Melbourne has had it's hundred year storm over the weekend.

Well, now here is a stab at it. Please have a look and be as brutal as you see fit.

In summary, I think that identity is a critical requirement, and the following features are needed for the Domino server to remain relevant in this era of the Web.

Domino is heading down the road of SaaS and so the interest and necessity of a Notes client I believe is well and truly waning. Whoa! The Notes client is dead ? Well, not exactly, but let's look at where it's heading.

The interest seems to be RIA and mobile app's. Far from getting lighter, the Notes client is getting heavier. Alot of work has been done on Xpages with Xpages support within the client. So, it makes the Notes client less attractive to deploy, if it's bigger and heavier, and can be eclipsed, (pardon the pun), by RIA app's/iNotes, then all your providing is legacy support and a platform for some really complex applications that are too expensive to sort out as an RIA.

IBM are all giddy about LotusLive / Lotus Engage, and trumpet big growth numbers in those areas. Combine that with the licensing costs between the offerings, and you can see the path of least resistance. So, the future is laid before you, keep building web-app's because it's more relevant than the notes client.

So, if the web is the pointy end of the stick, then we'll need some better identity management so us developers can easily exploit the server and not waste soooo much time on doing what is now regarded as "the basics" when it comes to user management for web app's. Your thoughts please....

Off-shoring, sigh!, that is sooooo 90's, I thought we all knew that once you do that, you have de-humanised your service into a commodity, and end up in a downward spiralling price competition, losing the focus on service quality.

I have seen how the segmentation of tasks though "redeployment" into functional centres, spread across the globe only adds to the technocracy, not improves it...... And the violins will continue to play...

Most recently, the state government has WASTED $250 million on (another) aborted transport plan. Recently, on a reputable local current affairs program, presented a report about  the plight of parents with profoundly disabled children. The continuing shrinking state budget for this unseen and suffering minority is disturbingly apparent. These are not people who can "make do". They have given up their lives to care for their children as there is no respite or palliative care available for them. And more services are closing. Subsequently, they are on welfare because they can't work, although they could providing they could get support.

The measure of any government is in the manner which it supports the most vulnerable. And this government has failed woefully through wilful neglect. The politicians will be well rewarded for their effort with a fat non-means tested pension, and benefits til they are deceased. Yes they are well taken care of.

"But here's another important distinction in any such discussion: it's one thing to talk about a "Notes-to-Outlook" migrations, and quite another to talk about migrating from Domino to Exchange. Even though we've been using "Domino to Exchange" as shorthand, we all know that it is usually more accurate to describe it as migrating from Domino to Exchange+IIS+Active Directory+Office+SQL Server+SharePoint+Visual Studio+ ...  "

Migrating is one thing, but what are you trading when you do be it to Google/MS or where ever ? Well said Eric...

"Mr Hall said one of the key drivers for embracing Outlook was Fujitsu. "It was their view that maybe Outlook was more functional for us." [Emphasis Mine].

Maybe ? Maybe !?!? Would you migrate 20,000 users on "maybe" by an outsourcing provider ? Was that the basis of the feasibility report on such a significant infrastructure change ? I'm sorry but that doesn't look right for Fujitsu or Qantas. Perhaps this quote is not in the right context....What could be more practical is that Qantas management are trialling Outlook with a couple of hundred users before considering moving the rest. Perhaps "The Australian IT" are trying to cause a stir by taking factoids out of context.

Obviously Qantas didn't visit LS10.... decisions would have already been made before LS10 I suspect. Shame, it would be as cheap as chips to get there to see, being an airline n all.

"Mr Hall said the project would require "some investment" but it would not be very significant."

Hmmm.. indeed....

They're starting with a couple of hundred users and taking it from there expecting to migrate 20,000 users in 11 months. If I suspect that Qantas are like most other long term sites, there will be many critical applications running, which will frankly never get migrated, resulting in (yet) another hybrid site.

One would assume that the icensing costs are gonna start to climb dramatically as you maintain 2 sets of servers to support mail and apps. Don't forget that you also need about 3 Exchange related windows servers to match one Domino server to. I wonder if there is some sort of "cloud" service involved for to keep a lid on the licensing costs ?

I'll be keen to see where Qantas will be in January 2011 with this project...

Update : Futher to the journalistic independance of technology news, there is a double page spread for http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/the-hub in "The Australian" newspaper today. Powered by none other than...Microsoft..hmm.. I may be drawing long straws, but I can't help but sense that Microsoft's influence of the media may also be factor driving these sorts of reports that are not presenting all the facts...

I am very keen to also see some kind of App Store, because I think Notes/Domino developers have a natural pre-disposition to this concept. And with Nathan's involvement in OpenNTF I can appreciate his comments and POV on the topic with respect to Project Vulcan.

