Monthly Archives: August 2011
Binary Tree no longer does migrations to Lotus Notes (almost)
I just happened to notice a job ad for Binary Tree posted on LinkedIn.com. Here is an excerpt:
“Company Description
Binary Tree is a leading provider of software for migrating enterprise messaging users and applications to on-premises and cloud-based versions of the Microsoft platform. Since 1993, Binary Tree and its business partners have helped over 5,000 customers around the world to migrate more than 20,000,000 email users. Binary Tree’s suite of software provides solutions for migrating from Exchange 2003/2007 and Lotus Notes to on-premises and online versions of Exchange and SharePoint. Binary Tree is the preferred vendor for migrating to the Microsoft cloud. Binary Tree is represented by business partners worldwide who provide specialized services and a proven methodology for guiding customers through complex transitions. Binary Tree is a Microsoft Gold ISV Partner, an IBM Premier Business Partner, and was a finalist for Microsoft’s 2010 Notes Migration Partner of the Year award. Binary Tree is headquartered in the New York metropolitan area with international offices in London, Paris, Stockholm, Singapore, and Sydney. For more information, please visit us online at http://www.binarytree.com.”
In this ad as well as their website, you will notice there is no longer any mention of using their products and services to migrate toward Lotus Notes or LotusLive. A few years back at Lotusphere I suggested that IBM acquire Binary Tree and make it a part of the IBM offering to de-emphasize migrations away from Notes while promoting migrations toward it. Even if IBM had little to gain in the acquisition, it would have stymied their aiding migrations toward Exchange. Companies often do this just to keep patents out of the hands of their competition. This technique was also heavily used by the great college football coach Paul “Bear” Bryant in his achievement as the winningest head coach ever. He would give a scholarships to every good player he could find because he would rather have them sitting on his bench doing nothing than being on the field playing for the other team.
Based on this info I expect there is no shortage of work for Binary Tree.
Ironically, much of Binary Tree’s early success came from Lotus Notes tools and from migrating companies TO Lotus Notes. Mind you I’m not complaining. In a strange twist of fate, it is those very migrations that are now keeping me quite busy.
The following image shows their solutions offerings. Notice that for Lotus customers it lists migrating to Microsoft solutions. But under Microsoft customers it also only lists migrating to various Microsoft solutions.
Of Earthquakes and Hurricanes: Stay safe
I grew up in Florida, so I know what you’re all going through with this hurricane.
I live on the west coast, so I know what you went through with the earthquake last week.
At least 15% of my Linkedin connections live in the path of this hurricane. I hope all of you stay safe and sound.
Website Design Case Study: IBM Passport Advantage Website
Every year at Lotusphere in the Ask the Developers session someone will ask IBM “When are you going to make the Passport Advantage website user-friendly?!” And every year the response from IBM is “What are you talking about? It’s fine!” Apparently usability studies are unnecessary. After all, this is IBM. How could the world’s second or third largest software company NOT know how to build a website? Who are we to give them advice, right? We’re just customers, not experts on web development, right? We are mere ersatz of IBM’s erudite web developers.
Well recently I have been refreshing my web development skills in a degree program at Bellevue College and I would like to think I have become more than just a dilettante of web design. As part of my studies, I am using the Passport Advantage website as a case study in best (and worst) practices in web design. I would like to bring you along for the lesson. Please join me in this discussion of what does and doesn’t work in web design, particularly as it relates to the success of the IBM Passport Advantage website in achieving its goal. Hopefully by this vetting, all of us can learn something from this world class international website representing the third most valuable brand in the world.
My classmates don’t have access to log into this website. So I will include some screen shots. Hopefully this does not infringe on any copyrights. This is intended for review by my classmates in the web design class and web authoring program for educational purposes only.
First, let’s find the URL. If I were to guess at it so I could go directly to it, I would expect something like http://www.ibm.com/passportadvantage . But that doesn’t work. So let’s go to the IBM home page, http://www.ibm.com and look for a link. You can find it on IBM’s home page, though with some effort. You won’t find it in any of the menus at the top of the page, but if you scroll down, you can find it “below the fold” under the Popular Links list. For that reason, I expect most people just use a search engine to find the site. I searched for “Passport Advantage” on Google.com and it came up as the first link. It was the second link listed on both yahoo.com and bing.com. It was also the first link in the results list when searched directly on the IBM website. Here is the landing page for all of these. The URL is http://www-01.ibm.com/software/howtobuy/passportadvantage/
<01_landingpage>
(click image to enlarge)
Not exactly an intuitive URL. Note in the screen shot that it already knows who I am. Am I logged in? Well, no. I need to click on the Customer sign in link in the box on the right labeled “Fast Access”.
