The Not-So-Rapid Blog

There's a really good discussion going on over at Ed's blog, all revolving around why people don't see the value of Lotus Notes.

To my mind, it's shoved an elephant into the room, and we can't ignore it. (Even if it does juggle, stand one one leg and keep rings spinning - just like an old IBM advert!)

The elephant is simply this: Where is the Community Edition of Domino?

We have an Express edition of Domino, which many think is too restrictive. It fails to give people some of the things that the community praises most about Domino, which is not a good strategy to make sales.

What we need is something like the DB2 Express-C edition. It's very impressive - it limits you on the hardware you can use it on, and takes some of the Really Big Enterprise features away from the mix. But otherwise, it's free to deploy/develop/distribute. You'd be nuts to run anything critical on it, unless you want to rely upon the support of a kindly community.

So what can Domino do to match that?

First, I think we have to admit that Domino is not in the same market, so the strategy must be a little different. Domino isn't just a data store that you lob your bits into - Domino is a platform that speaks many protocols and is capable of automated workflows and data processing that DB2 can't even dream of. You don't redistribute Domino with an app you write, so some of the nice features in the DB2 Express-C licence just aren't applicable.

I suspect that we could argue this one with IBM until the cows come home. But I do think that this is an opportunity IBM are missing, and that this harms Notes/Domino more than we can imagine. So here's what I suggest:

IBM Lotus Domino Express-C

Free as in beer, but with the following restrictions:

1. Only available on the Win32/Linux platforms.
2. No clustering
3. No partitioning
4. No Extended ACL
5. No NSFDB2
6. No SAP features
7. Not to be used on a box with more than 4Gb of RAM or two processors
8. No more than 100 licenced users active in the domain(s) used by the organisation.
9. No more than 10 servers per domain.
10. One free Domino Administrator license, two free Domino Developer licenses, 100 free Notes Collaboration licences.

This works for very small shops and for those developing applications. It's not that the old Express edition wasn't good, it's just that most of what it provided could be cobbled together (and I do mean cobbled!) with other technologies. By dropping the price to gratis, you can now have it all in one package.

100 users and ten servers? Figures off the top of my head. Drop it to two servers if you like, but more than one is a must. 100 users seems about right - it grabs a good chunk of small companies that were never going to pay for collaboration anyway, and were otherwise just going to go with Exchange Server in the Small Business Server deal.

The free client licences? Yeah, that's a tough call. The free licences are usable ONLY with an Express-C licence, of course. Free client licenses make it even harder to play the "we have more seats than you do" game, but you can turn that to your advantage if you're smart. But we have to face facts and admit that a server with no users is useless, and people wanting a free server probably won't pay for that many clients either. Drop it fo fifty or even twenty, but you could really make headlines with a figure like 100.  ;-)

And finally, one more restriction:

1. Support from a community only.

Want support? Go buy Express.

But IBM, I promise you this: On the opening day of the Community Support Forums, you'll have at least two century's experience on hand from volunteers. Just abou t everyone with a blog will be dropping by, plus many more without them. Especially if you just rebrand the Notes.Net forums - which were, let's face it, always about Community Support anyway.

The only thing stopping an Express-C version of Domino is IBM. If that doesn't stop, then Domino will never have a look-in at the lower end of the market.

IBM Lotus Domino Express

Ah, Express. How maligned have you been until now? But with a free Community edition (Express-C) beneath you, you may now SING! Reach for the skies, and deliver (for a modest fee) unto us:

1. Clustering.
2. Partitioning.
3. NSFDB2.
4. Extended ACLs.
5. Still no platforms other than Win32/Linux.
6. Still no SAP.
7. No more than 4 processors, but all the RAM you can eat.
8. No more than 1000 users in the domain.
9. No more than 100 servers in the domain.
10. 2 free Domino Administrator licences, 5 free Domino Developer licences. You pay for all other licences.

Again, I'm very much pulling the latter two limits out of the air. But you get the idea - all the goodness of Domino down at the low-end of the market. Want more processors or Big Iron? Step up to a full Domino Server Licence. Let's drop the idea of the Application Server/Enterprise Server licences. We just want three simple tiers, where the benefits of each licence are clear and simple, and progress seems natural and normal.

And we want to give companies an incentive to develop applications. Hence the silly number of free Domino Developer licences. It's a gamble, but it might pay off. Even just the one free licence would allow IBM to make a song and dance and drive home the point that you can make Domino/Notes work for you...

If you also drop the frankly useless Lotus Notes for Email licence, you can give Lotus Notes/Domino a real shot in the arm. It becomes everybody's playground, thanks to the Express-C version. Businesses have a real upgrade path with the Express version, once they find that they need support or outgrow the limits of Express-C. And the Domino Server licence caters for those who want heavy hardware or a very stable OS.

The best time to do this would obviously be when releasing Hannover.

But imagine this AND a nifty fifty. Real collaboration solutions that you can run on a community-supported edition of an enterprise-class server. A clear upgrade path for when you start to hit your stride as a business. And building the idea of an in-house developer into the licencing structure.

That's got to get the value message across.

Meanwhile, consider me at the front of the queue for the Express-C forums. It'll be just like the old days in LOTUSC on CompuServe...  ;-)