The question firstly, "Is this where IBM chooses to go ?" comes to mind. It would seem they are making moves that way. The next big question is, can they pull it off ?

Possibly, there is no reason they couldn't. Sitting here deeply in the trenches without the omnipotent POV of others, this is my (brutal) perception.

One of the lynchpins in the viability of this thing will be licensing agreements. If it's going to cost $50/user/month just to turn on the server before any budding developer/ISV sees anything, then there is little or no point in going further.

Keeping in mind this sort of AppStore will not be for general consumers, but business consumers, pricing will be higher than the apps we see for iPhone. But I need to make the point that price sensitivity is a critical component in the online economy. So don't draw direct price comparisons between applications like iBeer and iSteam and some CRM solution. Although, some CRM app's in some cases are not nearly as useful.. LOL.

Only big business pay that sort of cash for heavy "ERP sized" systems. Once again we'd be in the top 1-2% of enterprise, and miss out on the other 90+% of the market your application would also appeal to, so it would be virtually game-over then and there.

The perception (and strength) of Lotus Notes/Domino is that it can operate for smaller, simpler applications not just the fortune 500 ERP "fat-support-contract-agreements". Traditionally, IBM are the anti-thesis of "the Midas touch", that is, whatever they touch tends to turn to "poo" of varying degrees of color once they get involved. From appearances, this whole concept is fundamentally at odds with IBM's traditional culture. So, you can't have the same attitude running this sort of thing, who have been looking at the fortune 500. So, this mindset change has to occur if this app hosting concept is to have any traction at all.

Unfortunately, I have become a grumpy sceptic, and I don't think IBM knows how to change to meet this challenge, the culture is endemic. However, if IBM just fund the "appStore", and they keep their fat-clumsy hands off the execution of it, then there is potential. Note, that there are lots of great people in IBM, but the collectively competence doesn't bode well.

This grouplive thing is about to take off, but I have reservations about it's success due to the above....But I genuinely hope I am really wrong on that.

Lotus Notes applications have been ready for hosting for years now. The licensing and vision just hasn't been forthcoming. Perhaps this will change now in the post-coital reflection of LS10.

So this is my summary of what is needed if there was an appStore in the mix:
1/ Execute this as a startup.
2/ Introduce a new class of ISV whose classification is app-hosting-provider, (or "cloud-provider" if it sounds any sexier.)
3/ Bring ISV's and developers together to let them do their thing through affiliations and meet-ups formally or informally.
4/ Have competitive licensing arrangements so development can flourish according to business size. Sitting high on a "pricing pedestal", and you'll be sitting by yourself in the digital economy.

So, what do these 4 points address ? Glad you asked.

By operating as a startup, i t may protect it from the d ebilitating bureaucracy that accompanies IBM. The new ISV class would allow IBM to support it from their strengths, ie infrastructure, whilst also receive licensing royalties. This strategy also lets IBM off the hook to do marketing, because we all know IBM are very "McGoo" when it comes to marketing. Even though it was a gimmick, that Southpark thing for LS10 just made me cringe and will put me off watching the show for weeks, and don't ask me about "smarter planet".

Like I said a brutal Poi nt of View, and I am sure I don't have the whole picture. But you gotta start somewhere.

When someone quotes that Notes is "legacy", or "old" or the like, you should refer them here, and inform them that Outlook is 14 years old this year since it was introduced at the same time as Office 97, and still is not as feature rich as Lotus Notes.

It seems that the perceptions in North America are changing, but it will still require a sensible effort to educate people elsewhere around the globe and convince them to invest in the technology for their organisations. One of the problems with this approach is that you get blasted and overwhelmed with content for 4 days once a year, miss out on content, and then have near bugger-all for another 40-odd weeks until the next event. Hardly a way to build momentum in the minds of those you want to reach.

I would be impressed if IBM can demonstrate the intestinal fortitude to hold reasonably priced conferences in Asia, Australia and Europe which is more than a half day chin-wag at the Hilton, which has done sweet FA for changing these perceptions around the world and gaining market share.

But rather than my usual chastising of IBM in asking them to run this, (which I just did above. I can't help it, I know I'm a grumpy ol'b_sterd), instead I will fight my grumpy instincts and, propose that this sort of effort requires continual participation locally. So, the solution I think should be local events run in partnership between IBM, local BP's and user group communities. IBM should take more of a back seat and provide support where logistically or contextually appropriate.

As there is alot of good community content that can be collated and dispensed in an organised way locally, the makings of a "Community Fusion" event operated to cover costs, I think would provide a balanced approach to sending a consistent message for more than just 4 days a year, and minimise the financial burden associated with hosting these sort of events globally.

