January 30th, 2006
Network World: Lotus lays out its future at Lotusphere kick-off
Coverage from the first day of Lotusphere.
“For
the record, there is no architectural shift involved [for Notes/Domino],
it is pure growth with no regression,” said [Lotus General Manager
Mike] Rhodin. “There will be continued support for all Notes applications.”Rhodin and IBM/Lotus executives also
took a more aggressive stand in an on-going competition with Microsoft,
often calling out the vendor during the general session keynote for its
perceived shortcomings in product and delivery schedules.“We have been the leader for 15
years, and I have no intention of backing down,” Rhodin said later
at a press conference.Analysts say Lotus’s spunk is born from
heat applied by Microsoft, which is aggressively building out it collaboration
platform on the back of Office and real-time collaboration tools.“I was struck that Lotus feels
very threatened by Microsoft,” said David Ferris, president of Ferris
Research. Ferris said that Lotus, however, is infusing Notes/Domino with
enough new and upgraded features that users who defect to Microsoft should
feel like they are missing out.
Not sure if David is
going to make my session in the morning, but for the record, I’m not feeling
threatened. The gloves are off. I do like the thought that
anyone who moves away from Lotus is missing out, though…
Link: Network
World: Lotus lays out its future at Lotusphere kick-off
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Originally by Ed Brill from Ed Brill on January 24, 2006, 4:11pm
