[James_F]

ZD Net Australia Article
Mitch Kapor is starting up an open source alternative to Outlook.

Usually when I see someone taking on Microsoft I laugh them off my screen but Mitch Kapor seems to have the right idea.

Trying to replace Microsoft Outlook or Lotus Notes, IBM's e-mail suite, in companies with thousands of employees is not in the plan, Kapor said.

What we might end up with is a nice Outlook Express replacement that I would use.

 

[gcutler]

Kapor like so many in the past (Philippe Kahn of Borland to name a big one) may have lost his insight to the industry, and we may never hear from him again? The open source if probably a good idea but I get nervous when a "Former CEO" trys to bring it to the forefront. I often feel more comfortable when some new Wiz Kid births the idea, chances are there are less old ideas attached to it???

 

[James_F]

See I disagree, he lends credibility to the project where wiz kids might not be able to bring the project forward.

 

[gcutler]

I don't know if it is an ego factor or what, but I think a Former CEO factor jinxes it. I especially remember watching Dvorak's "McLaughlin Group" type show on ZDTV and it seemed to me that the track record of the former CEOs on being behind some new technology was pretty poor. Now granted I don't have statistics, but it just sticks in my head that the stats were not very good. And the new tech would come from some guy we never heard of or would be brought into a bigger company when the new tech sold it to a bigger company (kind of like Iris Associates really doing Lotus Notes for Lotus until it was bought by Lotus...)

Figuring the new tech we all fall for is usually not heralded by the big shots (unless you are MS) but by someone we didn't notice until they filled our rear view mirror.

 

[Ryan]

We have a family friend who was one of the first seven employees at Lotus. I met Mitch when they were still working in the basement of a candy factory in Cambridge. I don't remember much as I was about 10 at the time. But our friend convinced my mom to get me my first computer on that visit--the old VIC-20. I cut my programming teeth on that machine. I wonder where it is now?

 

[gcutler]

At a job I found a version of PC 1-2-3 v1.0. Was on 2.01 at the time, couldn't believe how archaic even 1.0 was. But Visicalc was even more archaic. Lucky for Lotus that the makers of Visicalc never pursued any copywrite infringment (ex-hippies who felt they were making the world better). It is funny for my 15 year career, Lotus has played a central part (1988-1992 lots of Lotus 1-2-3, 1992-Present lots of Lotus Notes/Domino) Now with Notes/Domino 6, the Lotus name has almost disappeared.

 

[James_F]

Hey, I don't disagree that there are more failures than sucesses with former CEOs, but we aren't talking about a huge application here. Just some guys who want to change how we use PIMs... Thats how I see it.