Apologies for the off-topic post but this is a community I trust and of which I’ve been a member of several years.
Has anyone else tried to follow the IBM line and try some of this “NextGen” stuff?
Specifically, I’d like to know if anyone from a Lotus background has attempted to install WebSphere Portal (or even LMS)? We are struggling badly here. The installation process is utterly dreadful and tiresome. We’ve even discovered that to get Portal to work we need a fixpack that is not even available for download.
I’m not entirely sure what I am hoping to achieve with this post, but basically my feelings are that if IBM want us Lotus-followers to move over to the NextGen lane then they are going to have to make it a damn site easier to do stuff like install their software.
Does anyone else agree?
Here’s food for thought: who fancies installing Domino 7 on top of WebSphere & DB2 if it goes “NextGen”? Do you really want to have to follow 106 pages of installation instructions as with LMS?
Subject: Off topic: “NextGen” Installation
I’ve to admit it’s an excellent point…
Though I’m eager to see nextgen, particularily the RAD stuff, I should say that all previous experience installing websphere stuff (portal or app server or …) are really really nightmare ( or at list 2 to 4 times longer even when performed by a specialist) compared to installing Domino.
Not to mention current application development RAD features…Playing with websphere app dev the last month or so (and yes it’s a very clean tool), I can say that the productivity and the maturity of domino designer is extremely better.
That’s my humble opinion, though you can be sure I’ll rush on the nextgen rad to test drive it 
ps : one thing I try to keep in mind about all this is that we, developers, are here to solve business problems, not to code J2EE 1.4.1 or .Net components. The goal to reach is our customers satisfaction, not the code for the beauty of it (at least in our job…if we want to do art-programming at home that’s another story)!
My 2 cents.