It can cost up to $1,000 per user to move from Notes to Exchange

Darren Duke  November 19 2008 08:56:47 AM

In a ZDNet story about Microsoft's new online options it is mentioned that it can cost an organization up to $1,000 to move a user to "move away from Notes". Now, presumably this is to an in-house Exchange server. Again this is per user.

As Ed Brill points out, it is noteworthy that MS have stopped touting moving Notes applications to Sharepoint, .NET, whatever. This is because you can't! (and on a related note).

Unless you have a specific business reason why would anyone see the need to change email platforms. I have yet to see a concrete justification, although "people" suggest it will save them money.....yeah, and oil won't run out either. So lets say you have 500 users. You get a new CIO or IT department manager and you are a Notes shop, they want their corporate security hole with built in email Exchange and Outlook. Do the math:

500 x $1,000 (the MS estimate for a per user move) =  $500,000.

And if you have applications then you still need the Notes client.

So, today I have a email platform, that is open standards based (even more so in R8), secure, can be accessed remotely (iNotes/DWA), has a myriad of mobile options (BES, Traveler, etc) and I'm going to drop $500,000  to move my 500 users to Exchange (plus a possible hardware refresh, and up to 4x more physical servers than I currently run Domino on) and what do I have to show for that investment? Erm, an email platform. These people should be take out and shot for throwing shareholders money into these stupid decisions. It is almost criminal.

• Comments [4]

My ultimate Notes pet peeve, help and debugger

Darren Duke  November 17 2008 09:00:00 AM

Why is that throughout all the Notes versions I have ever dealt with, if you are debugging Lotuscript and you have designer help open and "accidentally" go to said help database, it completely locks up Notes? I have to kill all the processes and start again.

Why? Oh, why?

• Comments [2]

Good news and bad news for conference presenting (and blowing my own trumpet)

Darren Duke  November 17 2008 07:48:15 AM

Good news
The speaker evaluations for the 2008 BlackBerry Developer Conference are in. And I got pretty good feedback from the attendees. There were 53 attendees at my session. Here are the feedback numbers:

Also, all the the additional comments were really upbeat:


I'm sure I've said this before, but thank you to RIM for inviting me, and to all the attendees.


Bad news

Like others on the yellow side of the wibbly wobbly web, I had my Lotusphere abstract rejected. I didn't get a reason, but I'll give my reason why it was wrong to reject me ;)

I think it was a mistake rejecting it (well, I would now wouldn't I) but it was about extending applications from Domino to the BlackBerry using MDS and hence, making the platform even that more sticky.

Now, I'm sure some are thinking sour grapes, and that maybe a small piece of it, but in reality the BlackBerry is a crucial piece of the Domino portfolio or maybe someone more knowledgeable than I has a similar session at LS09. It would be nice to know. Oh, and I am still going to LS this will in no way affect that. My participation at a conference is in no way tied to me getting a freebie.

Bottom line
If you are looking for a Domino and/or BlackBerry speaker for your conference feel free to contact me.  

• Comments [0]

Lotus Notes 8.0.2 CCH1 released without need to call IBM

Darren Duke  November 14 2008 06:27:20 AM

As reported by Gregory Engels 8.0.2 Cumulative Client Hotfix (CCH) has been released by IBM into IBM's Fix Central repository. This means no more hassling the tech support folks at IBM to get the fix.

Ironically as a BP we had issues actually getting hold of this too. Grip aside, go get it from IBM Fix Central. Also read the IBM Support Tech Note.

Here is the SPR list of fixes addressed:

