Notes basic ( non eclipse ) is very useful now but will it hold Notes back in the future ?
Sean Cull July 26 2010 21:42:31
I had my "road to Damascus moment" recently when I saw the same app run in Xpages on the client and on the web with no extra coding, or more accurately not much extra coding.
I realised that Notes had passed a huge milestone and some of my long held beliefs were unceremoniously dumped. One of these was that customers were best with the Notes basic ( non-eclipse ) client. It is considerably faster and despite working on notes apps full time neither I nor my colleagues had yet had cause to use any of the eclipse functionality.
Now when we are looking at new apps our first inclination is to want to do it in Xpages if it is likely to be a repeatable solution. This is not just because we are geeks and it is fun but because with our business heads on we believe that we have a much better chance of selling that application to potential customers who do not, and unlikely to ever, run Notes clients.
Notes basic was good for getting people with older hardware ( often < 3 years old ) onto newer versions of Notes. That was a very good thing in the battle for hearts and minds. We needed to get them off R5 / 6 and onto something which really showed what Notes could do.
But hang on, is there not a danger that we will be repeating history with Xpages and Notes Basic. If developers mostly want to code in Xpages and as a consequence people with Notes basic will progressively get left behind and, even though they are on Notes 8.x or maybe 9.x. They will have that dangerously substandard experience that is analogous to users being on R5. I am stretching the point a little but I do think that it is a very valid concern.
So do I think Notes basic is a good thing ? Yes I do for now but I think it could quite possibly be a bad thing if it were continued on into Notes 9.x.
Sean
Lotus Opinion XPages
2Henning Heinz 7.26.2010 22:38:10 I you use the Basic client and a browser The browser will bring you most what XPages is all about. I expect it would even not be that hard to support XPages in the basic client but I doubt IBM will do anything to make the basic client more attractive.
3Carl 7.26.2010 22:39:25 Aren’t XPages in the notes client and Web identical because... Aren't XPages in the notes client and Web identical because they're running in the browser? So the Notes version is XPages inside an embedded browser, and the web version is obviously a standalone version. So to me the question becomes, is the Notes client holding back Domino?
4Sean Cull 7.26.2010 22:56:59 @3 Carl you are very correct Carl, that is a very interesting point. I think that the whole notes Client V's browser argument will become less relevant ( or more relevant ) as HTML 5 browsers make the browser experience much more client like. That will present a big issue for IBM because the reason to have Notes will cease to be the applications but will instead be the mail client ( or a need for local replication ) unless Vulcan, whatever that is, can provide a compelling reason for people to continue to purchase "Notes" or whatever it will be called. My biggest worry is how IBM will react in terms of licensing costs for Utility Express. Will they hike the price of the utility express application server in an attempt to retain revenue or will Vulcan make the new paradigm so compelling that they ( that should be "we" I guess ) will be selling something that there is demand for but which is is not Notes as we know it and not necessarily thick client based ?
5Tim Tripcony 7.26.2010 23:56:51 splitting hairs Technically the XPiNC runtime isn't a browser. It's XULRunner. Firefox is based on the same underlying engine, so they have nearly identical capabilities, but they didn't just embed a browser into Notes... there's more to it than that. For instance, had composite apps taken off like IBM thought they would when Notes 8 originally came out, we'd all be going absolutely berserk over XPiNC, because we're now able to bind events in an XPage to other components in a composite app. Very few people are actually writing composite apps, however, so the end result is that XPage apps look and behave almost identically whether viewed in the client or via a browser (unless the app is sending stylesheets specific to the user agent / runtime context), solidifying the impression that the client runtime engine is nothing more than an embedded browser and, therefore, a ridiculous waste of RAM and disk footprint. I do think that the primary reason for maintaining the thick client is *secure* replication: sure, we can use HTML5's local storage to allow offline use, but can we take advantage of Domino's built-in encryption to secure that local data, or are we exposing it to anyone who wanders by while the user's in the washroom unless we roll our own JavaScript-based PKI implementation? On a side note, because the version of XULRunner used in 8.5.2 is fairly rich in its HTML5 support, not only can we make use of features like canvas and video in the Notes client now, but it should also support the local storage API. How ironic would it be to take advantage of that? ;)
6Ed Brill 7.27.2010 0:50:37 licensing We moved to a client access license model in 2009 precisely because in 2010 it no longer makes sense to charge differently for the Notes client software itself, versus the Traveler client software or the XPages runtime or whatever. It's just a client access license and you can use whatever you want with it. (The exception, noted above, is the Utility Server model where you still need a CAL to use the Notes client). We're evolving in the direction of RIAs and HTML5 and the web as the baseline with the installed client as adding value, so it's totally OK to think as many of you are above. As to Sean's base premise, I'm definitely inclined to abandon the basic configuration in the next major feature release. It would help with all sorts of things to move to a pure standard configuration.
7Fred Janssen 7.28.2010 19:23:28 I’m definitely inclined to abandon the basic configuration in the next major feature release. @6 You're kidding, right? I haven't seen any Citrix shop yet running Notes in Standard mode, they al run Basic because of resources and 8.5.1 Standard is not running smootly on Citrix.
8Ed Brill 7.28.2010 21:14:52 No, I’m not kidding and we've done a ton of work to improve Notes 8.x on Citrix. On other blogs I see reports of Citrix use with the standard config, and I can see that in our support call volume as well.
9Gaby Spaszewski 7.29.2010 14:17:27 I’m definitely inclined to abandon the basic configuration in the next major feature release. I also completely agree with @7 and sincerely hope that IBM will NOT abandon the Notes Basic client in the next major feature release - please don't do this!!!!!! I think this would be a really bad idea and would hurt Notes in our company a lot! The Standard Client under Citrix is still far away from replacing the base client both in performance and stability. We originally had planned to roll out the 8.5 standard client under Citrix but now have to go with the base (14 concurrent users on one Citrix server is simply not acceptable for a 10,000 seat environment. And due to other constraints that have nothing to do with Notes we cannot go with the 64bit Windows platform where more users with Standard client can be supported).
10Ed Brill 7.29.2010 15:28:47 Future thinking By 2014 will you be running 64-bit Citrix? Also it is better than 14 now, that was true early in 8.0.x.
11Gaby Spaszewski 7.30.2010 10:34:49 Future Thinking @Ed: I sincerely hope that by 2014 we will be on 64-bit Citrix but I wouldn't bet my life on it :-) We tested intensively with 8.5.1 Standard on XenApp5 32bit(with the help from an IBM expert who was onsite for several days) and 14 concurrent users were all we could cram onto one Citrix-Server before it stopped working.
12Dwight Wilbanks 9.1.2010 0:34:07 LOL, IBM is killing notes Sorry, I don't drink koolaid, and I don't think what IBM tells me to. No matter how many times IBM says they are not killing notes, it does not change the fact that they are. I don't consider the eclipse client to be "notes", it's completely alien technology bolted together with lots of duct tape. That does not make it it bad, just not notes. Since IBM is putting its energy into the standard client, the basic client is falling farther and farther behind. Of course the basic version still does everything that it has been doing all along, so, they re not taking functionally away. I use the basic client and will continue until I complete my switch to the other "not notes" technology.
Please leave a comment
1Palmi 7.26.2010 22:37:33 I aggree
I totally aggree that it may hold back some of the nice fetures that Eclips has for users , having said that yes we need to make them aware of this by showing them the power og Eclips / Xpages / stuff that is coming in nine did i hear volcan ? I though i did.