Woowar

Category lotus
Just in case, in the face of the recent aggressive press release from IBM/Lotus, the Lotus community forgets just how far we've come in the last three years, let's remind ourselves:

Mills: After this year's R6 deliverable, the next version will be a WebSphere-based version. Notes is 80 percent middleware today. It already has some WebSphere and pieces of DB2 embedded in it today. But it's fundamentally built on the Notes file system, which is a late '80s design point.

Tech Update: So you're replacing the whole underlying data store?

Mills: Throwing out the whole infrastructure and revamping the data storage. We have flexible schema-mapping capability in DB2 today, so we can map the Notes file systems and we can map XML natively. You can use alternative syntax like XML to actually access the data that sits in DB2 today. So that capability in DB2 now is allowing us to pull out the old Notes file structure and insert the DB2 infrastructure.

(From ZDNet on 04-Mar-02)

Next time somebody tries to sell you a grand architectural vision that stinks, just stand up and say that it stinks. I mean, who amongst us was actually convinced that this was the right way for IBM to be going? Four wasted years, many wasted man-years, a lot of grey hairs, a lot of lost/disillusioned/disgruntled/confused customers. A terrible shame.

But, Lotus Notes/Domino are still here, they're still being used, we're still in business, and it even looks as though IBM might be beginning to realise that a similar level of change in the marketing program to that which has already occurred to the technology program is required. Let's hope, eh?

Posted by Julian Woodward At 9:14 AM Location | Permalink | Comments (1)

Category lotus
The Washington Post has picked up on last week's Lotus press release from IBM: "IBM Counters Microsoft's Software Seat-stealing Boast". The subtitle is "Microsoft may be targeting Notes users, but they won't be switching without a fight from IBM."

It's good that the press is sensing this change of mood. I see IBM climbing back into the ring for a fight. But Microsoft is going to fight hard and dirty, and they've had a lot more practice, and they have a lot more fans to cheer them on. It might not be pretty ...

Posted by Julian Woodward At 7:53 AM Location | Permalink | Comments (0)

Category lotus ibm
As Ed blogged yesterday, the Lotus software business is continuing to grow:

... and revenues for Lotus software, which allows collaborating and messaging by clients in real-time communication and knowledge management, increased 21 percent year over year

Link: IBM press release.

Overall software group growth for Q2'08 vs Q2'07 was 17%, or 9% in real terms once currency fluctuations are ironed out. Applying the same currency fluctuation model to the Lotus figures (which assumes the Lotus sales profile follows roughly the same global distribution) gives 11% growth for Lotus in real terms.

Leaving to one side (for once) comments about invisible/non-existent marketing and lack of understanding of what SMB/SME actually means, these are impressive-sounding figures. Well done all. Onwards and upwards ...

Posted by Julian Woodward At 7:05 AM Location London | Permalink | Comments (2)

Category ibm lotus iphone
Once upon a time ...

It's a two-horse race. You see that other horse galloping around: well, we've decided it's just all show and bluster, and that horse is never going to win. It's bound to drop half way round. Or three quarters. What? It's still going? Damn. Well, in that case we'd better move too. Hmm, which way was it ... how do these leg things work? Ah yes, there you are, got it, we're trotting now. Wey-hey! See everybody, we're trotting too! What did you say? The race is over? We've lost? Damn damn. Oh well, there are plenty of other races. And anyway, we like coming a dignified second. All that getting worked up and sweaty can't be good for one's image. And one day we'll win like this. One day. We'll show you ...

As there isn't a bloke (or a talking horse) called "Mr IBM" you can walk up to, throw a bucket of water over, slap round the face, and tell him to wake the f*** up, perhaps you may want to support this idea on IdeaJam instead...

UPDATE: Ed wants us to tell Apple, not IBM. I happen to think he's wrong on this, and that it's IBM's job to be the mover here. But it can't hurt to tell Apple too (and I have).

Posted by Julian Woodward At 7:24 AM Location London | Permalink | Comments (0)

Category ibm lotus ILUG
Sitting in Dublin airport, and have just finished a giant plate of "traditional" Irish breakfast. Before the bacon, sausages, eggs, hashbrowns, beans, white pudding (what IS that stuff?), toast and black pudding actually kill me, I wanted to jot down some thoughts on what I've just experienced, and been part of, over the last few days.

