Congratulations Mr. Brill

by Volker Weber

One of these people is Ed Brill. For a while both* were.

Ed has had a tremendous year. The Notes business was successful. Ed took a new Notes/Domino release all the way into public beta, to be released next month as a product. He is now a published author. And he will finally be able to move on.

More than two years ago, at the 32nd DNUG conference in Berlin, I started a very serious discussion with Ed about the future. He was doing well business-wise, but I felt he was the last man standing, when defending Notes against all adversaries. Any fire that sprang up, the community was waiting for him to put it out. It was Ed Brill equals Notes. This is not a good position to be in. You want to move on, you want to get promoted, you want to move to new challenges. You can't have a career in IBM without rotating.

Ed and I have had our stage fights. He was angry at me once in a while. My sister would not understand how I could be friends with a person who said so many bad things about me. And yet, I consider myself Ed's friend. Many of those quarrels happened because Ed had to put out fires that I started. That I had to start. We both have roles on different sides of a dividing line.

Finally, Ed will be able to move on. A new challenge. Connect attendees had a brief peek into the future. You will have to wait until Monday afternoon for a formal announcement. Good luck, Mr. Brill. And thank you for being my friend.

*) For those not in the know, Ed is on the left, with my dear friend Alan Lepofsky on the right. The running gag used to be that Alan was Ed. Or his evil twin brother. Now you know that's not true.

Comments

Congrats Ed. I wish you the best of luck. While the "Ed:Alan" jokes have gotten old over the years, I still consider it a compliment to be compared to you.

Volker it was great to see you last week in Orlando. Thank you so much for the conversation we had, and no, not the one about BlackBerry 10. :-)

Alan Lepofsky, 2013-02-04

Being identified so closely with a product is surely the mark of an exceptional product manager. This is a real coup for whichever company has poached him - or indeed if IBM has retained him.

Jeff Gilfelt, 2013-02-04

Jeff, IBM it is. Don't want to start a rumor here.

Volker Weber, 2013-02-04

Again, Ed and I haven't necessarily always seen eye to eye, but I absolutely agree that he has done an incredible job of managing the Notes/Domino product over the past 10 years or so.

I'm pleased that Ed has what is possibly an even higher profile role to go to within IBM (though outside Lotus/ICS) - much deserved for sure. Good luck, Ed.

Stuart McIntyre, 2013-02-04

I never thought, I would say this, but now, that I have to use Outlook in the company I work for, I miss Lotus Notes.

Thomas Langel, 2013-02-04

vowe is a good mother.

The announcement has been done internally at IBM, but I am still turning over words on a blog post. Morning US-time.

I've heard around town today that one very important point from your posting has been missed - that we've always been friends. I have struggled occasionally, and publicly, with "the provocative author of vowe.net" versus Volker Weber. When I eventually learned that there was a difference, and that it was ok that there was a difference, it was easy to make peace. That process might have started over cold salmon with Ute at your kitchen table. Or it started when I rolled up in that ridiculously over-featured S-class rental. Or maybe over the green beer in Berlin, as you recall it.

Any which way, since I formally started the next step in my career development those many months ago, you have been a trusted advisor and realist. I suppose it is not without a bit of karma that I've now landed in the mobile space, where you are one of the most trusted voices.

The cycle begins again. Please don't kick my ass during our first press interview in this job, though.

Ed Brill, 2013-02-05

Yeah, right. ;-)

Volker Weber, 2013-02-05

If there's one thing I've learnt over the last year it's that friendships and respect for colleagues, ex-colleagues and contacts we make in our working lives are more important than differences in opinions about technologies. It's great to see Volker and Ed have this love-in and show that they're big men unaffected by a few small arguments.

Darren Adams, 2013-02-07

Thanks Darren, yes we are. There are smaller men who wanted to have it different, but I always ignored them.

Volker Weber, 2013-02-07

Always good to see good examples of professional conduct!

Lars Berntrop-Bos, 2013-02-07

Old vowe.net archive pages

I explain difficult concepts in simple ways. For free, and for money. Clue procurement and bullshit detection.

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