  if I would release the beta already, which I am avoiding by writing this post).  Sales for COEX! Links are better that I could have anticipated.

So, help me out with the indirect evidence.  How is the business climate where you are?  If you sell products, are they selling well?  If you sell services, is the demand finally picking up?  If you host apps or websites, are there many people wanting to host?  Let me know if I am living in my own bubble that could burst at any time or if this is something bigger and the enthusiasm from Lotusphere is more than a fluke.

Copyright © 2004 Genii Software Ltd.

What has been said:


117.1. Ben Poole (02/19/2004 07:21 AM)

Here (London, UK) it's dead as a door nail. The Lotus job market is horrible, and has been for several years.

The jobs that *do* get posted are the same old combined admin / developer roles, requiring the moon (advanced Lotusscript, Java, Javascript, XML, admin, LDAP, blah blah) all for the princely sum of around £25k... that doesn't even pay the mortgage in this ridiculously expensive country.

I'm sure plum stuff is out there, but you really have to have the networks...

I don't want to be a complete misery though: I would say that in general, there seems to be more optimism and enthusiasm about the Lotus product line, both current and future developments. So that's cool.


117.2. Ben Langhinrichs (02/19/2004 07:33 AM)

Well, Ben, I am very sorry to hear that. I hope things pick up over there. I must admit, I get a smaller percentage of business from the UK than I used to (although still a healthy amount), but that mostly seems to be because other places are really hot right now, like Australia and Belgium.


117.3. Hynek Kobelka (02/19/2004 08:20 AM)

I for myself cant say much about sales but what has really changed in the last months (and especially since Lotusphere) is that the enthusiasm about the future of Lotus Notes is back (and this after several years). The main difference is that Lotus/IBM finally achieved to explain what the future of the product will be. Maybe they tried to explained it all the time but at last we got it ! One of the main reasons is that now you have several things that are already finished and you can have a look. (Workplace,JSP Tag Libraries, Screenshots from the rich-client).

For customers the fact,to know what the future of a product will be, is absolutly invaluable.


117.4. vince schuurman (02/19/2004 03:53 PM)

We had a bad year, but things are picking up now. But i admit i live right nextdoor to Belgium :)


117.5. Heini (02/21/2004 04:15 AM)

Hello Ben,

Domino is not booming here. Unfortunately the Business Partner market in Germany seems to be down, a lot did not survive and now the market is getting slightly better but little are making noise (Normally I thought that less Partners means better business but unfortunately this is not always the case).

It would take more to make Domino a booming business. But I will not only complain, still in business, still riding my good old Domino horse and feeling okay.

Have a nice week-end.

Heini

PS: A 4x2 cm comments field with Firefox is a good way to keep comments short.