New Lotus boss sailing tricky seas

IBM/Lotus chief Michael Rhodin this week will quietly finish his first 100 days at the helm, but it is the coming months that will tell if he is the one who can align Notes/Domino with IBM's Java-based collaboration strategy and validate customers' continued investment in the Lotus platform.

The first order of business will be to reveal that new versions of Notes/Domino will extend past Version 8, which could ship by the end of 2006.

Rhodin, a 21-year IBM veteran, says his skills as an innovator are his core strength, but it might be his ability as an orator that sets the tone for his leadership and wins the hearts of users looking to find their way in IBM's shifting collaboration software strategy.

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IBM/Lotus chief Michael Rhodin this week will quietly finish his first 100 days at the helm, but it is the coming months that will tell if he is the one who can align Notes/Domino with IBM's Java-based collaboration strategy and validate customers' continued investment in the Lotus platform.

The first order of business will be to reveal that new versions of Notes/Domino will extend past Version 8, which could ship by the end of 2006.

Rhodin, a 21-year IBM veteran, says his skills as an innovator are his core strength, but it might be his ability as an orator that sets the tone for his leadership and wins the hearts of users looking to find their way in IBM's shifting collaboration software strategy.

Rhodin's public unveiling as leader is set for late January, when he will deliver a keynote address to thousands of Lotus faithful at the annual Lotusphere user conference. Among other things, he is armed with two numbers that he hopes will send the message that IBM has a strong hold on Notes/Domino.

Those numbers are 9 and 10, as in planned versions of Notes/Domino that will be released after Version 8, which IBM/Lotus began to detail in the fall with its new Hannover client.

Rhodin plans the first public demonstration of Hannover and the introduction of Domino 8, Hannover's back-end companion, at Lotusphere.

"Hopefully the attendees walk away saying 'we got it,' " he says.

"Got it" in terms of Notes/Domino as the focal point for collaboration and the Java-based Workplace environment as a complementary technology that helps deliver dynamically provisioned, server managed corporate desktops tailored to a worker's role in a company.

Clearing the air

Users didn't "get it" three years ago, and experts say neither did IBM, when then-General Manager Al Zollar introduced the Workplace strategy, a set of collaboration components running on WebSphere. It was a bomb that users believed had just blown Notes off the road map. Those same users were a bit less skeptical last year, when then-General Manager Ambuj Goyal said there would be no forced migrations.

Now Rhodin is tasked with shoring up the message that Notes/Domino is the core collaboration tool delivered within the Workplace framework, whose server-based architecture promises to reduce the cost of desktop maintenance and ease software upgrades.

"A lot of this is clarifying the message," says Rhodin, who has shunned the corner office at Lotus' Cambridge headquarters so he can stay in his office in Westford, Mass., close to the 800 software developers who work there.

If his message takes root, the next steps won't be any easier, according to experts.

"There are two major challenges that are fundamental," says Peter O'Kelly, an analyst with Burton Group. "Execution on Hannover. If they blow it, a lot of users will say that's it. The second thing they have to do is move potential users from 'we got it' to 'we need it.' "

That is a place Lotus has not been in for a few years.

"What they need is more momentum in the partner and IT community. I am starting to see that come back," says David Via, vice president of Wolcott Systems Group, a Lotus partner. Via recently participated in a road show for Notes 7, which was released in September. "People said to me they haven't done anything with Notes for five years but that they are now coming back." He says the trick is to again grow the user base, which stands at 120 million, just slightly more than a 1% increase over last year.

As evidence of user appeal, Lotus has posted double-digit revenue gains over the past three quarters, with most of the revenue coming from new licenses, converting Microsoft Exchange customers and Notes/Domino on Linux, Rhodin says.

That revenue, however, is not being pumped up by Workplace, where early adopters are showing interest but not the stellar results that Rhodin needs to merge Notes/Domino and Workplace.