1 - Great question, Dec. I am going to check with some of my friends and see if I can scare up a copy of it.

I wanted to comment on something Ray said as well. I disagree that this has to be a commercial product. In fact, I cannot imagine this CD ever being "shrinkwrapped" on a store shelf. You can't even buy Notes on the store shelf - how do you expect to sell this there as well? Plus, getting something like this on a store shelf requires a tremendous support and distribution network, not to mention packaging costs, etc. That idea is totally impractical.

I think that this project would really benefit from IBM's blessing. While there are Notes folks who may have a disdain for IBM, in the larger Linux and Open Source community IBM is looked upon favorably. Additionally IBM could look a this CD as a marketing effort - and a cost-effective one at that. They can provide useful applications to their customers to help them get the most out of their investment, and people who are providing a product can get exposure they wouldn't get otherwise. I believe that IBM should provide the CD to all new customers as a part of the bundle (particularly the Express bundles), and then make it available for a nominal fee to anyone else who wants it. Or make the ISO available for download at no cost.

I really see no "downside" to this concept. Everyone wins. After we iron out some of the rough edges to this idea, I think we should bring it to the attention of IBM folks and see what they think. I have some ideas of whom to take this to, but I want to get it more fleshed out before doing so.

Any other ideas out there? I will continue to try to find the original Nifty Fifty, and will let you know my progress.

Rock

2 - While I like this idea, my problem with the N50 was that they werent usable except for playing around. They really were not useful in business. So I would hope the second gen of the N50 changed the goals a bit ... to either be an app that can be used for some business process in the real word or demonstrate some technique/technology that the average Notes developer does not no.

If this gets goinig, let me know. I will contribute my customized address book that does all the mail merge/labels/envelopes that I have been perfecting :)

John

3 - Rock,
Yes we do charge for our software (which by the way is provided with full open source code). I think that your concept of providing free software is fine, but I think that the realities of developing and supporting software of a high enough standard for the corporate world require a commercial arrangement. The organisations that use the software charge for their products and services why should they get software for free?
Regards,
Tim

4 - Hey, Scott (and everyone else) - please go here to continue this discussion:

http://www.lotusgeek.com/SapphireOak/LotusGeekBlog.nsf/plinks/ROLR-5NEKWK

5 - Well, Dec, ya done good! Dec posted a great intro to this discussion on his site. Dec has even one-upped us and found the original Nifty Fifty dbs on the Lotus FTP site (but now there are 78). We should take a look at these, at least for some perspective. Then we should begin to come up with a list of dbs that we think should be included.

I must say that we should be able to do something like this with our without IBM's blessing. I mean, we come up with a list of 50 dbs, we write some nice instructions/disclaimers, and we make an ISO widely available for download. However I would rather get a good blessing from IBM, and optimally an inclusion in the Express bundling. I am going to begin working this from my end this week, and see what happens. Worst case, we do it on our own and they say "no".

I am also going to talk to Penumbra and OpenNTF about becoming involved. We'll see what shakes out of it. Nathan, Bruce if you are reading this drop me a line and let's talk about it.

My goal? Widely available, in whatever fashion, at Lotusphere 2004.

Rock

6 - Hi Rock,

Sounds good, I agree with all your sentiments and it sounds like you speak from experience. I am not against IBM■s involvement at all but the behemoth takes time to get up to speed and then can■t stop, change lanes or turn. If you followed the thread on Partner forum you would see how quickly the idea was laid to rest. The problem is that if IBM gets directly involved Business Partners will be up in arms and that will be counter productive. My view is that an OpenNTF organisation must drive this to ensure impartiality.

As far as Shrink Wrap goes you can go into PC World, Dixons in the UK and buy Lotus Notes of the shelf. In any event we buy all software from distributors and they take care of distributing to wholesalers. Lotus Notes is a complex beast that can do many things. I for one would not mind spending my ■50 to buy a box with some CD■s, quick guides, success stories, network architecture examples, book extracts and promotions. If the CD■s contain the latest versions of Notes and Domino and its ancillary products like ODBC drivers etc then it would make sense to go and buy it. SuSe follows this route and although it is painful buying the product every time a new release arrives there is always something worthwhile and unexpected in the box. The reason for shrink wrap is to formalize the NiftyFifty package. You must think laterally now. For example, the first people to buy or get the distro will be reviewers like PC Magazine staff. They themselves have very slick promotion CD■s on their magazines and would expect no less. However, they are not experts in Notes so any help in the form of quick installs guides, examples and practical tips would help. If the distro CD is well thought out then it would receive excellent reviews and is that not what we all want?

I take your point about expenses and complications but if this was easy it would have been done already. I think the only reason it sounds interesting to us is that we have all found a new interest in Lotus because of what has been plumbed into ND6. It is just so damn good.

