from Ralph Daugherty [not sure if the first post bug still lurks] <p> Joe, speaking of Notes on the one hand and Microsoft on the other, Ray Ozzie has gone to MS as CTO, taking his Groove collaboration platform with him. I expect MS to blow mere web page collaboration software out of the water with Groove. <p> Another interesting take on large issues from you. Helpful insight. <p> Ralph

This is a discussion about <B>Collaboration: Building the Application Team</b>.<p align='center'><a href=http://www.mcpressonline.com/mc? This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it @.6b33e275>Click here for the article</a>.</p>

It looks like one of the first page bugs might be quashed: your name appears. However, your post did not appear in the "Recent Messages", which is why I missed it. <p>Every once in a while, though, I check back in on my articles to see if there was activity, and I'm glad I did. I had missed the whole Groove story, and it seems like this could be an important piece. It's especially true because it's hard to get anything other than market-speak out of the Lotus folks. <p>If you go to any 10 iSeries shops, I'd have to believe that nine of them don't know what IBM's strategy is regarding Notes/Domino and Workplace. And since the OS/400 is the pre-eminent platform for running Domino (my brother Harry, the other Pluta Brother, worked with a huge Notes installation at a Chicago insurance company, and he loved the AS/400), you'd think that this is perhaps a bad thing. <p>Well, my article got "blogged" by a Lotus executive at IBM, whose primary comment was that I didn't know what I was talking about, and that the message was out there. When I talked to him on the phone, he was adamant that his analysts and industry experts have assured him that the message is out, and if I didn't understand it, that was my fault. (Needless to say, the phone call did not go well.) <p>And that's a scary thing. When your sales executives start saying it's the prospect's fault for not understanding the message, then you have a SERIOUS marketing problem. <p>Interestingly enough, the next day someone from Lincoln, NE posted a message on his blog that exactly matched (nearly point for point) what I told him. His response? He's not sure what's wrong with Lincoln, NE, because he knows for a fact his message is out there. <p>Yeah, I worry about Lotus. The product line is phenomenal, but the sales folks need some serious attitude adjustment. <p>Joe