The ILUG2008 team - of which I am privileged to have been a small part - has achieved something that most sane people would have written off as impossible before even trying. To stage a free-to-attend technical conference, over 3 days, with 4 parallel tracks, 400 delegates, and a list of speakers the equal of any you might see at the major paid-for conferences, is a fantastic accomplishment. By the way, I am absolutely not bragging or feeling any pride in this, as I would neither claim nor accept credit for "organising" this event: that credit goes primarily to Paul Mooney and Eileen Fitzgerald, who have given so generously of their time and efforts. They are closely followed, of course, by Warren and Kitty Elsmore, Bill Buchan, Matt White, and a host of others.

What this event has shown, however, is the incredible spirit and camaraderie that exists in some communities, including of course this one. That spirit cannot be created: it happens because like-minded people look after each others interests, and view the wider long-term interests of the community as a whole as equally important to their own individual short-teen gain. The spirit can, however, be easily destroyed or polluted. The fact that the Lotus community has survived, over the years, the destructive efforts - both idiotically deliberate and cack-handedly unintentional - of the very organisation that should value it most highly - IBM - is testament to the strength and depth of the community itself. I for one am proud to be associated with it, and look forward, after 15 years of Lotus Notes, to another 15 years of working with some of the great software that Lotus has once again started to produce.

Onwards and upwards.

Posted by Julian Woodward At 10:57 AM Location Dublin | Permalink | Comments (2)

Category ibm lotus websphere portal
Stuart McIntyre has summarised the 2007 and 2008 IBM-Lotus strategy positions on his Collaboration Matters blog.

At the end of the post, he makes a point about the odd and uncomfortable position of Websphere Portal in the Lotus branding and strategy:

One minor negative - sort out that Websphere Portal logo IBM!!!  Worst case, make a purple version of the yellow/orange Lotus logos.  Best case, dual brand the Portal as both a Websphere and a Lotus product (think motor-industry brand engineering), and give it a proper Lotus title and logo!

Something with which I wholeheartedly agree.

The IBM brand for end-user software is Lotus. Notes, Connections, Bluehouse, Quickr: they're all designed primarily to deliver capabilities for normal business 'end users'. Websphere Portal is also end-user software. It's a set of technologies for delivering applications to end users, that runs on top of IBM's own-brand J2EE server - Websphere Application Server. A bit like Lotus Connections does. Or the Lotus SameTime Gateway (for good or bad). Yet, for historical reasons, Portal is stuck in the Websphere brand, even though it is pitched and presented by IBM (at Lotusphere) as a kind-of-is-but-kind-of-isn't-a-Lotus-product thing.

Anyway, you may agree or disagree with Stuart's point and my expansion of it. So head over to Stuart's blog entry and have your say. (I've disabled comments on this post, so all discussion happens in one place)

Posted by Julian Woodward At 12:10 PM Location London | Permalink | Comments (0)

Category lotus social
Matt and I thought it might be a good idea to organise a London social event for Lotus types.

So, mark the evening of 18th March in your diaries (with apologies now to anybody who's had the lack of foresight to give up booze for Lent).

Venue to be confirmed. You may choose to think of it as a super-secret location in the heart of London's bustling metropolis. But I prefer to think of it as a pub in Zone 1

UPDATE: Apparently, certain fellows north of the border have pointed out that LotusBeer is a highly prized and jealously guarded trademark, and implied that with their lion-like prowess they could drink us southern pansy kittens under the table. Roughly. Anyway, apologies for not including a link in homage in original post. I hope this is now rectified to the honourable gentlemen's satisfaction. Should the lions wish to attend the London event, there will of course be a couple of gratis pints lined up for them with our best wishes.

PS. It would, of course, be churlish of me to point out to Messrs Sue, Grabbit & Run that the word "LotusBeer" was in use prior to www.lotusbeer.com coming into existence. So I shan't.

Posted by Julian Woodward At 7:52 PM Location London | Permalink | Comments (2)

Category lotusphere2008 lotus ibm microsoft
Ed linked to an article on Silicon.com about the future of Lotus.

