I was having an interesting email exchange with Carl, from Instant Technologies, and I thought we should let others in on it. Carl is a former Lotus staffer ("Loti") and his firm has received a lot of attention, praise, and awards for their technologies integrated with Sametime. The following is a transcript (slightly edited) of our IM session.

boydstowe: Can we talk now?
Tyler Carl: sure
boydstowe: So... I have heard that the organizational and technical shifts inside of IBM/Lotus are having some major repercussions. What is your perspective on that?
Tyler Carl: Well, I think a number of things have been happening at IBM/Lotus
boydstowe: such as
boydstowe: ?
Tyler Carl: the key being that Lotus is no longer really Lotus, but more of a brand within the software group, and a development lab of collaboration technology
Tyler Carl: more and more the Lotus marketing efforts are being moved into the core IBM teams.
Tyler Carl: this can be seen as a good thing as it does mean there will be less conflicting messages coming out of IBM
boydstowe: Yes. And the whole shebang is being consolidated into WebSphere, more or less
Tyler Carl: yes very much so
Tyler Carl: Lotus has been given Websphere Workplace
Tyler Carl: which is the environment that IBM is pushing as the place where people will work
boydstowe: Isn't that consolidation necessary given the coming "war of the stacks" against Microsoft and Oracle?
Tyler Carl: well it depends
boydstowe: IM can't go it alone, can it?
Tyler Carl: not at all
Tyler Carl: the issue arises when all the world doesn't move to IBM's portal
boydstowe: I see
boydstowe: Then the Sametime ascendancy is threatened?
Tyler Carl: IBM is so focused on the success of workplace that if it doesn't happen IBM will be in a tough spot
boydstowe: I see
Tyler Carl: Well up till now Sametime has had a fairly easy ride with most competitors focusing on consumer IM
Tyler Carl: IBM/Lotus pretty much ahd the corporate space to themselves
boydstowe: well, lilke 50% of the market
boydstowe: But isn't this the same challenge that MS and Oracle face?
Tyler Carl: well Micrososft has less of a challenge
Tyler Carl: as their strategy is still tied to windows
Tyler Carl: and it's going to be quite a while till that goes away
Tyler Carl: Oracle on th eother hand has a very big problem
boydstowe: Like what?
Tyler Carl: no one recognizes them as being a thought leader in collaboration in any sense of the word
boydstowe: But they are very aggressive
Tyler Carl: so they will have to do an awful lot to educate the market around this.
Tyler Carl: They are aggressive, but they are unproven
Tyler Carl: from the point of view of an independant software vendor
boydstowe: and they are challenging folks around total cost of ownership for email
boydstowe: which is a commodity, right?
boydstowe: and then they plan to roll with workflow, content management, IM, etc
boydstowe: all 'at a price'
Tyler Carl: email is considered a commodity by the email vendors, but I am not sure that corporations that purchase email are at that stage yet
Tyler Carl: well IBM now sees email as a commodity
boydstowe: yes
Tyler Carl: but for many companies, they still feel like they can't easily switch
boydstowe: Why not?
Tyler Carl: if they're running exchange they're probably using some feature in outlook that only runs on exchange servers
Tyler Carl: and the same can be true for people that purchased Notes for email
boydstowe: Mostly that's not the case, as I understand it
Tyler Carl: I would not be so sure
boydstowe: re: Exchange anyway
Tyler Carl: simple things can stop movements to other systems
boydstowe: mostly foks run in the standard config
Tyler Carl: for example with exchange you have the ability to pull back an email after it has been sent
Tyler Carl: you can't do that with notes or pop3 or smtp
Tyler Carl: so there are little features that users get used that often aren't discovered until moves start
Tyler Carl: now in the area of IM, we will see a move to standards in much the same way email did, as people need to interact with other people in different organizations
Tyler Carl: at the moment it looks like that standard is going to be SIP
Tyler Carl: now Microsoft although late to the party have a slight advantage over lotus in this area as they are building "live" from the ground up as a SIP server
Tyler Carl: IBM although they have been in this space for a number of years, are going to have to do some work to trully SIP enable sameitme so that SIP clients can connect to the server, currently lotus SIP support is limited to SIP community to SIP community connectivity
Tyler Carl: concerning Oracle, their current collaboration offering doesn't yet include IM, so it will be interesting to see what they come up with, but they will have a tough fight as for many companies the choice for IM is going to be very much along the same lines as their choice for email, with many companies that chose exchange choosing "live" and those that chose Notes choosing Sametime. And those that chose Oracle email, are there any significant accounts, maybe choosing Oracle Im
boydstowe: I have some insight to what Oracle is up to with IM, but let's leave that and get back to IBM
Tyler Carl: yep
boydstowe: Smooshing Lotus into IBM seems to have had some morale issues.
Tyler Carl: so IBM and Sametime
Tyler Carl: well Loti always felt different to IBMers
boydstowe: yes
Tyler Carl: they always considered themselves more creative and flexible
boydstowe: and IBM was slow and less creative
Tyler Carl: I think now Loti are being hit by the process of a really large company and many are finding that difficult
Tyler Carl: well when it comes to client software, IBM has a veyr poor track record
boydstowe: There's a lot of fallout?
Tyler Carl: well I think there is a lot of Apathy
boydstowe: capital A Apathy
Tyler Carl: from what I can see, many Loti are losing the will to fight
boydstowe: hmmm
boydstowe: well IBM better get on it.
Tyler Carl: I think they hav ehad a hard fight against competition such as Microsoft, but now they are fighting IBM too
boydstowe: MS and Oracle are moving fast
Tyler Carl: yes they are, and they are also dedicating more resources
Tyler Carl: for example
Tyler Carl: Microsoft has more postings on their job site for RTC marketing, than the IBM/Lotus team has in total
boydstowe: I thought IBM was investing $1B in collaboration technology this year?
Tyler Carl: I think Microsoft is realising how important this technology is going to be
boydstowe: they are dead on there
Tyler Carl: well collaboration is more than just IM
boydstowe: I agree
boydstowe: but RTC is more than IM too
Tyler Carl: and there is also the effort of moving all the existing lotus technology to J2EE
boydstowe: yes
Tyler Carl: so that investment may not be in "new" technology but in rebuilding existing technology
boydstowe: So what do you predict for the coming year?
Tyler Carl: well I think RTC will arrive with a bang
boydstowe: kablooie for Sametime?
Tyler Carl: MS in true MS style will launch and will have many partners in many different industries endorsing their product
Tyler Carl: well I would not say kablooie, but it is IBM's to lose
boydstowe: sound and fury? smoke and mirrors?
boydstowe: will MS have the meat?
Tyler Carl: I hope they [IBM] get back some focus, dedicate some more resources, and don't become too blinkered by workplace, and forget about where most of their existing customers do their work.
Tyler Carl: IF MS doesn't have the meat it doesn't matter
Tyler Carl: they only have to do just enough to cause issues
Tyler Carl: they will tie the product into everything they sell
boydstowe: And slow down the ballgame for ST?
Tyler Carl: Office, Outlook, Windows, Dev you name.
Tyler Carl: it will slow down sales [for IBM] yes
boydstowe: Carl, thanks for your time. Anything you want to add?
Tyler Carl: Well I hope that IBM/Lotus realise what they have in Sametime, and start to focus on what is important for customers, and not what is important for IBM marketing slides.