Want to feel really old? Remember the swimming baby pictured on the front of Nirvana’s Nevermind album? He is now 28.
French actor and singer Maurice Chevalier is often quoted as having said: “Old age isn’t so bad when you consider the alternative.” That quote is funny because it’s really a grim reminder of our own mortality, but there are many other quotes and sayings that have a more optimistic spin, along the lines of “You’re only as old as you feel.”
Lotus Notes version 1.0 was released 30 years ago last week, in 1989. That may seem old in software terms. After all, Facebook is only half that age, and Twitter is barely a teenager. Thirty years ago also seems like ancient history when you think about world events that were happening at that time. 1989 was the year that the Berlin Wall came down, Polish trade union Solidarity won an election and Chinese students were protesting in Tiananmen Square.
Somehow, though, 1989 doesn’t seem quite so long ago when you think about the music that was popular at the time. Madonna’s “Like a Prayer”, “Eternal Flame” by The Bangles, and the B-52s’ “Love Shack” seem like they were hits only yesterday, to me.
For many people, the association with popular music of the time makes it hard to believe how much time has passed since a given event. This is a phenomenon that was given a name by British rock critic Pete Paphides, who coined the term “mortality maths" to describe it. That idea is nicely summed up in this video made by the BBC.
That effect seems much worse when you double the amount of time since the event in question. For example, you may have been surprised to learn that Nevermind by Nirvana is 28 years old, but 28 years before that was the year that President John F Kennedy was assassinated. Remember “Yesterday” by The Beatles? More time has elapsed since that song was released than between that and the outbreak of World War 1.
So age, and particularly old age, really is a question of perception. In humans, as we get older, our bones get brittle and our muscles grow weak. Old software, on the other hand, tends to lose innovation - all the features that can be added have been added. By that measure, Lotus Notes, now HCL Notes and Domino, looks like a spring chicken right now.
HCL just hosted the launch of v11 of Notes and Domino, and, even at 30 years old, it’s packed with new innovations. There’s a new app builder client aimed at business users (Domino Volt). There’s a new mobile client that allows you to run older Notes apps on mobile devices largely unchanged. There’s a new, truly modernized Notes client. And, perhaps most importantly, HCL is modernizing the arcane licensing model, moving to simple user-based pricing for the platform.
So, when it comes to software, it really doesn’t matter how old the product is. What matters is how much innovation the product is enjoying and the extent to which that makes the product useful and relevant in today’s world.
To chat with us about what makes Notes and Domino relevant and exciting in today’s world, how the simplified licensing model works or anything else, just click below. We love to chat!