By Steve Niles
The days leading up to Lotusphere are always quite exciting, but few expected it to be as exciting as it's been this year. Much of the excitement stems from some surprising announcements made by IBM and Lotus in the past weeks.
Zollar replaced
First there was the highly publicized replacement of Al Zollar as Lotus general manager. Zollar originally took on that position in 2000, replacing Jeff Papows. Now he will be moving on to become general manager of IBM's iSeries server group.
His replacement is Ambuj Goyal, who was formerly general manager of IBM's Solutions and Strategy Division, where he was responsible for WebSphere business integration, setting business strategy for IBM's Software Group, and delivering industry-specific solutions based on IBM's middleware.
Some have questioned the timing of this announcement, coming as it does mere weeks before Lotusphere. However in his article, "Lotus' executive shuffle makes perfect sense" (at http://searchdomino.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid4_gci874008,00.html), Scott Lemieuxhere says there's nothing at all strange about the timing. Lemieuxhere writes, "Consider the reaction if this was initially announced at Lotusphere or, worse yet, sometime shortly after the conference ended? If the news was not announced or leaked now it would hit like a bombshell in Orlando. If it was announced following the conference we'd all be wondering why IBM was 'hiding' the news from us."
He makes a very good point. Other analysts naturally wonder whether Zollar was replaced due to the performance of the Lotus unit. Steven Burke at CRN reported that Zollar "refused to comment on the financial picture for the software unit, citing the anticipated release of IBM's year-end sales and earnings," in the article "Zollar Is Out As Lotus Software Chief" at http://www.crn.com/sections/BreakingNews/breakingnews.asp?ArticleID=39292. However, Hiawatha Bray presents a more plausible suggestion in the article, "Zollar to leave Lotus for new IBM job," in the Boston Globe at http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/010/business/Zollar_to_leave_Lotus_for_new_IBM_job+.shtml. The article cites Tom Bittman, IBM analyst for Gartner Inc., as saying, "The way IBM works, to move up you move around. I see this strictly as a career move for him."
The overall consensus is, this change is not as surprising as it first appears. Jon Panker, News Editor at SearchDomino.com, writes, "Those familiar with IBM's strategy are hardly surprised that Big Blue tapped an executive closely aligned with WebSphere to lead Lotus, given the growing alignment between the Web-enabling tool and Domino, as well as IBM's overall e-business push." This comes from the article, "IBM replaces Zollar on eve of Lotusphere" at http://searchdomino.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid4_gci873474,00.html.