If Lotus can tap into the web 2.0 zeitgeist and harness the present wave of collaboration tools visible on the internet in a way that can be rolled out to corporate customers then it will be the undisputed leader of the next wave of corporate technology.

There is no question that companies will be building immense internal knowledge networks in the near future. The only question is how quickly attitudes will change so a corporate social network becomes as essential as email. It won't be long.

All good stuff, and it's an article that offers a fairly dispassionate and long-term view of the way the industry might go and what position Lotus could hold in that.

However, to fight a strong company like Microsoft (and they do have some great products, as well as some highly dubious ones) you have to fight on many fronts simultaneously. Lotus is doing an outstanding job on collaboration tools - there's no doubt in my mind that they are once more thought-leaders, and it's very refreshing. And, of course, there are well-publicised initiatives going on in the productivity software and SMB spaces: also great moves which seem to have come at just the right moment.

But to me there is one crucial part that currently appears to be missing. While IBM/Lotus is rapidly assembling a convincing story on Web 2.0, Microsoft and Adobe are pushing for the next post-Web 2.0 thing (yes, it's already been called 'Web 3.0') with their Silverlight and Flex products respectively. To compete at the leading/bleeding* edge, Lotus is going to need to get onto that bandwagon sooner rather than later: either by developing their own 'Web 3.0' technology, or by aligning with Microsoft or Adobe. In the latter case, the fact that the Adobe development environment - FlexBuilder - is an Eclipse plug-in, might give us a clue as to which technology might be favoured ...

 

* Bleeding edge yellow, of course

Posted by Julian Woodward At 7:16 PM Location London | Permalink | Comments (0)

Category lotus
One of the key announcements this year at Lotusphere was 'Lotus Foundations'.

This is basically a re-badging of Nitix Blue, IBM having announced an intention to acquire Nitix just days before Lotusphere.

The technology looks really good: a low-cost everything-a-small-business-needs package, running on Linux. In the US Nitix have traditionally sold the solution either as a hardware appliance or as a software insall, whereas outside the US it's been a software-only proposition. Mike Rhodin described it as 'the first in a family of software servers', which implies that the hardware element might go away, but we'll have to wait and see for mid-year when it's actually released.

One thing is sure, though: this is a head-on attack on Microsoft's 'Small Business Server' bundle, and a welcome one too.

It's a different bundle from the Microsoft SBS package, but covers some important elements like firewall and backup technology, as well as having a Domino server built in. The idea is that it should be a zero-skill install: just plug in the internet to one network port, your internal network to another, and the power cable, and it will do the rest. So it will work out network settings, DHCP, IP, DNS, etc, with no manual intervention. Very much just plug-and-go. Cool stuff if it works There's a simple UI to register users and manage security, and the package then manages creation of Notes IDs and mail files behind the scenes, hiding 99% of the ND configuration options one normally has to deal with.

Nitix have worked with partners to provide additional bundled Notes/Domino software using special installer software (hands up - I know nothing more about this). So that's one area where there's potential for partners to make revenue. The main way, though, as far as I can tell, is going to be selling support services to a small business, which is probably outside the traditional focus of many existing business partners. I wonder, therefore, whether this will be a success with existing IBM BPs or whether it will actually be some of the gazillions of small business support service companies that have more success driving this into the market. If your business model is selling fixed-price per-seat infrastructure support contracts, then having an offering available from a major vendor that is based on Linux, rather than Windows, is going to be tempting because of the increased reliability on offer. Of course, there's a learning curve, but the whole point of the Nitix stuff is to make that curve as easy as possible.

Verdict at this stage: definitely worth watching this: a bold move by IBM/Lotus to disrupt a Microsoft virtual monopoly, and to break into the genuine small business arena where IBM traditionally has no presence.

(edited to fix early morning typos)

Posted by Julian Woodward At 2:54 PM Location | Permalink | Comments (3)

Category lotus lotusphere
There were a lot of announcements at the Lotusphere Opening General Session on Monday. Over the last few days I've been trying to make sense of them, and of what this means in terms of the Lotus strategy and market position.

I'll post separately on each of the major announcements over the next 24 hours - Foundations, Mashups, Atlantic, "Bluehouse", Protector, Notes 8.0.1 sidebar widgets.

