With a theme of "In the Know," this year's Lotusphere kicked off with a keynote focusing on closing the knowledge gap. To reinforce the importance of bridging the knowledge gap -- being able to access knowledge and experts anywhere and anytime -- Lotus CEO Al Zollar cited a recent IDC study. IDC found the inability to bridge the knowledge gap results in substantial intellectual rework -- or as Zollar put it, reinventing the wheel -- and substantial loss in performance. IDC contends these inefficiencies translate to a cost of US$5,000 per employee per year.

Lotus' strategy for 2001 is to be "the mind of e-business." To do this, Lotus is pushing three core initiatives: knowledge management, messaging and collaboration, and e-learning. Zollar cited three customers using Lotus technology for these purposes:

General Electric -- GE recently launched an internal K-station-based knowledge management initiative.
ExxonMobil -- After the merger, it had to make the choice between Notes mail and Outlook/Exchange. ExxonMobil chose Notes.
Mitsubishi -- The company recently launched an internal LearningSpace-based e-learning initiative.

Lotus was also pleased to introduce, in person, another long-time Lotus customer, Francis Ford Coppola, who discussed his use of collaborative technology to facilitate the movie making process.

The emphasis on Notes and Domino was much less than in previous years. Instead, Zollar, Lotus Executive Vice President Jeanette Horan, and Lotus Vice President Scott Cooper focused on peripheral products such as Sametime, LearningSpace, QuickPlace, and K-station, which is "well integrated with Domino, but designed as an independent product." This year's product demonstration focused on integration between K-station, QuickPlace, the iNotes Web client, Domino Everyplace, and Discovery Server. This is in line with a de-emphasis on the Notes and Domino products referred to in a memo sent from Al Zollar to Lotus employees in early January. In the memo, Zollar explains that although sales of Notes and Domino licenses and servers constitute much of Lotus current revenue, expectation are that growth going forward will be in innovative peripheral products.