Another interesting twist in this context: Stephen Elop also used to work for Lotus -- he was a Lotus Consulting director in the mid-90s, with responsibility for Canada and the midwestern US. Small world; I was also at Lotus then, running Notes product management, and worked with Stephen when I was VP Strategy at Macromedia during 2001 - 2002. Perhaps Stephen will have time to occasionally join the monthly Lotus alumni club breakfast meetings in Redmond...
[Update: details from this page: "Prior to joining Macromedia, Elop was Senior Vice President, Systems/CIO for Boston Chicken, Inc. (1994-1998), one of the largest food retailers in the United States. Prior to this, Elop was a Director in Lotus Development Corporation's Consulting Services Group, with responsibility for Canada and the US mid-west (1992-1994). Elop joined Lotus as part of the acquisition of Soma, Inc., a Canadian software development and management consultancy."]
Some observations from Joe Wilcox:
The choice of Elop is in some ways revealing. He is former Macromedia CEO, and he remained with Adobe in the top field operations position for a year following the merger. I've been saying for years that Adobe and Microsoft are on collision course in the enterprise. Biggest competition comes from Microsoft's Business division. It's no coincidence, methinks, that Raikes' replacement comes from Adobe/Macromedia. The Elop choice foreshadows where Microsoft is going in the enterprise, and it's to places where Adobe also competes.
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