Inquirer Article Rebutted By IBM

The Inquirer proclaims in their banner that they are a source of "News, reviews, fact, and friction". We know now, however, that they added an "r" that doesn't belong in that last word. Their article purporting that IBM's Directory of Strategic Alliances, Deborah Magid, had allegedly declared that "IBM has abandoned using Lotus Notes inside the organization because it's far too fat" is a flight of fancy. It's unfair to call it a misquote, because the Inquirer's reporter did not use quotation marks, but it isn't even close to being an accurate paraphrase. It is simply an out of context stretch of the facts designed to make a good eye-catching headline.

IBM is a huge company with many different groups dedicated to a wide array of different technologies. Some applications within IBM have moved off of Notes. So what? It's only natural that IBM will evaluate their applications on an ongoing basis and move some of them to a new technology that makes the better fit. We've all seen applications that were written to run on Notes that really had no business being written that way. Notes was chosen because it was there, and because the application could be brought up quickly even though it would have been better for the long-term if it were written some other way. It's no different within IBM, and none of us should be at all surprised by the thought that IBM's developers maybe went a little over the top in using Notes in the years right after they bought Lotus. Nor should we be surprised by the thought that some applications for which Notes was a great fit with IBM five years ago have evolved in complexity and purpose to the point where they're no longer a good fit for Notes.

There's no question that there are people in IBM who think Notes is too fat, who don't like Notes, and who would probably like to see IBM move off of Notes, but Ms. Magid is not one of them and IBM is definitely not "dropping" Notes. Check out the rebuttal written by Ms. Magid in Ed Brill's blog.