Manzi Resigns at Lotus

October 1995

Manzi Resigns at Lotus

On October 11, Jim Manzi abruptly announced his immediate resignation from the Lotus Development division of IBM. "I'm not the right person to be leading a division in a $70 Billion company," said Manzi, although he professed a continuing affinity for being the successful leader of a large, independent software company.

Jim Manzi had done a magnificent job being the visionary for Notes and its strongest proponent in a long, hard battle to get the groupware market going. It's ironic that he should leave now, less than 100 days after IBM and Lotus tied the knot, just as the resources to establish Notes as an industry standard in a much broader -- and more profitable -- market seemed within his grasp.

Manzi politely declined to provide any more detailed explanation for his sudden departure. He says he has no particular plans for the future and his successor has not been named. John M. Thompson, IBM Executive Vice President of Software, will run the division until this time and a successor would likely report to him and not--- like Manzi -- directly to Lou Gerstner.

However, beneath this polite veneer, unconfirmed industry rumors indicate that Gerstner and Manzi were at odds on the future positioning of Notes and that, contrary to IBM's professed hands off public stance, IBM was going to insist on having its way. If this should be true, we hope they are getting excellent advice on how to do battle in a software market that is really quite different than the markets in which IBM has traditionally competed.

Notes is in for hefty competition from products like Novell's GroupWise, Microsoft Exchange (eventually), and even Internet-based products like Netscape's new Collabra acquisition. It will take a strong hand at the helm -- and one who knows the competition well -- to maintain Notes hard-won leadership position as the groupware market goes mainstream.

Comments or Questions: Send Email to opinions@wohl.com

Home/ Search / 2005 Articles / Issue Archive / Free Newsletter

Entire contents © 1995 by Amy D. Wohl. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written permission is forbidden.