Here at Lotusphere, some of the real news is that Workplace Rich Client and Workplace Designer are going to be very popular tools with the Domino crowd and also with the traditional I.T. shops who prefer central control. That's a pretty big change by itself -- the Notes crowd is loyal and dedicated. They're totally sold on their platform. They are also not generally well accepted by some centralized I.T. management proponents. Seeing a product that is so readily accepted by both tells me that the market will be huge. Large ISV's also now have a platform that cries out for innovation. The current Lotus Notes client is a difficult place for ISV's because its not as extensible as we'd like. The Workplace Rich Client platform will let us create customized components for sale that more able to wear their value on their user interface where users can see it -- and thus be more willing to buy it. What remains to be seen, is where IBM will draw the line at end-user customization. What I'm presently investigating is whether I'll have to sell my tools or components only to the central I.T. management where they can be provisioned down to the client, or if I'll also be able to sell them to individual users who will be able to add them to their local -- or perhaps individual but still centrally stored -- configuration. The latter choice really opens my market quite a bit, and I think users prefer to be able to add small utilities and features to their corporate environment. Look at your P.C. I'll bet you've added several downloaded or purchased favorite utilities, right?

Tell me, tell all of us -- in fact, tell IBM (I promise, there is at least one IBM'er that reads this -- poor soul must be forced to monitor it with threats of being transferred to the Websphere team if I say something terrible and he doesn't report it). Here's your soapbox, grow a spine and hit the comments button. If you'd prefer to write a spellcheck something more complete, send it to me and I'll post it for you.