Give me your tired, your poor and huddled masses yearning to breathe free… With open arms we welcome Notes Admins and Developers to SharePoint

Posted on June 17, 2010 by Joel Oleson

It’s no longer a fierce battle. The battle is over and we welcome you with open arms. It’s a time of reparations it’s a time of healing. If I could I’d say welcome Notes admins and developers on an icon like the statue of liberty. Which represents the open arms that America once had for welcoming the rejected.

12 years ago I use to bow to the power of the Notes developers as I’d do our little ASP apps. On the web team with Notes/Domino developers and us purist ASP later to be Exchange, .NET and SharePoint development team.

Had an interesting conversation with Tim Fountain a Notes to SharePoint shepherd now at Quest who has been helping Notes people find their way into SharePoint with tools and solutions with the Notes Migrator. Fascinating to hear the insights from the notes migration team which essentially spent their careers now on both sides of the fence. Tim in a recent email explained…

“There’s been recent disturbances in the Notes blogosphere as two respected Notes developers have started to chart a different course. One headed straight for SharePoint. His first two posts on the topics:

I think if we can get these folks hooked into the community, once they get past the technology differences they become powerful advocates. We need a welcome wagon for the Notes transition people.” closed quote.

I appreciate Tim’s insight and agree we need to do something to better integrate and help Notes/Domino people integrate into our community.

I saw this tweet this morning. Which has already been retweeted a couple of times… @cool_v: is wondering why IBM doesn’t advertise Lotus Notes/Domino???? I am so tired of hearing about Sharepoint!

I think they need to step back a little… The concern isn’t about the advertising, it’s about it’s lack of strategy or what comes across as flippant and cutting it comes across as abandon. The lumbering giant of Notes is tired. It’s time to put it to rest.

We’ve all come a long way. I think it’s time to see SharePoint as the true App Development Platform that it is. SharePoint 2010 with SharePoint Designer 2010 and Visual Studio 2010 have a lot to bring for the Notes/Domino developer to make it sooo much easier for them.

For some serious insight let me quote the Notes evangelist JonVon.Net

“…something else has been going on at the same time. Along came Connections – based entirely on Websphere and Java. The Sametime software has become, more and more, based on Java and Websphere as well. And Quickr, again based on J2EE, is replacing NSF-based Quickplace. The NSF just isn’t present in any meaningful way in IBM’s new Social Software stack. “

They tried to sell a different email engine under the Workplace brand, but that effort folded when no one, anywhere, bought it. Goodbye Workplace.

Something about that thing about IBM selling Lotus Notes as messaging, and only as messaging, has finally caught up with us. Something about IBM fundamentally not believing in Notes as an application development platform, and refusing to market it as application development, has created the reality that we now face in the marketplace. And the competition is at long last eating Lotus Notes for breakfast. And honestly, I think at some level in the IBM organization, there are those who are relieved it’s finally going away. Because what they want is to sell the really expensive Websphere stuff. Domino, I’m guessing, just doesn’t net them the rivers of cash from the Fortune 100 like the big iron stuff does. But Domino getting its clock cleaned by Exchange and Sharepoint leaves a huge hole in IBM’s strategy.

… It’s good stuff. But it seems, it’s too little, too late…

See, where I work, they are abandoning Notes mail for Exchange. And last week we were told that the political winds at high levels in our company are whispering "Sharepoint". We responded by saying that we were ultimately agnostic about what code we wrote in. And this is essentially true. But we know in our heart of hearts that we will not be as productive as we were, no matter how good we get at Sharepoint development or any of the technologies in the Microsoft stack. We were also told, by the way, that any of us who wished to remain "pure Domino" developers would be given personal assistance in finding a new job.”

Read the full text and don’t miss the insightful comments at Javon.net “Lotus Notes: The Long Goodbye”

(emphasis added)

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Thanks for being so honest. Let us in the SharePoint community know what we can do to help.

Many of the comments are striking as well…

William Eberle

RE: Lotus Notes: The Long Goodbye

“It always saddens me to read posts, or see discussions, like this. The same talk has been going on for years. The part that makes me sad is the truth of it and the waste of the potential of Lotus Notes/Domino.

Despite the emotional effect it has on me, it is good to see such well-written words as it helps keep in front of me a clearer picture of the current state of Lotus Notes/Domino.

Well done!”

Matt White

Lotus Notes: The Long Goodbye

Great post all round. I suspect, unfortunately, it is all too accurate.

Stuart McIntyre

Lotus Notes: The Long Goodbye

*Very* uncomfortable reading, but you made your point beautifully. I wish I could say ‘it ain’t so’, but I can’t.