The overriding message, though, is that for the first time since the IBM acquisition 12 years ago, the Lotus brand is deliberately going after small business customers. By which I mean REAL small businesses: 2 to 20 people, rather than IBM's historical definition of under a thousand. This is really good news, as it brings a serious competitor into a space in which for years Microsoft has had a virtual monopoly. Several of the new products are aimed at these types of customers and I'm frankly delighted.

I do, however, have two concerns.

Firstly, the very profusion of new products is a problem. For one thing, IBM's main route to this market is through existing small partners like Axiot, and it's going to be a challenge to enable those partners to get to the right level of knowledge to be able to sell the products. Perhaps more seriously, it's not yet clear what the partner revenue model will be, particularly for partners like Axiot who are focused on services rather than licence sales. Another facet of this concern is that a cynic might suggest that if you throw enough products at the wall one or two might stick and the rest can be killed off. Certainly there is enough functionality overlap between the various existing and new product lines to raise some eyebrows AND to make it hard to position them clearly.

Which leads me onto the second problem as I see it: marketing. IBM has always had excellent technology (ignoring Workplace which was, frankly, a pile of crap). But the IBM marketing function has always struggled to connect with the public effectively. It was superior marketing, not superior technology, which allowed Microsoft to inflict so much damage on Lotus Notes. If there was one message I would want IBM to hear it would be this: you need to get serious about marketing. Spend money, and lots of it. Don't use lack of budget as an excuse: your balance sheet is a matter of public record so we know that there is plenty of money available if there is the will to tackle this problem. Sack the beancounters and use the money you save to headhunt a few key marketing people from Microsoft and Apple. Again, get serious.

Rant over.

Postings on individual products will follow shortly.

Posted by Julian Woodward At 7:12 PM Location Lotusphere | Permalink | Comments (4)

Category ideajam lotus
The day has come: Idea Jam officially launches today. If you haven't already heard about this, it's a site which allows you to post an idea you have for improving one of the Lotus products, and have that idea voted on and commented on by any interested party.

Idea Jam is a place where people can post and share their ideas, and gauge the marketability, popularity and viability with input from others. When an idea gets posted, others can help promote or demote the idea and provide comments. Popular ideas will bubble to the top. Unlike blogs and discussion forums, Idea Jam provides a single place to measure the value of an idea.

Ideas are grouped into “Idea Spaces” – which currently include IBM’s Lotus Connections, Lotus Notes and Domino, Lotus Quickr, Lotus Sametime, Lotus Symphony, Lotusphere, Lotus Web Content Manager and WebSphere Portal. Additional Idea Spaces for OpenNTF and Idea Jam itself are also available. In the future additional “jam sessions” with related idea spaces will be created for other topics of interest.

“Beta testers have entered over 450 ideas, cast 8,000+ votes and made 1,400+ comments during the two month beta testing period. The development team used the ideas entered by beta testers to improve Idea Jam’s features and functionality. We used the system to build the system,” says Bruce Elgort, President of Elguji Software.

Idea Jam includes many features that make the site easy and fun to use:

• Tags – All ideas are “tagged” with at least one or more tags. Users can then use tag clouds to see which tags are popular.
• RSS – Idea Jam makes extensive use of RSS feeds including feeds for idea spaces, a specific idea, a user or for any given tag.
• User Profiles – Users can view their own ideas, their comments, and the ideas they voted on.
• Views – Ideas can be viewed by popularity, most recent, most comments, recent comments and more. Each view also has an associated RSS feed.
• Unvoted – Users can easily review ideas that they have not voted on in each Idea Space.
• Random – Users can be presented with a random idea for their collaboration and input.
• What’s Hot - See which ideas were most active today, over the last seven days and over the last twenty eight days.

Elguji Ideas and the Idea Jam were developed by Elguji Software in conjunction with Matt White of Fynn Consulting Ltd, London, and Sean Burgess of ASND LLC in Laurel, Maryland. Elguji Ideas and Idea Jam software were built with IBM Lotus Domino Designer, The MooTools Javascript framework, the Yahoo User Interface Libraries, Genii Software’s CoexEdit and runs on IBM Lotus Domino 8.0. The PSC Group is hosting the Idea Jam site.