SPR Description  KUMA7FWPXR Fix Basic ST configuration appearing during Standard client setup STAA7EUB4L Fix CD->MIME Conversion: Some Symbolic characters in subject being garbage TAIA7EKEEX Fix a Notes Client hang when previewing a document with the scroll bar RCFE7DJNKD Prevent the client from trying to update the design of a read-only database LKIM7JCMB6 Fix a Client hang upon authentication MFRL6YD599 Fix a problem where deleting in inbox attempts to delete side calendar entries THIO76GCTW Prevent IME setting from being changed when performing quick search RCFE79FK2F Fix client launches separate browser instances for url's in memo using external browser JPDC7HAA6A Fix failure with to "Add to place","Open from place". ZPEG7H45AX Fix XPD closing when open "Portal Application" by setting PAC configuration LFOS7JJM5Y Brazilian time zone changes MBUT7J4L99 Pakistan time zone changes JMOE7GBUH5 Fix RSS Feeds not working when server protected via TAM BLIE7FPPVZ Update manifest import-package to use version and matching attributes MHAR7AAELQ fix maximized chat window aligns to the right and down after the previous window was closed WWGO7CP494 fix Rich text tools and file transfer buttons greyed out in Sametime chat window GFLY763S2Z fix 'Your Lotus Notes password is missing or incorrect" entering password in Sametime Calendar Service GAKI7DXEYH fix Integrated Sametime Calendar integration: Auto-status-change not configurable via plugin_customization.ini. CSMH7FPMR5 fix intermittent login issue with integrated Sametime VROI7GFL3C fix string in Instant Meeting join dialog is incorrect RDES7J5MJ9 fix starting the Notes client, the entire Sametime Shelf on the right side of the Notes client is greyed out. n/a fix cursor keys becoming unresponsive in Sametime chat window, apparently specific to left-right arrow keys. SSYD7JQLA5 fix client error dialog popping up when closing Sametime chat

• Comments [0]

BlackBerry Storm release date is 11/21/2008

Darren Duke  November 14 2008 06:18:47 AM

For those living in a cave, the Storm is the first BlackBerry touch-screen device, a-la iPhone. Here is the US Verizon Wireless is the exclusive carrier and it will be cheaper than the AT&T's BlackBerry Bold. The Bold is $299 right now, the Storm will debut for an "effective" price of $200 with a 2 year jail sentence.....I mean contract.....together with a $50 rebate.

I guess that means my Storm should be arriving at STS Galactic HQ sometime before Christmas.

Read more over at Internet News.

• Comments [1]

BlackBerry DevCon MDS Runtime Region Example

Darren Duke  November 7 2008 01:14:57 PM

During the BlackBerry Developer Conference last month I made the mistake of promising to publish some examples of the concepts that were outlined in the presentation. By mistake, I should have known once I said that I'd be traveling nonstop for the next month (or longer).

Anyway after many hours being board on planes and waiting to fly into Atlanta airport on a Friday (why can't they land/take off in the rain? If that was the case I'd never have left England), I decided to get the first one out of the way.

This demos a screen with multiple regions that are all hidden. Depending on user input (or in the real world from an inbound message or data element) the screen is "dynamic". This drastically cuts done on the number of screens in an app and also makes debugging far easier. Additionally, it also shows why you should use scripts to enter and exit screens (also in the presentation). The screen in question is scrDisplay and has four different fields. A text, number list and radio, only one of these is shown depending on what you select in the scrMain screen. Not a whole lot there, but hopefully this will get fellow MDS developers thinking. See, not only can you do this on the way into a screen, but also on the way out.

The demo was written in MDS Studio 1.1, but you should be able to import it in MDS Studio 2.0 (it will get converted but it should be OK).

If you don't have MDS Studio get it from the BlackBerry site here.

BBDevCon_Region_Example.zip

DevConPresentationE12.pdf

• Comments [0]

Can you beat 7 million (yes million) documents in a Notes database?

Darren Duke  November 6 2008 07:51:27 AM

This is from an actual customer of STS that I was at earlier this week. And yes, this is a production database.



Have you got any higher in a single DB?

• Comments [6]

BlackBerry Enterprise Server 4.1.6 MR2 released

Darren Duke  November 4 2008 11:35:39 AM

MR2 for BES 4.1.6 has been release by RIM. We've had it a while, but it only went public yesterday. It has a fix for MDS-IS and MDS-CS servers running in distributed environment. Other fixes are also included that maybe pertinent to your install, particularly some memory leak issues have been addressed with HTML emails. See the release notes here.

Get it from the BlackBerry site.

FYI, STS is not yet running MR2 (probably later this week), so be sure to test before you go to production.

• Comments [0]

Lotus Notes password change dialog

Darren Duke  October 28 2008 08:13:00 AM

I'm in the midst of R8 conversion from Exchange (via a client M&A). Why when I force out a policy to change passwords does the dialog have to be so "wordy" and difficult to understand?



It is very hard for a user to discern that they need a 6 char long, 1 number, 1 special char password to be able to leave this box. It would be nice if the dialog only showed what was set in the policy to avoid confusing new users.

• Comments [5]

BlackBerry Device OS 4.5 Review

Darren Duke  October 27 2008 09:00:00 AM

For those that don't get the monthly STS newsletter (why not, go right now and subscribe here), you will have missed this...

BlackBerry Device OS 4.5 Review

• Comments [0]