This is part 4 in my Future of Notes series.

 

The M word. Marketing.

 

I really have had my reservations on this one. It's easy to criticise, especially as I'm treading into an area where I have NO EXPERIENCE whatsoever. 

 

I don't want to simply be whining, nor do I want to be one of the people asking for IBM to deliver the marketing equivalent of the moon on a stick. And I especially don't want to have this turn into some kind of strange passive-aggressive rant that lambasts IBM whilst frequently apologises to Ed Brill, who has been open and frank throughout. 

 

Believe me, I've written and re-written this one a few times in my head before committing it to a keyboard, let alone putting it out into the ether.

 

So, my thoughts on marketing generally are... Selling Notes as email is not healthy long-term, because it massively undersells the product.

 

Short term, however, it has been massively beneficial. The focus on email, in both IBM's development resource and in marketing terms, has put Notes firmly back in the frame.

 

But when you look closely, IBM's brief description of Notes doesn't actually sell it as just email. IBM's website for Notes refers to it as Collaboration Software.

 

WRONG.

 

Collaboration tools don't do email. They get email systems to do email for them. Collaboration tools' email prowess ends once the SMTP connection is dropped - something else does the delivery, storage and serving of email.

 

Take a look around the market, and you'll see that this is true. Collaboration solutions send emails, and sometimes slurp them via POP3. Nothing more.

 

Notes is more than email.

Notes is more than Collaboration.

Notes was, is, and will always be... Groupware.

 

Remember that term?

 

IBM's long-term direction for Notes should be to move Notes back to a place where it defines its own category. Where reviewers looking at it as email cannot forget that it's more than email. Where reviewers looking at it as an application platform cannot forget that it provides email too.

In some cases, that additional capability is a weakness. Usually, the acronym "SaaS" is seen in those cases...

But everywhere else, this is an advantage.

 

In fact, SaaS is a huge problem for us. I suspect that SaaS will be a "race to the bottom" that threatens all Collaboration and Email software equally.

Which is why the value of Notes, in being both email and applications, must be pressed.

 

That is all I'll say on marketing, as I've already vastly overstepped the mark that is drawn by my experience and (lack of) education in the subject.

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