Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Middleware Shmiddleware

The new ad campaign for Notes/Domino 7 has a boxing motif. Not bad but look at the very bottom of the ad copy. It says:
IBM Middleware
Notes/Domino is middleware? Hmm. Middleware is glue. It acts as an integrator of different application components. Sure, Domino can integrate legacy systems, external databases, etc. But is the Notes client middleware? A large percentage of Notes/Domino usage is for email. Is email middleware? IBM has products such as MQ that are classic middleware. But what's the point of applying the term to everything else? It makes it confusing and vague — nearly as bad as the term groupware.