As someone who is reluctant to shell out the $3,000 required to access the Radicati report in full, I find the executive summary just keeps me asking more questions:
- Why would Notes and Domino suddenly jump from c.130 million seats sold (which is what the general consensus suggests IBM’s published number means) to 192 million by the end of this year and to 266 million by the end of 2014?
- The report states that it refers to “on-premise and hosted mailboxes” – one assumes this means Notes/Domino CALs purchased via Passport Advantage and ELAs, plus subscribers to LotusLive Notes (the hosted Notes/Domino solution). Are they including LotusLive iNotes in this calculation (as this is the cloud-based solution expected to see most growth in the near future – which isn’t Notes/Domino based of course)?
- These numbers appear to be pretty optimistic by most accounts. Sarah Radicati is (ahem) not known as being the biggest fan of Lotus Notes on the planet, why would she change her stance so significantly now?
- Did IBM ‘sponsor’ the report?
Don’t get me wrong… I would be absolutely 100% over-the-moon if Notes/Domino was being used by 266 million users in the next four years – it would be wonderful for this community and for my company.
However, something seems not quite right here. Anyone agree?