I have no further information about qualifying it. If anyone has more info please post. There is a conspicuous dot on Australia in the map in this photo. Who the heck was that ?

Well if that number is 18,378 new customers since launch of Notes 8 and I recall last year was 12,236.. does that mean only 6,142-ish new customers ? sigh.... so the mystery continues.

All my groaning and moaning may actually subside if GroupLive (PaaS) makes dev/test/deployment of apps for ISV a relatively painless affair if we don't have to deal with blue labyrinth.

The only Lotus Notesy thing I have heard so far is revolving around LotusLive and Project Vulcan. LotusLive.. big deal.. Project Vulcan.. interesting.. Getting William Shatner in as guest speaker makes sense now.. perhaps Leonard Nimoy would have been over the top, boom-tish!

Now.. trawling a bit further I come across one thing that has just knocked me off my chair.. The group live platform.....

Really keen to hear more about Group live and Project Vulcan. Til then .. Live long and prosper.

I'm assuming Alistair will do the keynote, or Bob before he shuffles around. They will have to quote some number because it will cause too much speculation about growth if no numbers are quoted. But I challenge the "keynote addressor" to qualify whatever number is quoted in an effort to end the era of "phat numbers" that has carried on for as long as people saying "99% fat free".

Frankly, the general IT chatter and noise about cloud computing, (aka ASP solutions), has always been deliverable from a Domino perspective for years. It's just the outdated licensing models and too much starch in those white shirts of the blue suit brigade that are holding us back.

So, my wish for LS10 is the release of an ISV Hosting licensing agreement that allows all you clever so-and-so's the ability to rent out amazing applications over the web for a fraction of the standard notes client license cost. Quite frankly, as IBM are generally focused on "adminisphere", and super large companies, opening up this market to the smaller players will only do good for the brand and it's user base as it would cover hundreds of millions of web users currently shut out by the current (anti-productive) licensing arrangements.

I think IBM will make squillions out of it, because the non-IBM development community are more motivated and free of the blue-aucracy. It's not exactly a revelation to have thousands of developers producing license-able app's on your platform, at near zero cost, is it ? That should allow the creation of innovative applications that are geared towards niche areas that appeal to the bottom 99% of companies, (not just the top 1%)....

Sure the plot and themes are predictable, but what I realise with James Cameron, is that he focuses his craft in telling a story, not trying to reach the "champagne socialist" in all of us, by astounding us with some kind of social revelation. (It's all been done anyway.) Which seems to be g-spot of movie critics these days. Speaking of critic's, the Australian critics all seem to be of the same ilk, that is they hate the idea of animated movies, and giving a decent animated flick a thumbs up is like torture for them. Anyway, don't trust any movie critic who plays down this movie. It really is good entertainment.

If you're gonna see it, do it in 3d and sit in the middle, (a little towards the front), of the cinema. Normally people might get motion sickness in 3D movies, but film makers are very away of it now, and so you won't have any problems, unless you suffer from motion sickness even in a $2 kiddie ride at the shopping centre.

Just when you thought the special effects can't get any better, Avatar sets a new level in texture and lighting. You almost don't notice it. Having said that though, Cameron uses motion capture extensively, so you don't get those blocky stiff movements. I personally think it's a bit of a cop out when directors use motion capture, but it allows Cameron to focus on other taks, because animating figures using digital puppeteers is a huge cost in money and time.

The movie is not totally animated, Cameron uses "real" actors when you should, unlike the polar express which bombed partly because of over-animation. The plot is reasonably good, the only thing working against the movie was the degree of "badness" in the villains, their lack of humanity was bordering on incredible and could have been worked on some more. Having credible bad guys in the context of the movie is a key ingredient. The other thing is the mineral the movie is centered around. "unobtainium".. For 10 years in the making, they coulda put more thought into naming that stuff.

I can just see the creative meeting dialogue when that came up.. "Ok, we need a name for the mineral on Pandora... what do we call it ? Let's see, let's see... it's hard to get, everyone wants it... it's un-obtainable.. ooh! Unobtainium! That's it! Ok, now, what's the next problem?" Bit of a lack of thought in that.. but in the end it's all about the natives...

There are all easily digestible themes, preserving the environment, respecting the indigineous, companies without conscience, personal discovery, etc.. But all these elements are put together well and you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat several times during the movie.

 Santa regrets to inform you that your gifts that Santa ordered on eBay and Xmas Cards will not reach you now by Xmas. Please post-pone your expectations for 3 more days while some of Santa's workers represented by "jack-boot" militant unions (the CEPU) hold your expectations to ransom by having a second strike within a week to get better pay and conditions. Santa is sorry, and Santa promises to privatise their union-arses, or use FedEx/DHL or any non-public mail delivery system in the future because those dirty b_stards will probably do it again next year to!

