The Guardian : “Survival of the unfittest”

The Guardian published quite a bold article on Lotus Notes today …

… Lotus Notes is used by millions of people, but almost all of them seem to hate it. How can a program be so bad, yet thrive?

Imagine a program used by 120 million people, of whom about 119m hate it. Sound unlikely? Yet that’s the perception one garners in trying to discover whether Lotus Notes, IBM’s “groupware” application, is – as readers of Technology blog suggested – the “world’s worst application”. The discussions (at http://tinyurl.com/e4a56 and http://tinyurl.com/d9gdk) suggest that those who have used it are united: to the average person, Notes displays all the user-friendliness of a cornered rat. …

…IBM acquired Lotus, principally to get Notes, in July 1995, and has driven a series of upgrades. Fast-forward to today, and Notes has gained widespread takeup: users in the UK include British Airways, Toyota, Volkswagen, Standard Life Assurance and most major newspaper groups (including Guardian Media Group). But further investigation shows that its proponents tend to be administrators, and its detractors the end users. …


Read the article over on the Guardian website