True. I've been pretty miffed over the last few years at IBM's failure to market Notes better or articulate a long-term plan.
Well, I'm still miffed, but for their failure to communicate rather than a failure to perform. When they finally opened the floodgates, it was a torrent. Notes transformed onto the Eclipse. Expeditor. DB2. Java-based and complete with Linux clients.
On the same day of the Symphony announcement people are already deriding it as being incomplete without email and scheduling. They're missing the point, I think. Email, scheduling, collaboration are all built into Lotus Notes 8, and SameTime integrates to make it real-time. All of the Symphony tools are built directly into Notes, so this isn't targeting corporate customers directly: they don't need it. For a little over 100 bucks a seat they get email AND collaboration AND database with years and years of compatible application templates AND a standards-compliant office suite.
But to get people onto ODF at work you need them to be able to work home too, without having to pay extra for that. YES, you could edit the docs with OpenOffice.org, but for a lot of people branding matters. And so does the UI... Symphony has the same interface as Lotus Notes 8.
Oh, yeah, and you can get it on your choice of platform, so it's possible to put low-cost Linux desktops on your company's roadmap and not worry about whether the company's apps will migrate. And if you look at what's coming, they're taking it mobile, too. Take a look at Lotus Expeditor.
http://www-306.ibm.com/software/lotus/products/expeditor/
It is a long-term plan, and it looks to be a damned good one.
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