Santa

We all know that the United States is the leading consumer of "stuff" in the world, and China is the leading producer of "stuff" in the world. If Americans, (and the rest of us to), can resist the urge to buy totally pointless or really cheap junk that is produced from China, (or anywhere else for that matter) it would at least curtail the consumption of resources and energy to make it. So as per usual, it's "think global, act local".

Perhaps a carbon tax would better allocate resources in producing junk, because if by making it more expensive to produce crap, the producers of crap would think harder about what crap they were producing. China would be of course terrified of a carbon tax because all that cheap junk wouldn't be so cheap any more, and in very short order, factories that couldn't produce cost-effective product would close and people out of work... hmmm. Not to mention all that money that would have to leave the country as part of a global tax, and the communist party, (aka faux-capitalist party) would never wear that for a shanghai second.

So, how can we act local ? Let's start with which type of products fit into this enormous category of "cheap pointless crap".. Children's toys. It's ok, I already know I'm a grumpy'ol ba_stard, so I have no hesitation in saying, that you need to buy less toys. Because, if you wander through any large toy store, the amount of plastic, paint and packaging consumed to produce toys that entertain our kids, (for only minutes at a time), is frightening. And you know that kids seem to get more value out of the box the toy came in, than the toy itself.

So, have a garage sale, and recycle those toys, avoid buying toys that require more packaging volume than the actual toy itself....I know you're thinking that I propose that your kids suffer for the planet, but they will, if not now, certainly in the years to come thanks to our pontificating "leaders".

If a BA does not have these qualities early on, Darwin's theory usually takes effect, and they're weeded out, but this is not always the case. To me the primary drivers for a project manager are requirements, risk, and resources. There are others, but these are my things that I focus on in a project.

Requirements set the expectations and skills required. Reources tell you what you're capable of and any skills gaps you currently have. This and requirements leads you to the next thing, risks. Risks, for a project manager, are the things that could go wrong and you're not sure how likely they are. So as a PM you NEED to ask your team about them risks.

So, any budding PM, should be a paranoid schizo to some degree. As a PM you should instinctively know that the world naturely conspires against you in an effort to thwart your project. I don't really see this in BA's generally. The one's I have seen just push out the doco, arrange meetings. When there is a technical problem, they're very reactionary. So, if you're a BA you should not be left with any project management like responsibilities unless you are somewhat paranoid about stuff or do a PM course to learn how to be paranoid.

Anyway, I was assembled into a small team with a tester, BA and another developer. We were told to start converting the web pages from a template given to us by a some "spinning logo" designers elsewhere within the organisation and to embed that into the old domino forms and then retest the forms. Whoops! First mistake. Hmmmm. The BA asked for our estimates. I asked estimates to what ? For an existing web-form ? Do we know if the current web-form is accepted as is ? Do we know if the designers had a migratable web page design  for Domino ? (NO! and it wasn't migratable without micro surgery.). Do we migrate existing bugs to ? Do you know the risks with such a migration ? Perhaps the BA should ask first ?

So, off we marched bashing out code. And almost every risk you could conceive happened, and with a vengence. Most of these risks were avoidable, had there been some "paranoid" planning, and more "whiteboarding". No matter which project approach you use, paranoia (aka risk management), and requirements will determine whether you get home at 6pm or 8:30pm for 4 weeks straight. But the real kicker, is that those ignorant of good PM practices will never know, and seem to accept that "Stuff happens" and going home at 8:30 is ok.... Ignorance is bliss.

The requirements are pretty simple, you need to have a squeaky clean celebrity image, and then you do something really (really) stupid. So, Tiger Woods is somewhat over-qualified for this in every respect.

And here are the jokes so far.....

1. What's does a 3 wood and a car now have in common ? Tiger Woods can drive both about 360 yards. (boom-tish)

2. Tiger has over 9 mistresses so far, and he looks like he'll complete the 18 holes though and get a birdie for each one..

3. Tiger Woods is so rich that he owns lots of expensive cars. Now he has a hole in one.(groan)

4. The police asked Tiger's wife how many times she hit him. "I can't remember," Elin said, "just put me down for a 5."

5. Tiger has changed his name by Interpol at his wife's request.. He will now be known as Cheetah Woods

6. Did you hear Nike's new motto? Just do me!!

7. Tiger crashed into a fire hydrant and a tree. He couldn't decide between a wood and an iron.

8. Ping has a new set of irons called "Elins". They're being promoted as the clubs you can beat Tiger with.

9. What does Tiger Woods have in common with a baby seal? They've both been clubbed by a Norwegians...(I know Elin is swedish.. but allow me some factual flexibility please)

10.  Difference between playing golf and driving a car? In golf, Tiger manages to stay out of the trees!

 Thank you and good night!