What is that stuff anyway?

zogger

Tue Aug 05 19:18:54 -0700 2008

manage

Totally not embarrassed about it at all disclaimer: I'm not a big business office worker and actually have no idea whatsoever what lotus this or that actually does. I've heard the names for years obviously, but never bothered to find out, because seemingly I was getting by just fine without it. Cliff notes-pun intended-version is totally acceptable. Is this really a big deal for companies who do office work? And the obvious question, what do these applications do that replaces what from microsoft? As in, where's the angle and big savings for companies that take advantage of this?

What is that stuff anyway?

wowbagger

Tue Aug 05 19:35:37 -0700 2008

manage

The idea behind Notes (and behind Microsoft Exchange, which is one of the competing products) is to combine the following:

1. Email
2. Calendar scheduling
3. messaging
4. Resource reservation

into one. One use case would be:
I need to schedule a meeting with my team. I fire up my client, and select my team members. I can see who is in meetings/on vacation/off site/whatever at a glance, so I can pick a time they all can meet. I can see what resources (meeting rooms, projectors, coffee pots, whatever) are available, and can reserve them with a click. I then can send out an email saying "everybody, we are meeting at $TIME in $MEETING_ROOM about $SUBJECT."
When they get the mail, they can just click on "accept meeting" or "decline meeting", and if they accept it will automatically be added to their schedule. When the time comes, they will be notified of the meeting.
I get notifications of who has accepted the meeting, who has declined, and who has not yet seen the message.

With the right plug-ins, folks with smartphones can get all of this wonderfulness anyplace they are, so THEY CAN NEVER ESCAPE THE OFFICE <laughter type-"evil"/>.

While this may sound horrible in some ways, it really does help out in a complicated situation (like I find myself in, with colleagues in the UK, across the US, and other places). There is a lot more to these sort of packages, and while there are Free Software solutions to each of the functions, they are not well integrated, and thus users have to do more work to use them.

Unfortunately, Notes has a reputation for awfulness (deserved or not I cannot say as I have no experience with it), and more unfortunately, Exchange+Outlook is what all the MBAs get weaned on, and so that is what they demand. If IBM can break this and get the MBAs to accept That Which Is Not Microsoft then I think it will be a step in the right direction.

What is that stuff anyway?

The Baron

Wed Aug 06 05:37:48 -0700 2008

manage

Most of Notes reputation is based on the fact that, out of the box, it is just barely a bare bones, no frills, almost does something useful package, with an incredibly powerful customization and app building back end. Many companies got sold on the Notes package, without realizing that you really need to hire a few good programmers to come in, learn your business practices, then program/build Lotus into a great productivity tool. If you do that you have a great package, if you don't you have something that can barely be called an email system.

Exchange-Outlook on the other hand comes out of the box just beautiful. Powerful, fast, relatively simple, and does 100% of what 80% of the people out there need in the default configuration. Of the remaining 20% half of them can eventually get it to do what they need with a lot of effort and tech support, and the remaining 10% are pretty much just screwed. God help you if you actually need your Exchange app to do something it wasn't designed to do in the first place, even if the sales guy from M$ promised that it was a standard part of the installation, or even worse, "It's coming out in the next release." Exchange is also notorious for unstable upgrades or upgrades that break compatibility with previous versions or configurations. I remember the Active Directory mess. *shudder*

What is that stuff anyway?

Alan

Tue Aug 05 20:48:57 -0700 2008

manage

Symphony is an office suite. You may have heard of Microsoft's Office? They didn't invent it despite common perceptions.

Anyway, Lotus's (the original company, since bought out by IBM) 123 spreadsheet was the big killer app in the day, Excel started as a gui-fied clone. Symphony includes that, a wordprocessor and a presentations creator. They all have some degree of compatibility with MS apps and can exchange files.

What is that stuff anyway?

david duncan scott

Tue Aug 05 22:56:48 -0700 2008

manage

Well, this Symphony is a reworked OOo. The old Lotus Symphony died some years back. Think of it as Cheshire software, except that it vanished leaving only the name.

What is that stuff anyway?

Alan

Tue Aug 05 23:45:52 -0700 2008

manage

Well, this Symphony is a reworked OOo.

