IBM announces Lotus Symphony
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IBM has announced a new offering in the desktop productivity space, Lotus Symphony. Yes honestly, I'm not joking, I wonder if next they'll announce a deal with Amstrad to give a free PC with every copy or resurrect the Amstrad support line (you have to be from the UK to understand that joke). Also it's not the first time Lotus Symphony is free, in the last few days of the previous release, Symphony shipped free on PC Mag in the UK I believe.
Anyway, whilst some people are excited about this, personally I think it's the wrong approach and it's too late. I believe customers are more interested in Web based apps, with central data stores (mainframe anyone?), even if it's hosted on premise. Lotus Symphony is not that, it is based on OpenOffice code (an old version), and it's a heavy desktop app. Sure it's "open" but so is OpenOffice, I haven't seen much traction with that, and if I compare OpenOffice with 10 year old SmartSuite there are still a load of features missing in OpenOffice. It also faces the same challenge that SmartSuite did, and that's file filter fidelity. If it doesn't achieve 100% and honestly I mean 100% fidelity with Office filters it won't stand a chance displacing office. How do I know this, well some of us have fought this battle before and know what IBM has in store for them. Perhaps IBM has had the same analysts that told them eSuite was a good idea and then Workplace, telling them that Symphony is a good idea.
So whilst there may be some partners and IBMers who are excited about this announcement, I think that will fade in the next few months when it hasn't translated into potential customers to buy solutions etc.
To win in this space, the battle field needs to be changed, just shipping another set of desktop apps and making it free is not enough of a change. I think Googles approach is the most likely to succeed as it changes the rules and the grounds that Microsoft is competing on, the traditional desktop application doesn't.
This is what I wrote in response to Volker's blog post, I'll cut and paste, as I'm too lazy to type it again (yes I admit I could be jaded, but I also have a great deal of experience in this space competing head to head with Microsoft (successfully I might add), and one tends to learn from experience).
What's the deal with all the mono spaced courier fonts in the panels and dialogs? Is this so that the expected Typewriter customers will feel comfortable with it? To me it shows how seriously this product is being taken within IBM. Seriously that can't be the default font is it?
I look forward to seeing IBM attempt to win in this market, at one point IBM had 20% share in the Office market, they decided that wasn't enough so they walked away from that to do the next great thing, eSuite.
If they are giving this away free then I doubt they will put many resources behind it to challenge Microsoft. If it's free, what's it a loss leader for? What is the up sell, why will there be continued effort with it? For this product to have any hope of succeeding, they need to OEM the help out of it, it needs to be on every PC that ships, to do that they need a sales team focused on selling it to OEMs. It needs to be in people's hands before they have to think ooh I need a Word Processor.
IBM also needs to get honest with SmartSuite customers, tell them SmartSuite is dead, tell them they need to rip and replace with a suite that has less functionality or move to Office. The remaining SmartSuite customers were also the ones that were loyal to Lotus, they don't like it when the product they're loyal to dies a slow painful death, so I doubt they'll switch to Lotus Symphony. Germans should be happy though, Lotus Symphony was most successful in the German market (9 million active users when the first symphony was killed if I remember rightly)
Personally I don't believe this will succeed as IBM is suffering from the same delusion that Microsoft is. Customers (especially the SMB which I believe this application probably appeals to most) are becoming more and more comfortable with SaaS applications, Google Apps for example, Microsoft and IBM seem to have their heads in the sand on that and keep pushing out heavy clients. If IBM had done this with SmartSuite back in 1998 it would have been interesting, now I think it's too late and no one will care in 2-3 months.
IBM has announced a new offering in the desktop productivity space, Lotus Symphony. Yes honestly, I'm not joking, I wonder if next they'll announce a deal with Amstrad to give a free PC with every copy or resurrect the Amstrad support line (you have to be from the UK to understand that joke). Also it's not the first time Lotus Symphony is free, in the last few days of the previous release, Symphony shipped free on PC Mag in the UK I believe.
Anyway, whilst some people are excited about this, personally I think it's the wrong approach and it's too late. I believe customers are more interested in Web based apps, with central data stores (mainframe anyone?), even if it's hosted on premise. Lotus Symphony is not that, it is based on OpenOffice code (an old version), and it's a heavy desktop app. Sure it's "open" but so is OpenOffice, I haven't seen much traction with that, and if I compare OpenOffice with 10 year old SmartSuite there are still a load of features missing in OpenOffice. It also faces the same challenge that SmartSuite did, and that's file filter fidelity. If it doesn't achieve 100% and honestly I mean 100% fidelity with Office filters it won't stand a chance displacing office. How do I know this, well some of us have fought this battle before and know what IBM has in store for them. Perhaps IBM has had the same analysts that told them eSuite was a good idea and then Workplace, telling them that Symphony is a good idea.
So whilst there may be some partners and IBMers who are excited about this announcement, I think that will fade in the next few months when it hasn't translated into potential customers to buy solutions etc.
To win in this space, the battle field needs to be changed, just shipping another set of desktop apps and making it free is not enough of a change. I think Googles approach is the most likely to succeed as it changes the rules and the grounds that Microsoft is competing on, the traditional desktop application doesn't.
This is what I wrote in response to Volker's blog post, I'll cut and paste, as I'm too lazy to type it again (yes I admit I could be jaded, but I also have a great deal of experience in this space competing head to head with Microsoft (successfully I might add), and one tends to learn from experience).
What's the deal with all the mono spaced courier fonts in the panels and dialogs? Is this so that the expected Typewriter customers will feel comfortable with it? To me it shows how seriously this product is being taken within IBM. Seriously that can't be the default font is it?
I look forward to seeing IBM attempt to win in this market, at one point IBM had 20% share in the Office market, they decided that wasn't enough so they walked away from that to do the next great thing, eSuite.
If they are giving this away free then I doubt they will put many resources behind it to challenge Microsoft. If it's free, what's it a loss leader for? What is the up sell, why will there be continued effort with it? For this product to have any hope of succeeding, they need to OEM the help out of it, it needs to be on every PC that ships, to do that they need a sales team focused on selling it to OEMs. It needs to be in people's hands before they have to think ooh I need a Word Processor.
IBM also needs to get honest with SmartSuite customers, tell them SmartSuite is dead, tell them they need to rip and replace with a suite that has less functionality or move to Office. The remaining SmartSuite customers were also the ones that were loyal to Lotus, they don't like it when the product they're loyal to dies a slow painful death, so I doubt they'll switch to Lotus Symphony. Germans should be happy though, Lotus Symphony was most successful in the German market (9 million active users when the first symphony was killed if I remember rightly)
Personally I don't believe this will succeed as IBM is suffering from the same delusion that Microsoft is. Customers (especially the SMB which I believe this application probably appeals to most) are becoming more and more comfortable with SaaS applications, Google Apps for example, Microsoft and IBM seem to have their heads in the sand on that and keep pushing out heavy clients. If IBM had done this with SmartSuite back in 1998 it would have been interesting, now I think it's too late and no one will care in 2-3 months.
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