Confusion Around the Application Analyzer Beta

Posted by Erik Ashby discussing recent comments about the Application Analyzer beta.

 

Ever since the announcement of the application tools mid January, there have been a number of articles and blogs in the different communities about these tools. As someone who is working on these tools, this was expected, however what was unexpected was the confusion around the Application Analyzer beta. I felt this confusion justified a quick blog.

 

On Tuesday, January 17 we announced a number of new and updated tools for helping customers move from Lotus Notes/Domino to the Microsoft Collaboration platform. One of those tools we announced was the Microsoft Application Analyzer 2006 for Lotus Domino. We said this tool would be available in the first quarter of 2006. The tool is currently in a private beta with a number of customers, and we are receiving good feedback on it. On that day, we realized we had erroneously posted the link of this private beta on our public site. We’ve removed the link for now. We have several fixes that we are making to the beta and we are still on track to make this tool publicly available later this quarter. I will have more on that coming soon.

 

Erik Ashby

Lead Program Manager, Microsoft, Redmond

Comments

• Anonymous
  February 02, 2006
  Just as a correction, you posted a link to the older 2003 version from your press release on 17th Jan. Not the beta. You then removed the link to the 2003 version from the press release and the beta version from the download site at the same time. Personaly, I believe that this was becuase of the reviews that were made public of this tool, which were very poor. I look forward to reviewing the new version based on technical merit. My review of the 2003 version is here:http://www.pmooney.net/blogsphe.nsf/d6plinks/PMOY-6JMQHZ#commentsMy review of the new beta version is herehttp://www.pmooney.net/blogsphe.nsf/d6plinks/PMOY-6L2TN4#commentsFor the record, it is obvious I am a Lotus Domino consultant but my reviews were of the product as it stood.

• Anonymous
  February 02, 2006
  Ok, so I guess what I am confused about is all of the other explanations as to why the Analyzer was pulled. I personally would like to see this tool as not a sales tool but a tool that can help companies truly view a Domino application and determine truthfully whether Microsoft technologies would be best. It would even be interesting to see if it will consider the development time compared to what a Domino application should take. Honestly, I am a Lotus guy and am, of course, leaning towards Domino in most cases. I never tell someone that Domino is right for everything. There are certain types of applications that Domino does well and others that I wouldn't even consider for it. My questions are the following: Does this analyzer truly look at what the Domino application is doing, look at the code, figure out how long it should take with Microsoft technologies, and calculate an accurate number that can be used by companies? Does it do a real-time cost comparison between Domino and Microsoft technologies? Does it factor in hardware requirements, overall cost-savings, and ROI for each application? Are you able to input the amount of users that would be using the application and factor in all of the above costs and requirements? I would truly like to see what this is doing. If it does not factor in all of these things, then all it is truly doing is showing users that you can switch to MS arbitrarily and this is truly a FUD tool. Well, I look forward to a response to this.

• Anonymous
  February 02, 2006
  Paul; Good to see you here. Yes there were actually two areas of confusion. First: As I mentioned in this blog, the private beta was not on a protected site. This was an error on our part. We did this to make it easy for the beta partners to download, but pulled it once it was found by non-beta participants who started downloading it. Second: The old 2003 version was on the tools page. I had actually been there for several months (since it was the only version available) however after the announcement people were pulling it down thinking it was new. As you blog about the old version had some serious issues (Hence the work we are doing to create an update.) so we decided to remove the link on the tools page to the old one and refer that we are working on a new one.

• Anonymous
  February 02, 2006
  [modchaos] You got it ! We will blog much more about how our tools around applications are intended to be used, but your right on track. One of the key goals is around how you classify/grouping and understanding applications. Once the applications are understood then meaningful conversation can be had about specific applications. We have been working on a model (and tools) for how you answer the questions above that you ask. The Application Analyzer is good but just a part of an overall process. Anyway, like I said, we will be blogging about this in much more detail.