Spanky's Place

He discussed Lotus business successes over the past year, and covered (and dispelled) a bunch of the FUD spread by the Microsoft folks. He had promised not to use the "Microsoft Product Graveyard", so instead he discussed the rather checkered past of Microsoft's product line. He discussed the value of some of the "free" software from Microsoft, and tried to use the public's preference for bottled water as an analogy.

This (originally) didn't work out as he had hoped, because he made the mistake of asking John Roling why he was drinking bottled water vs. tap water. John (never the one to pass up a perfect opportunity) held up his bottle of Lotusphere 2005 water and answered "because it's free". Much laughter ensued. Ed, the consummate professional, recovered nicely and went on to explain that the reason people drink bottled water vs. tap (free) water is because there is more value in the bottled water. While Penn & Teller might disagree, I think Ed made his point very well.

All in all, this was (as usual) a great session.

-Devin.