Users want Lotus to lift the fog

ORLANDO - Lotus' Domino customers and business partners want a clear explanation of the product's future and how it ultimately will be integrated with IBM's application server and database, and they want specific directions at this week's annual Lotusphere conference.

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ORLANDO - Lotus' Domino customers and business partners want a clear explanation of the product's future and how it ultimately will be integrated with IBM's application server and database, and they want specific directions at this week's annual Lotusphere conference.

Users say IBM's picture of a world that includes both the familiar Domino and the next-generation model that fits IBM's portal strategy still creates uncertainty as to why and how the platforms will merge, and they are concerned that Domino will be gutted to supply piece parts for IBM's WebSphere Application Server, the cornerstone of Big Blue's middleware.

The uncertainty will be fueled by the top announcements at Lotusphere, many of which revolve around WebSphere. They include new development tools, an e-mail-only server module and a calendar component that plugs into the WebSphere application server and uses DB2 as a data store. That architecture is what IBM/Lotus is calling its "next-generation" Domino. The e-mail module has no official name but is being dubbed Next Gen Mail.

Also, users say IBM is pushing WebSphere in subtle ways, including offering licensing discounts to those who agree to test WebSphere and Lotus Enterprise Integrator (LEI) to tap into DB2.

Jim Cimino, president of Lotus business partner Bright-ideas Software, says Lotus employees have been joking with users that "it's time to drink the blue Kool-Aid."

Also fueling uncertainty is the recent replacement of Lotus General Manager Al Zollar with Ambuj Goyal, an IBM veteran like Zollar, and a WebSphere expert.

"I'm hoping with someone new at the top they will come clean and lay out exactly what they are doing. If they wait until after Lotusphere they are making a big mistake," says Dave Burrows, Lotus Notes administrator for Gundersen Lutheran Medical Center in LaCrosse, Wis.

"I don't want to be blindsided," Burrows says. "They need to say this is where we are going and get some feedback instead of pushing us like they did last year by killing the Java support in R6."

Last year's Lotusphere ended in grumbling after Lotus quietly admitted it was cutting a technology from the yet-to-be-released Domino R6 called Garnet that supported the use of Java Server Pages (JSP). Users called the move an attempt to cripple Domino in favor of WebSphere.

IBM/Lotus said last summer that R6, which shipped in October, will be followed in 2004 by another release of Domino and that the "next-generation" platform built around WebSphere would begin to emerge this year. Last year, the company said Domino would remain on those two tracks into the foreseeable future.

"We know Domino will be there in the future in one form or another, but what that form will be is the big question among the business partners," says Ron Herardian, CEO of Global System Services, a consulting firm, that is introducing at Lotusphere a messaging application focused on regulatory compliance. "There are a lot of technical reasons that Domino on WebSphere makes sense, but the reality is that most users run Domino for mail, calendars and contacts, and don't build applications or portals, and don't understand WebSphere."