Lotus Notes isn't an email program. It's an application development platform with multiple backend databases, networking interfaces plus a scripting language, a plugin system and a ton of other stuff. That it reads and writes email is just proof of JWZ's assertion.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
If you've moved up from Notes 7 to Notes 8.5, you've just changed from the native Windows client to the Eclipse client. Folks like me who got our first taste of the Eclipse client at the Notes 7 native Linux release still shudder with horror (although it did allow for an extended coffee break at the start of the day). Certainly Linux Notes 7 -> 8 -> 8.5 has been a journey of performance improvements.
Now I hear colleagues in the corridors moving from Notes 7 to Notes 8 on Windows XP. They aren't too happy right now.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Two simple examples: - we just "upgraded" to v8.5. It takes 127 seconds to start up. It takes 38 seconds more to show me my inbox. It takes 47 seconds to bring up the editor to reply to the first mail of the day. This is all on a fairly new Dell D630 laptop.
You're kidding me, right? Or you're making up numbers. Or you are running the Windows version amid the antivirus scans...
Linux box, Fedora 11, T60p, 5400rpm drive - hardly a world beater laptop these days. Times are all intervals.
Release 8.5 Revision 20081211.1925 (Release 8.5) Standard Configuration
So either you've got the CPU clocked down or something is eating your cycles. I hardly hold Lotus Notes in high regard but its improved performance significantly in recent releases.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
What I think Microsoft will continue to dominate at is Office apps. MS Office has always beat Google Docs for usability and with the introduction of web-based MS Office products I think Microsoft is already preparing to capitalize on its strengths.
The EOL for Microsoft Office 2007 is 2015 I believe. What killer features is Microsoft going to offer in that time frame? Why upgrade at all? Products like KnowledgeTree already provide the needed document management features around existing documents and even if Microsoft moves further in that direction (Sharepoint) the space is already well catered for. Microsoft Office has some insane utilization figures in the Fortune 500 companies - it's effectively 100%.
We're at the point where we don't need to upgrade our hardware every two years to remain current. Companies are moving to 3/4/5 year replacement cycles on hardware and may even push beyond that. Each year extra on existing hardware reduces the MS Windows income. Some companies have started to investigate OpenOffice.org/Symphony/Google Docs instead and ANY that move in that direction are depriving MS of future revenue.
Besides Office, (and windows which as mentioned I think has a limited lifespan left), they also are prime supplies of development tools (Visual Studio) and SQL Server. In the future I see ports of SQL Server to non-Windows platforms, as well as more shifts in Visual Studio towards developing web-based applications.
Porting SQL Server to a non-Windows platform would be interesting because that would almost certainly involve a Linux port. What are the alternatives? Mac OS X server farms are few and far between. The principle database platforms these days are Linux, AIX, Solaris, z/OS and p-series. Oracle and IBM both have heavy and extensive presence on these platforms. It's tough to see how SQL Server could displace enough entrenched customers to make the port plus support actually make a profit.
Visual Studio is an interesting issue but again, that would be entering a crowded marketplace. Also the number of developers is considerably less than the number of people who need an office suite, so even if the profit margins are high, it's not going to be a massive cash cow.
Now, I don't think that Microsoft is going to shut its doors in the next ten years. However, I doubt the company will be wielding anything like the influence it does today.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
My Awesomeness is soo great that Not only have I installed it; evaluated it and sent out my reviews to various magazines; I have also configured it to make me coffee and raise my kids.
I need that perl script on my desk NOW! Hang on - if it raises kids, it's probably in Lisp.
The problem is that Emacs is *too* extensible.
...snip...
And it is already out-of-box extended too much, up to the point where 99% of its users do not understand how Emacs actually works.
Nothing is too extensible
Assembling your environment by accreting bits of configuration is a highway to Problemville. You probably just needed to add a local-set-key sexp for the appropriate major or minor mode hook to override TAB. Knowing which key map is current is the trick.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
On side of "Emacs" one has to accept that some workflows would be impossible, since there might be no ready button for it. Side of "vi" is flexibility. Side of "Emacs" is conservatism.
I'm in danger of fanning the flames here but I really think you are way off target on the above statement.
If you lift the lid on what Emacs can do (as in, you grok Emacs lisp), then Emacs offers a level of flexibility that can't be matched by vi. I've written utilities built into Emacs to crawl through custom traces looking for specific patterns and summarizing them on the fly as you move through files. View-linkage routines to allow you to navigate two related files (not two similar files - we're not talking about ediff-buffers here) in lock-step. Idle timers allow you to keep internal structures reasonably current without causing the interactive performance of Emacs to suffer. The list goes on.
Vi is extensible. Emacs is more extensible.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
The others are open source projects, and can look at each other's code. MS can't, or they'd have to open source their code.
This is a completely misleading statement and totally misses the point. Well done!
You don't need to look at the source code to see what other products do. You just need to look at the ODF files they produce. Indeed, given the licenses of the products that implement ODF, you can obtain the copies you need for testing FOR FREE.
Similarly, while your legal department might bar you from reading competitors code for fear of copyright co-mingling, there is nothing to stop you employing a third party to go look on your behalf and write a report on what was done. So you can have your cake and eat it.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
The big advantage of Microsoft is that you can buy it on a disk.
The big advantage of Ubuntu is that Canonical will send you, free of charge, an entire Operating System, complete with application stacks, on a DVD if you ask.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
May Euell Gibbons eat your only copy of the manual!
