As most of you in the Domino blogging community already know, Ed Brill -- long one of the strongest and staunchest supporters of the platform -- has been promoted to Director, End-User Messaging and Collaboration at IBM. That's a big deal.

Its a big deal for Ed, of course, and its a big deal for all of us, as I believe Ed to have been very empathetic to the "right" side of many of the product battles you've seen referenced here and other places. I chose that word carefully, because I don't claim for a minute that he's always been in agreement with me, or with the community at large -- but I know with absolute certainty that he's always at the very least had a solid and real understanding of the reasons behind our positions. I am left though, with some questions about how IBM has set things up. Maybe you know the answers and can enlighten me

1. I understand that Lotus Notes is under the "Messaging and Collaboration" heading, but the Domino server is not. Is this true? If it is true, how is it possible? Isn't it very odd that these aren't considered the same product, yet is seems impossible for IBM to release them in an uncoupled way? Even though we can install a server upgrade and not a client upgrade, or can install a client upgrade and not a server upgrade -- these cannot be released separately so that the work on each can progress until it is most complete. Does this make any sense to anyone?

2. I understand that Sametime and Quick'r are not part of "Messaging and Collaboration". Is this true? If it is true, how is it possible? If Sametime isn't about messaging, and if Quick'r isn't about collaboration, what exactly are they about?

3. Am I right in assuming that the designation "END USER" as a qualifier to "Messaging and Collaboration" is a distinction that specifically removes Websphere and MQSeries from being managed by Ed? If so, is this the reason being given to keep Domino as a server product not included as well?

Ed's success is going to be very very good for the Notes client platform at a time when it really does need that perspective. I hope this is a sign that the rest of IBM is paying more attention to the core product space here.