Strange, very strange…
Ed was recently making the point that he is regularly being asked for Notes/Domino 8 customer case studies and references, but was unable to provide them as not many customers have yet rolled out ND8 in any sizable user numbers, or else were as yet unwilling to be references. In the comments on this post many folks answered that until ISVs update their products to support Domino 8 (e.g. RIM with their BES software), they could not upgrade their infrastructures to the new version.
At that time I made the point that IBM must practice what they preach regarding support for Domino across their own products, such as Quickr, Sametime, Connections and Websphere Portal. As far as I am aware, none of the these four products currently formally support Domino8. Connections isn’t supported against Domino Directory full stop, and Portal is such a large product that I can understand why support might need to wait for the next point release.
However, Quickr (Domino services) and Sametime are simply “must haves”. Many customers run partitioned Domino servers supporting Domino and Quickr or Sametime (occasionally both) on the same system, and so cannot upgrade Domino at all on that system until Quickr and Sametime are supported. Let’s have a look at the dates of the last releases for Domino, Quickr and Sametime:
- Domino 8 was formally eGA’d on 17th August 2007, having been in public beta since February 2007.
- Quickr 8.0.0.2 (Fix Pack 1) was made available for download on 19th October 2007 (i.e. 2 months after Domino 8 eGA).
- Sametime 7.5.1 CF1 was made available for download on 2nd August 2007 (2 weeks before Domino 8 eGA, but presumably Domino8 code was frozen at this stage).
For me it would have made sense for IBM to have made Quickr supported in 8.0.0.2 – instead it will not be available until 08Q1 (as part of Quickr 8.1). With Sametime, I think it could be argued that it should have been there in CF1, but instead we are still waiting for news of when this will be. My best bet is not until Sametime8 (again due in 08Q1). I am recently asked Adam Gartenberg for clarification on this – I will let you know the answer.
So in conclusion, whilst I am often ready to give IBM/Lotus to benefit of the doubt, I think they have dropped the ball on this one. Until they can support their own products on Domino 8 I don’t see what argument they have to be pushing the ISVs to deliver similar support. This is all going to slow up the much needed adoption of ND8 by a significant margin…
As I said at the beginning, strange strange decisions…
