Many enterprises do not know how many Notes/Domino applications are active within their organizations, and which apps contain valuable corporate content.
In working with global enterprises in Notes/Domino-related engagements since the early 1990s, for example, CASAHL has observed several patterns: IBM also recently introduced IBM Verse, which appears to represent a start-from-scratch vision for modern communication, collaboration, and content sharing services.įor enterprises that made commitments to the Notes/Domino platform, whether they plan to continue with newer IBM alternatives or migrate to competitive alternatives such as Microsoft Office 365, the transition can be a daunting proposition. Lotus and IBM were somewhat successful in delivering related products on the Notes/Domino platform, including QuickPlace and later Quickr, but ultimately even IBM shifted its focus to more modern and social business-oriented solutions such as IBM Connections. Most significantly, the shift to Web-centric infrastructure application models and browser-based client user experiences presented challenges for the originally client/server, heavyweight native client Notes/Domino model. Changing market dynamics, however, created some challenges for the Notes/Domino ecosystem. Microsoft Exchange wouldn’t be released until 1996, for example, and SharePoint would follow several years later. in 1995, Notes had a commanding market lead in the enterprise communication/collaboration market. Launched during a period when corporate email was still something of a novelty, when content management typically meant large and expensive host-based systems, and several years before the World Wide Web went mainstream, Notes delivered robustly useful out-of-the-box capabilities and also served as a platform for a wide range of custom application requirements.īy the time IBM acquired Lotus Development Corp. Note pioneered a category - originally “groupware” - when it was released in 1989, after five years of development by Iris Associates (which had a marketing and distribution partnership with Lotus Development Corp.). The milestone provides an opportunity to briefly reflect on the legacy of Notes/Domino, and also on what enterprises that deployed the platform over the last quarter-century are now doing to fully leverage more modern collaboration and content platforms. Decemmarked the 25th anniversary milestone for IBM Notes/Domino (originally known as Lotus Notes).