DominoKeys.com

As I type this, I’m sitting in a Caribou Coffee (using up my free hour of WiFi) after meeting with a friend of mine who just told me about his new job. The company he works at uses Lotus Notes, but from what I can tell, not very effectively. More on that, in a moment …

My FTP client is also working hard in the background sending files up to my new ISP that hosts my Netcot.com website. This is the second time in 3 months that I’ve had to move ISPs with that site (due mostly to bandwidth issues) and each time I do it, I am quickly reminded about how much of a pain it is to use plain old HTML files and mySQL databases like this. — If I hosted the site on a Domino-based server (read: “if there was a Domino hosting service out there with decent prices and bandwidth”), I could just upload a few new database replicas and be done with it.
Its those two events (my friend’s comments about Notes and my website move) that made me realize that there are still plently of people out there who don’t get the basics of Lotus Notes.

At its core, Notes is a brilliant system. It has a built in security structure that’s very strong (and compatible with other systems). It allows you to replicate databases (making them easily portable and accessible off-line without having to worry about how its all working). And it has a messaging core which allows your applications to instantly have mail functionality on a variety of levels.

Listing the rest of the reasons why people should use Notes would take a very, very long blog entry. — The problem is that its worth SOMEONE taking more time to do that. Lotusphere is a great event, but every person I’ve ever known who has gone to it reports that they assume you were there last year and build on what’s new … there’s very little to review the basics. And there’s not much happening from a marketing perspective to teach people why Notes is a great system.

Here’s the good news: with Notes 8 on the way, NOW is a great time to start doing this. Notes 8 finally looks like a great email client and has some very clever features that should make companies want to upgrade or migrate to it. Once they’re there, it would be a good idea to refocus on the basics and the power of Notes to keep people on that platform.

Let me give you a couple of ideas of what I’m talking about. My friend and I talked about the following common/basic questions about Lotus Notes:

• Is it expensive to upgrade to a newer version?  (No, its free, if you are current on your maitenance of course.)
• Can I access my mail on the road? (Sure, via replication, Domino Web Access, Notes on a USB stick, mobile devices ….)
• Can I access databases on the road? (Sure, just see above.)
• Can I move information in a database to Excel? (Sure. File > Export.)
• Can I create an database that’s like what we have in Access? (Sure! And it’ll be better b/c it’ll have mail integration, replication and better security. You can even import the data so you don’t loose anything!)

Its these types of basic features that I think are worth Lotus/IBM spending some serious time and money focusing on. And I think now is a great time to start doing that!

I sincerely hope that is the marketing game plan behind Notes 8. I can’t wait to see.