Reading through the blogs it's now quite clear where things are heading. Jake's post about his focus on Sharepoint (and the grim comments), as well as Vowe's observations at DNUG make for the epiphany the developers out there need to discover.

I checked out the IBM marketing blitz on LotusKnows (www.lotusknows.com.au) and it's all generic commoditized services, (Calendaring, Quickr, Telephony, Connections, portals). It has NOTHING to do with custom application development or the great ROI you can achieve leveraging app development.

This actually cannibalises the custom app work we have become accustomed to as IBM goes ape-sh_t on selling LotusLive. I had signed up for the LotusLive trial a while ago and got a follow up phone call recently asking if I wanted to buy LotusLive not once, but twice. Clients who do take it up can also ditch some of their infrastructure, and push the Lotus components into the cloud for lower cost thus reducing their capability, and subsequently your opportunity for app dev work. So, I don't see how the LotusKnows campaign will help application developers from that perspecitve.

I do however see a silver lining. BP's with sufficient agility can move into specialised hosted app dev services where they provide specific solutions through the "cloud". It also forces BP's to cross train into other up-trending technologies to maintain profitability (or survive).

Right now though the BP's are gonna have to drink the the IBM coolaid because that's where IBM is shoveling their dosh. License sales, (no surprise there). Custom application development is a secondary sell and actually conflicts with the "cloud" philosophy.

Given that historically 70+% of IT projects go over-budget and over-time it's no surprise then that customers are trying to reduce their exposure to the risk of those missed expectations. So, I think in many places, (outside the rarified atmosphere of North America), Lotus is will become largely irrelevant on the client site. You need to skill up elsewhere, and/or gear solutions for the "cloud" (aka Application Service Providers 2.0).