Note that it instructs to use my email address for the user name. Not exactly. Some accounts (like mine) require the username that was created, NOT the email address.
<02_loginpage>
(click image to enlarge)
By the way, if I click on the link that says “Not you?” beside my name in the top right, I get this error page with no way back but to close the browser and start over:
<03_switchusererror>
(click image to enlarge)
After logging in, you get to what I will call the “homepage” of Passport Advantage. Actually there is no home page for Passport Advantage and there is never an obvious path back to this page. I could find no links that lead back to this page except by logging in. The Home link on this page goes to the home page of ibm.com and once you go there, good luck trying to get back to Passport Advantage. Assuming you know about the link at the bottom of the page, you’ll get back fairly easily. But most people just google it again. (even if you call customer support, they will direct you to find it this way!)
<04_homepage>
(click image to enlarge)
Great now you’re on the “homepage”. There are primarily 2 reasons most Lotus professionals visit this site: 1. To open a PMR with technical support or 2. To download software. Let’s start with getting technical support. Look closely. There are no less than 7 links to get some kind of help, not counting the phone number listed in the bottom right corner, which by the way, is NOT the number to call to reach technical support. Each of these 7 links go to different pages. The one to open a ticket with technical support (called a PMR) happens to be the last one in the left pane, labeled “Online technical support”. This would seem obvious but for the 6 other links to support on the page. By the way, if you visit a page and then hit the Back button, you will occasionally get an error instead and it will prompt you to log in again.
<05_supportLinks>
(click image to enlarge)
Once you get to the place to enter a PMR with technical support, you may want to get back to the “homepage”. Which link on this page do you think you should select?
<06_whereishome>
(click image to enlarge)
If you chose Home you would be wrong and once there you would not be able to use the back button to return here.
If you chose Return to the IBM Support Portal you would also be wrong. (See the next screen shot.)
The correct link is actually under related links. Go figure.
(click image to enlarge)
Now let’s look at the second common reason to visit this site: downloading software. For this function you “only” have 5 choices. Again, they all go to different places. Choose carefully. You may navigate through several lengthy steps before realizing you’re in the wrong place to find what you’re looking for.
<07_downloadLinks>
(click image to enlarge)
The downloads process continues through several confusing steps including prompting TWICE that you accept the software agreement, before actually getting to download the software. And you had better know exactly what you are looking for. There are no useful descriptions of the purpose of each software and many have very similar names.
In our classroom discussion the class agreed when it comes to usability, this site fails miserably, It is laden with many confusing links that are not organized in any obvious, meaningful grouping. There are way too many links without any form of structure or organization to the navigation. One of the class exercises is to create a site map identifying the navigation, but this website proved too complex to create a site map at all. The arrangement of the navigation did not help to identify the relevance of the links either. And why does it have 2 places to select a language? (one at the extreme top of the page, the other in the right column beside the banner image)
Well, there you have it. So far we have examined the pages leading up to the main page of the Passport Advantage site and the main page itself. What do you think? Is this analysis off the mark? If you regularly navigate this site, what has your experience been with it?
Up next if I have the time and patience: Stepping through the website to download software – no trivial task.
Before you pass final judgement on this website, check out what truly BAD websites look like at WebPagesThatSuck
Footnote: After writing this article, I noticed there is now a tutorial for Passport advantage on the landing page (you do not need to log in to view it.)
http://download.boulder.ibm.com/ibmdl/pub/software/passportadvantage/demos/English_Tutorial/english_pa.html
After a few minutes of frustration I had to quit viewing it. The wizard was tiny. The navigators to advance the slides are so small I had trouble getting my mouse in just the right spot to click it. There are pages and pages of blah, blah, blah. It isn’t a tutorial about USING the website. It’s about 45 minutes of reading all about WHY you should BUY it.
The Notes Guy in Seattle 