I hate it when they do that. Trick people who think they're getting the program they remember when nothing remains except the name. I've got quite a few antique programs I nurse along because the "upgrades" are actually crappy rewrites that lost the features I depend on in favour of shiny effects and being compatible with Microsoft. Fortunately old software never dies, originally on 5 1/4 floppies running on an IBM XT, exactly the same results now, only a thousand times faster.

Not that OOo is bad or anything, why the hell can't they just sell it under that name, or a new one, instead of zombifying an old name.

$ and good

tqft

Tue Aug 05 22:14:39 -0700 2008

manage

"big savings for companies "

Per seat cost and only so many seats per (MS Exchange/Active Directory) server.

Yeah $CORP get site licenses but the cost numbers do actually add up enough to matter - so then $CORP use everything they can to get value for the cost fo the site licence - good for $CORP and good for MS.

Oh and as a user Outlook sucks and the so called integration is just bullshit.  Sure you can copy and paste and the widgets kind of look and act the same - except where they don't and that is what will kill you.  

 Example:

Application name Microsoft Word
Version 11.0
Build XXXX
Product ID XXXXX-XXX-XXXXXXX-XXXXX

[Xed to protect my ass]

When using the markup revision tools - you cannot (at least no-one here) can copy the deleted - ie text that has been revised - directly and paste it back into the document or another one.  Workaround - copy the current text, undo the change, copy unrevised text to wherever, reverse reversals.  With legal and specific descriptive wording used heavily here this would be handy - but this is just a deliberately (I mean someone had to disable that piece of native functionality) borked.

When it doesn't work it can't be changed - you get this with any software, but often corp IT dept's don't even do bug reports back to MS.

And the good ole context sensitive menu which are a usability nightmare. And I could go on all day.

What is that stuff anyway?

GuyFawkes

Wed Aug 06 05:21:56 -0700 2008

manage

I have also managed to totally ignore it, even when I was working somewhere where it was used...

There is nothing worse than a bunch of people sending you what are in effect diary entries for YOUR diary, with zero consultation and no options but to accept / refuse, with of course the "weighting" given to such things by the relative seniority of sender and recipient.

It was always my publically announced policy that "all that bullshit gets deleted unread" with the rest that I was usually more productive than any three others, at least until such time as I got my ass canned for not being a team player.

Really, I was always struck by how much my co-workers mental focus and productive ability was destroyed for the entire day by a single meeting which had been scheduled by someone else and given a take it or leave it approach..

The "manic nutter" in every group was always the guy who attended 3 such meetings a day on average, buzzed around like a blue assed fly achieving zilch except annoying everyone else.

IBM Leads Partnership Pushing Desktop Linux

Roy Schestowitz

Tue Aug 05 22:06:15 -0700 2008

manage

Lotus is Proprietary. Businesses are better off with default distros that have OOo.

IBM Leads Partnership Pushing Desktop Linux

Nathan Smith

Tue Aug 05 23:18:59 -0700 2008

manage

And, as has been noted, Lotus symphony is just a proprietary fork of OOo.  So really, Lotus Notes?  Is that going to kill Microsoft on the desktop?  I think not.  Plus it is just trading one master for another.

I am not surprised by IBM's move here - they have everything to gain, but I am not sure why the others are going along.

IBM Leads Partnership Pushing Desktop Linux

KlaymenDK

Wed Aug 06 00:06:05 -0700 2008

manage

If you think of Notes as a combo of MS Outlook (crummy email/contacts/calendaring app) and a simplified MS Access (non-relational database engine with an easy (if messy) built-in IDE) as well as a sort-of-integrated office suite, you'll get a surprisingly powerful and versatile application. Add to that the fact that it* officially exists for Linux, and you get why it rides the wave right now.

I added that star because, well, the client is cross-platform, but the designer (which I use daily) is still a Windows-only Notes 7 dinosaur (seriously, we got bugs in there that are well-known and several years old, and there's even more in the "new-for-Notes-8" version).

I'd just love to find (and join!) an open source alternative to Notes, but for all its suckiness it is a pretty advanced beast.

killer app

disco

Wed Aug 06 11:55:12 -0700 2008

manage

Lotus Notes is indeed a killer app, but only in a "shoot me now" way.