Thanks to Jack Dausman for the pointer to this classic FUD by Steve Bryant, aka ExchangeGeek. I took the title of this post from a single sentence in Steve's post. It's the central thought of the entire post, yet it contains four separate vague and uncertain phrases.

In most cases¹, roughly² 83% of the current applications in use are probably³ based on standard templates and can be moved to .NET fairly easily⁴.

This might be one of the most sneaky and evasive sentences I've ever read. Four expressions of uncertainty surround a very definite-sounding number. One doesn't say "roughly 83%" unless one is implying that there is an accurate measurement that is close to 83%, say 82.77% or 83.29%... something like that. If Steve were being honest about the fact that the number is as uncertain as the rest of the sentence clearly implies, he would have said "roughly 80%" or even "roughly 85%", but he wants people to remember the 83% without the qualifiers of "in most cases", "roughly", "probably".

Steve provides no facts to back his number. No references. No sample size of the survey of representative customers that was used to arrive at this figure. To me, that means that the number is in most cases roughly probably made up out of thin air.

I have started thinking about how to counter this claim with facts. Obviously, a survey of Notes and Domino customers using Microsoft's own tool could be done, but Paul Mooney has already thoroughly analyzed the tool and exposed its real purpose and I'm not sure I want to lend any credibility to it by using it -- even by using it to rebut itself! So for now, I'm still thinking about alternative ideas.

1. Bruce Currier03/16/2006 12:15:19 PM

Richard,
If this is any help, we are a small company of about 200-225 users. We are running multi-partitioned/clustered Domino 7.0 server for mail & apps and a Domino 6.5.2 server for SameTime. We have 149 DB's in varying states of use. 5 are using a standard non-messed with template. 3 started as standard templates, but we've since modified them. 11 of them are a purchased HR application. The other 130 DB's either started as blank templates or from sources such as OpenNTF.
I guess I miss the boat a bit as far as Steve Bryant is concerned - LOL

2. Roy Holder03/16/2006 09:20:07 PM
Homepage: http://www.TheOldGit.com

Richard,

I'm currently working for a client managing the migration of all their applications from the current locally managed servers to centrally - outsource managed - servers.

As part of this process I've "discovered", categorised and analysed the designs of some 7320 unique replica databases that are NOT either system dbs, mail files or mail-in databases. The total number of databases on Domino servers was 100,151 at the last check.

Of these 7320 application databases, 7229 do NOT inherit from any template. That's not to say they weren't created from a standard template, rather that the likelyhood is that they are not of the same design as when they were first created!

That means that 98.76% of the pure application databases are probably not "based on standard templates". Oh, and of those 91 other databases, NONE of them are based on a standard template.

These are real world numbers! And the tool I used to get this information? Well, it's a custom written Notes application. Designed specifically to meet the client's needs. I could even tell you how many of the 100,151 databases have a form called "Memo" if you wanted to know.

All written in LotusScript with a few API calls built-in to refreive usage stats and the like. Not rocket science but damn accurate.

RoyH (AKA TheOldGit).

3. Andrew Tetlaw04/11/2006 05:47:11 PM
Homepage: http://tetlaw.id.au

My company has about 200 employees and a Notes based intranet with a stack of apps, NONE of which are based on standard templates.

We even customise the mail template for intranet integration.