There is not a day that passes that I'm not asked what should be a rather simple question to answer:

I'm new to Lotus, can you recommend any books or websites to help me get started?

These questions come from a mix of people, most needing to pick up Lotus product family platform development for a particular task or assignment. I do find that more and more are asking me -- having found me through Google, Facebook, Twitter, et al -- after downloading Domino Designer in Eclipse... and now they're not too sure what to do next.

They're all looking for books, websites, wikis, and even training courses on this platform. And while there are excellent resources out there today -- maintained by both IBM and the members of the Lotus Online Community -- it's my opinion that we are no where near where we need to be in addressing the demand for knowledge of this platform... and that it will ultimately bring about it's downfall.

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A while back (July 23, 2009), I posted a public response to David Hoff of Cloud Sherpas, who spoke of all of the joys and happiness afforded someone who migrates from IBM Lotus products to Google Apps. Of course, this was a competitive marketing piece in editorial's clothing... I mean, I'd rather hear from all of the amazing benefits resulting from a migration from Lotus Notes Domino to Google Apps from an actual customer...

Lucky me, this weekend I received the following email:

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Chris Byrne has started a new website with the intent of further publicizing Lotus wins in the enterprise through case studies at www.dominoapplications.com.

From the site's What is this site for? section:

IBM Lotus Notes and Domino is under attack now from Google. Google is touting their success in migrating organizations from from the Lotus Software platform to their SaaS platform.

This may be all well and good for organizations that have never really invested in leveraging the application side of Domino. And they may have valid reasons why they did not build applications.

But many organizations have built robust applications that can in no way be reproduced in GoogleApps, and people need to understand that.

This site will be used to show the world what kind of applications people have built, and how they helped meet a business requirement.

I am all for spreading the message beyond the yellow bubble that Lotus products can address enterprise needs often with low-cost high-function solutions, but when going against Google - which we yellowbleeders most certainly are - I am often concerned over who outside of our community will get the message.

You can Contact Chris if you have a win to share - which I think we all do - and he'll work on getting you access for posting said case studies ASAP.