IBM kills Lotus. Microsoft kills SharePoint

March 22, 2013 | Author: Michael Stromann


Perhaps the two most famous brands in the history of enterprise software, Lotus and SharePoint, will soon disappear. We mean brands, not specific products. Because by renaming their products, vendors try to erase the association with outdated technologies in customer brain. For example, Lotus appeared back in the 80-s years of last century. In 1995 IBM acquired Lotus Development and began selling their products Lotus Notes/Domino. In the following years most IBM collaboration systems moved under the Lotus umbrella. But last year the revolution occurred. The last child of the Lotus family - SaaS suite LotusLive was renamed to SmartCloud for Social Business. And then the name Lotus was removed from other products. The final nail was the recent launch of Notes/Domino 9.0 Social Edition (without Lotus).

Regarding, Microsoft SharePoint - Office born this product and Office will kill it. SharePoint Team Services first appeared in 2000, as a package of web extensions for MS Office. For a long time SharePoint was a part of MS Office, but then due to its outstanding popularity and rapid development, it has been separated as an independent server product and became not just a collaboration tool but the platform on which the whole IT infrastructure is built.

But now, when SaaS products become more important for Microsoft, it doesn't need to sell the platform (because the platform works on the side of SaaS provider). And SharePoint quietly dissolves into the new office suite Office 365. The word SharePoint is almost never used in it. Instead, we see Sites, People, Newsfeed or the new brands SkyDrive and Yammer.

See also: Top 10 Public Cloud Platforms

Author: Michael Stromann
Michael is an expert in IT Service Management, IT Security and software development. With his extensive experience as a software developer and active involvement in multiple ERP implementation projects, Michael brings a wealth of practical knowledge to his writings. Having previously worked at SAP, he has honed his expertise and gained a deep understanding of software development and implementation processes. Currently, as a freelance developer, Michael continues to contribute to the IT community by sharing his insights through guest articles published on several IT portals. You can contact Michael by email stromann@liventerprise.com