1Tim Tripcony  8/10/2011 1:51:37 AM  Some Companies Moving Back to Notes

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Notes isn't a messaging platform; it's an application development platform that includes integrated messaging capabilities.

This fundamental misunderstanding is the reason IBM has such difficulty marketing the platform. It's the same reason that analysts incorrectly judge its market share (and look foolish in retrospect when the product they claimed was already dead is still thriving 13 years later). And it's the reason that, throughout my entire career (which began in 1998, the same year that ridiculous Forbes article was published), there have always been many who are excited about the state of the product and optimistic about its future... while there exists a simultaneous cacophony from those who consider it to be in decline, if not all but extinct. Notes is always dying, and Notes is always growing; this ancient contradiction is unlikely to change unless IBM is somehow able to clearly communicate the true nature of the platform going forward.

What is the market share of ASP vs. PHP? Of DB2 vs. MS SQL? Apache vs. IIS? There's data out there, but I never hear analysts claiming that IIS is dead just because Apache has a far higher market share. Those of us who work with Notes and Domino should be trumpeting this distinction loud and clear at every opportunity. If we allow people to believe that Notes is email, but also allows creation of custom applications, it will continue to be perceived as it always has; if we instead spread the word that Notes is an application development platform - just like Joomla, Drupal, Salesforce, and so on - that includes integrated messaging features these other platforms do not, a few more people will start to compare its capabilities to its true competition and discover the many ways it can bring value to their organizations.