Nothing will happen if we don■t take the bull by the horns. My take on this whole idea is aim high and shoot low!

7 - I think this is a great idea. A GREAT idea. But...

1. It is absolutely critical, not just important, to have world-class applications on this CD:

The objectives here seem to be both to promote the expansion of Notes/Domino and to increase the number and quality of applications being implemented "out there."

My recollection of the original nifty fifty is there were a few good applications and a lot of pretty lame ones. If we don't take this seriously enough to put well-constructed, good-looking, smooth-working applications on the CD, why should customers and potential customers take it seriously, either?

They shouldn't and, for the most part, they won't.

There are a lot of great Notes applications out there. All we need is fifty, or forty, or thirty. "Nifty-fifty" is a good name, I'll grant you, but there's no point stuffing crap in the box just to get up to the number so we can use a snappy rhyme.

Get 'em all to look good and call it the Purty Thirty.

2. The applications included on this CD, whether commercial or freebies, should be able to be fully implemented without special server add-ins, additional software to load, or the like.

The more things you have to install or set up to get an application working, the less chance a newbie working alone in a closet has of successfully getting the thing to work. That's an important challenge.

Also, it's likely many of the folks who might get their hands on this collection won't have the juice to be allowed to load server add-ins or will be in companies too large to permit travelling to every desktop to install special client software or .dlls.

The same goes for anything requiring fiddling with the NAB or mail templates. People don't like to do that.

More importantly, this is about showing the power of Notes and Domino. As soon as you start having to do things outside the box you're saying, "here's something important you can't do with this product." I don't think that's the kind of message we really want to send.

3. Every application needs to come with both administrator and user documentation as well as detailed, step-by-step installation and set-up instructions

Once again, it's a matter of both making these useable by folks at a relatively low experience level and of demonstrating professionalism. If you wants to be impo'tent, you'd best look impo'tent.

4. If at all possible, IBM needs to have a hand in it.

We can argue all day long about the evils of IBM and all the things they will likely do wrong if they get their grubby hands on our pristine project, but the bottom line is they have contacts to most of the people who really ought to have this CD we don't.

Maybe the best of all worlds would be for them to (pay for it but) not have a hand in creating the compilation but provide a means of distribution. To get something like that past the powers that be, though, it will have to be done to an IBM standard. See items 1, 2 and 3, above.

5. Somebody's gonna have to pay for this.

If you can get IBM to belly up to the bar and pick up the tab, that's great, but let's assume that won't actually happen. Where's the money going to come from?

I'll tell you where: From folks like us with commercial applications on the CD.

My company spends several thousand dollars a month on national advertising, as do many other companies. CDs are cheap: We buy full-color printed, burned CDs in cases for under $4.00 in small quantities. In large quantities, as we're certainly talking here, the cost per each is likely a good bit less.

Let's say the CD includes 20 commercial applications in whatever lightly-crippled mode. Charge each of us, say, $2,000 to be on the CD. Let the folks giving away (quality) freeware to ride along for nothing.

$2,000 x 20 applications = $40,000. That's a good chunk to get started with. You can burn a lot of CDs for that.

8 - Well, some of us OpenNTFers have in fact heard of it. Declan here is a contributor. I've contributed and am involved in the site itself. Nathan and Bruce have heard of this.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I think it is , well, a nifty idea. I don't think it is something you can easily sell commercially, after all, who is marketing it for you?

There are some proposals for projects on OpenNTF that haven't really gotten off the ground, which would be ideal for this. There's various CRM suggestions (a Notes classic, of course), including an Open Source donation of Planet.CIM. There's a proposal for a "basic business suite." Other similar ideas.

While there is some overlap among them, I would say they make a great core for a Nifty 50. Bt we need people to work on them! Who's stepping up to the plate?

9 - Tim, that's kewl, but one problem - you charge for yours. I want to do them open source.

10 - Does anybody have the ORIGINAL Nifty Fifty? It would make an interesting starting point, get the list of apps from that CD and then see what's available today that will match them.

11 - I have posted an update to the N50 project, here:
http://www.lotusgeek.com/SapphireOak/LotusGeekBlog.nsf/plinks/ROLR-5NEKWK

Rock

12 - I would add that to add that the Domino success stories on IBM.com go a long way toward proving to customers how amazing Domino applications (not mail) can be.
http://www-3.ibm.com/software/success/cssdb.nsf/softwareL2VW?OpenView&Count=30&RestrictToCategory=lotusmandc_LotusDomino

13 - I agree, John. It needs to be usable stuff - world class? Not necessarily. But it needs to be more than "example-ware".

Right now I am trying to figure out two things: how to identify what goes on it, and how to best distribute it. I am going to try to talk to IBM soon, and then we'll see where that goes.

Rock

14 - We've already done this guys. Check out http://www.notesapps.com