Expired
by Volker Weber
I was still getting a connection request today, so I checked whether the accounts was still active. Turns out it expires now. Google Sites, Docs, Skype, Teamviewer, that's what has served me well so far, so I am not going to miss anything.
Comments
I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why they allowed these accounts to expire. Have they forgotten the meaning of the word evangelism? Aside from the existence of the free alternatives, as you mentioned, do they gain something from booting early adopters who can influence potential buyers? I can't imagine what it could be.
No great loss, here. The fact that the accounts were time-limited always kept me from looking at it seriously anyway. If they want my attention, they have to give me a reason to invest my time and energy. Offering me a free account for a limited time? Not good enough, plain and simple. Accounts that go away are not useful. Period.
I know it's why I never tried it out or put anything serious out there...
Agreed.
I suppose that in IBM's mind, we are not the target people for using this.
I'm sure it is going to be a fantastic, awesome success with the target people. But who is actually the target people? Those who never heard of Google?
I doubt that there are any real target people. IBM Lotus seems to be the division for (costly) experiments.
I thought the target people are SMBs who can't afford an own IT. Oh wait, 1000 users minimum.
@Oliver - I think you're confusing LotusLive Engage (the cloud-based social/collaboration solution) with LotusLive Notes (the hosted Notes solution).
Engage is definitely an SMB or corporate department play with licenses available for 1+ users.
LotusLive Notes is for 1,000 users up at this stage, though this is expected to change.
Also of note is the new LotusLive Connections solution, announced today at the Enterprise2.0 conference, which is again SMB-focused and starts at less than $10 user/month.
Confusing, isn't it? Even for somebody as experienced as Oliver. Actually, even for you. Try to buy ONE license and report your success.
Volker - it certainly isn't perfect - I would be the first to admit this.
However, at least IBM is playing in this space, has a decent story to tell and is making strides to sort out the issues regarding purchasing, licence agreements, branding and so on. They are not there yet for sure, but it is getting better.
Is this happening as quickly or impressively as the market demands? Only time will tell...
Stuart, so what is it? How many seats do you have to buy? IBM isn't telling on LotusLive.com.
For an online product in 2009, any site that is selling an online service that says give us your details and either call us, or someone will call you back within 24 hours is a fail.
It should say, give us your requested login name, credit card, email and then show processing, then go we have sent you a confirmation email, your account is now ready, click here to login.