Notes flourished because the barrier to entry was low for developing. You could install the developer client and in a few hours someone with little technical knowledge could make poorly written, but highly valuable apps:)
Today, the developer client is still free, but we're looking at an entirely different audience with xpages and the eclipse IDE. No longer are we looking at the sales gal who likes to tinker, but you're looking at an experienced comp sci employee who is familiar with OO design and hopefully java.
Time will tell, but I don't think this is a strategy that plays off the traditional strengths of Notes development, which IMHO is the RAD environment. I'd gladly take an easier path to web apps, even with limited functionality, over the current xpages path. I think there are forces internally who want IBM to be a direct 1 to 1 competitor with asp.net. If I wanted all the baggage that comes with asp.net, I'd just use asp.net.
I would agree with most of these statements.
Notes flourished because the barrier to entry was low for developing. You could install the developer client and in a few hours someone with little technical knowledge could make poorly written, but highly valuable apps:)
Today, the developer client is still free, but we're looking at an entirely different audience with xpages and the eclipse IDE. No longer are we looking at the sales gal who likes to tinker, but you're looking at an experienced comp sci employee who is familiar with OO design and hopefully java.
Time will tell, but I don't think this is a strategy that plays off the traditional strengths of Notes development, which IMHO is the RAD environment. I'd gladly take an easier path to web apps, even with limited functionality, over the current xpages path. I think there are forces internally who want IBM to be a direct 1 to 1 competitor with asp.net. If I wanted all the baggage that comes with asp.net, I'd just use asp.net.