Blog Battle: Big Blue versus an Azurini
August 12, 2010
I was not going to write this short item, but the battle of the blues was too enticing to ignore. First, I don’t know what’s right and what’s wrong. I read this story, “IBM, Gartner in Blog Tiff Over Notes Report.” The link may be dead when you read this story. Blame Yahoo, not me. The story describes a bloggy spat about Lotus Notes and a consultant’s view thereof. Now, I love Lotus Notes. At Ziff in the late 1980s, we were early adopters, and I got to know the importance of authorized engineering outfits like Kinderhook. Anyone remember that group? So Lotus Notes worked reasonably well, and it delivered functionality that was remarkable.
Over the years, IBM has continued to invest in Lotus Notes, and the system has a pretty good grip on some US government agencies and big companies. Today, Lotus Notes must deal with Microsoft SharePoint. Google wants to crush the Lotus blossom too. The fact is that none of these systems is particularly bad. Each company can make a strong case for itself and against the others. The reality is that software from big, smart outfits does not vary a great deal. Features vary but technology advances in a reasonably measured way for enterprise applications.
What’s the point of the Blog Tiff write up?
IBM seems not to be thrilled with a report from the azure chip consulting firm. Here’s a snippet from the article, and you will want to read the complete article to get the complete picture:
A Gartner report about users looking at migrating from Lotus Notes and Domino didn’t sit well with IBM’s Ed Brill, who spoke his mind in a Friday blog post. But his spin on the contents of the report is too one-sided, according to Gartner’s Tom Austin, who shot back over the weekend.
On Thursday, Gartner published a report called “Migrating off Notes/Domino e-mail may make sense in some circumstances,” saying that more Lotus customers come to Gartner for advice about moving to other e-mail systems. The report is much ado about nothing, according to Brill, director of product marketing at IBM Lotus. A headline that better describes the content of the report would be: “Migrating off Notes/Domino doesn’t make sense in most circumstances,” according to Brill’s blog post. However, that name probably wouldn’t sell as much consulting time, Brill said.
Here’s my take, and keep in mind that this is an opinion.
First, consultants love buzz. A dust up creates awareness. True, some outfits get annoyed, but the idea is that the buzz generates new leads.
Second, Big Blue does not like criticism. With $100 billion in revenue, the revenues of an azure chip consulting firm are chopped liver. Picking a fight with Big Blue allows IBM legal eagles to flap their wings. On a bad day, the eagles may want to get themselves a squirrel. Snack time. This means that the Blog Tiff could become a much bigger deal on a slow August afternoon.
Third, the folks on the sidelines like Google and Microsoft may have some fun emulating folks on the Comedy Channel. This type of casual humor may do more harm than good, however. Both Big Blue and the azure chip outfit will want it to stop. A misstep can make what is a tiny story grow to the Zeus-scale.
In short, I want to avoid this squabble and the companies involved. Back to the goose pond, gentle reader.
Stephen E Arnold, August 12, 2010
Freebie.
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