Congratulations to Bruce, Matt, Sean and all others involved in producing this excellent (and good-looking!) Domino application. "All power to your elbow" as some might say.

Posted by Julian Woodward At 7:26 AM Location | Permalink | Comments (0)

Category lotus symphony open source lotus symphony
As you may have seen, IBM recently announced the availability of Lotus Symphony beta 2.

The top coverage was all about the 250,000 downloads so far, and the "up to 50%" performance improvements. But buried in the typically thrillingly laid-out IBM press release is this gem:

Due to the strong market response, IBM is doubling its global resources devoted to Symphony, increasing the Symphony development team to more than 70 software programmers.

That's a lot of people. Beta 2 was available 8 weeks after beta 1, on November 13th. From then until the Lotusphere opening general session is exactly 10 weeks. I wonder what we'll see then ...

Posted by Julian Woodward At 12:16 PM Location | Permalink | Comments (1)

Category lotus brainstorm
Just in case you've missed it ... Bruce Elgort and Elguji have announced the availability date for Idea Jam. This is a great idea, designed to generate more great ideas, and IBM will be keeping track of this to see what the real people want ...

Having been one of the lucky beta testers, I can confirm that Bruce, Matt White and Sean Burgess have done a great job to produce a fantastic tool. See the full announcement. Roll on November 20th...

Posted by Julian Woodward At 8:52 PM Location | Permalink | Comments (5)

Category uklug lotus
The first UKLUG event came and went and was, it seems, generally well received.

After arriving at 7am to help set up, I spent most of the day in the 'hands-on lab'. If you've followed Paul/Warren/Matt's blogs (see my blogroll) you'll have realised that the one thing that IBM overlooked when they imaged 20 laptops for us ... was to tell us the Windows password. So we didn't actually start installing the software for the lab until nearly 9am. But by 11am we had a Domino8 server, a SameTime 7.5.1 server, a Quickr8 server, and Notes 8 running on 8 PCs (two of the ten just refused to install Notes - why does that happen?!), and our composite application demo working and showing Notes + Domino + web + web-service content.

We had some good feedback in the lab, with people being able to get their hands on some of the software for the first time.

The drinks reception in the evening was fun, although there weren't quite enough hats to go around!

Here are the rest of my UKLUG photos on Flickr

Posted by Julian Woodward At 12:00 AM Location London | Permalink | Comments (1)

Category petition lotus ibm
If you've been hanging around the Lotus blogosphere in recent days you'll be well aware of the news that IBM has apparently decided to stop producing Lotus-focused Redbooks.

I, in common with a lot of other people, feel that the redbooks continue to be a unique and valuable source of real-world information about Lotus products, in many cases providing more comprehensive and more accurate than the 'real' product documentation. I believe, therefore, that it is a bad/poor/stupid/shortsighted/inexplicable/wrong decision to simply stop producing them. If IBM had announced plans to foster some other way to produce the same quality information for general use, then that would be interesting ... but pulling the plug is ridiculous.

If you agree, please go and sign the petition that Stuart McIntyre has created.

Posted by Julian Woodward At 3:20 PM Location London | Permalink | Comments (1)

Category openoffice ibm lotus symphony
... and I was right.

Hot on the heels of Microsoft's well-deserved and widely-publicised failure to get OOXML ratified as a standard, IBM announced that they were publicly backing the ODF formats.

Now today, on the day of the Lotus Collaboration Summit Launch Event in New York, they have announced that the Lotus document editors bundled in Notes 8 are being released as a standalone product called Symphony. See the New York Times article for their version of the story.

For me, one of the most pleasing aspects of this story, other than the obvious benefit of bringing more competition into a market that has been a stagnant monopoly for too long, is the URL of the Symphony site: http://symphony.lotus.com

Yes, you saw it here first: not an 'IBM' to be seen in that URL. In fact, navigate to www.ibm.com/software/lotus/symphony, and you get redirected to http://symphony.lotus.com. Yes - the IBM site redirects TO the lotus.com domain. When was the last time that happened?! Times really are a-changing inside big old blue ....

Posted by Julian Woodward At 11:24 AM Location London | Permalink | Comments (0)