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IBM Challenges Microsoft With an Ad Campaign
Rytis writes "IBM is about to spend $300 Million dollars on a campaign to win customers and to convert them from Microsoft Exchange to Lotus Notes and Domino under Linux. IBM is also said to offer resellers a bounty of $20,000 for switching customers to its Linux-based e-mail programs from Microsoft server software. It seems that the concurrence Microsoft Corp. is facing is getting tighter and tighter. The Penguin gets more and more support from the two biggest rivals that Microsoft have ever had."
So, given all these things -- every one of which is something in general /.'ers scream for, WHAT IS THE F'ING PROBLEM?
Wow! All those features and it still sucks balls. And I can say that as I used to be a Notes Admin, until I decided that I wanted something that just works, cleanly and intuitively.
We use this at work (we're IBM's bitch; if IBM says jump, we ask "how high?"; if IBM says "pay up!", we ask "how much?"). /.'s database doesn't have enough space for the complaints I have and my co-workers about Lotus Notes.
Some highlights from version 6.5:
* Copy/pasting text into a memo? Be prepared to wait 3 minutes or more (on a P4 2.53GHz) if it isn't unformatted plaintext, e.g. something as oh-so-fancy as HTML...
* Illogical menu design. Seriously, why are there different "preferences" choices beneath 2 different menu headings?
* Slow, slow, slow due to its sheer obesity. You've had Notes open all day and haven't used it in a while, and you're switching from the calendar to a plaintext memo? Wait a minute while Windows has to load Notes' fat ass out of the swapfile into RAM...
* Want to select multiple emails (say, to drag them into a folder or the trash)? No, you can't do it the usual, worldwide-accepted method of click item 1, hold down SHIFT, click last item in range. You must hold down SHIFT and click each fucking email.
* Want to setup a meeting in the calendar? Go ahead and choose "appointment" in the first combobox, then "meeting" once the creation form is open...
* People are encouraged to build apps using Lotus scripts. And invariably, the apps blow. Coincidence? Crappy developers? OK, both are probably true...
* And then there are the "You've got new mail" pop-up notices which occur sometimes when no email actually shows up in your inbox. Thank you Notes, for breaking my concentration on a project for the the notification of an email which doesn't exist!
Not a day at work goes by that I don't curse the giant steaming heap that is IBM's Lotus Notes. Seriously, the only nice thing I can say about Notes is that its scheduler does a good job of finding free time in peoples' schedules to setup meetings. That happens to work very well, and is quite a time-saver. But otherwise, Notes is fucking garbage, and while I haven't tried Exchange + Outbreak, I can't imagine it would be any worse. (Personally, I wish we'd switch over to a web-based groupware app and ditch these proprietary POS's that MSFT and IBM have for us, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.)
IBM's hardware rocks, but their software almost invariably is so godawful that it makes one wonder if they've implemented the "1,000 monkeys at keyboards will eventually write perfect software" theory. If so, the theory is failing badly... As much as MSFT's software tends to be putrid shit too, it's leaps-and-bounds better and more-consistent in behavior than anything I've seen IBM turn out. IBM realizes this, and that's why they're trying to ride the Linux wave -- IBM can't churn out worthwhile code, so they figure they'll let hobbyists do it for them...
Frankly, if IBM ports Notes to Linux and tries to get people to actually use it, I believe the brand image of Linux vendors (RedHat, etc.) will be cheapened. It will wind up being a negative impact on the viability of Linux as a desktop OS. Seriously, for those who've never used it, that is how bad Notes is; that's how incompetent IBM apparently is at writing solid, well-designed software...
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