"Frankly, those are rumors started by Microsoft. Their competitive tactic is to try to convince customers that Notes is not being invested in. They have been doing that for a couple of years now, and looking fairly foolish, because they made pronouncements that Notes 7 would be the last release of Notes that Lotus ever shipped. Recently I heard [Steve] Ballmer [CEO of Microsoft] being quoted saying that maybe we are going to build Notes Hannover ... 'But I bet they'll never deliver it'. They are looking a little bit foolish ... when the Notes business alone grew 10 percent last year."

Microsoft New Zealand declined to comment on the issue.

Notes has sold 125 million licences so far, according to Bisconti.

He says that he himself has been using Notes for 14 years, that everyone at IBM uses Notes, and that IBM has already upgraded the infrastructure to Notes Domino 7.

"Notes Domino 7 has been downloaded by 70,000 of our customers already and is being implemented faster than any release that we have tracked previously," he says.