A more detailed look today at some of the new/improved products in the mobility area.
The two most interesting products are Lotus Traveller - version 8.5 adds a lot more security features such as device wiping and device security compliance checking/enforcing, and Lotus Mobile Connect, which effectively is a native client-less VPN gateway for Lotus Notes - this is the product that enables the Ultra-Lite iNotes that is optimised for the iPhone.
What is really handy is that the products can operate in a 'proxy mode' within the DMZ (similar to our BES environment), and only the gateway servers need to be at the new version of Notes (8.5). This solution also handily delivers email to internet based users, which I vaguely recall was of interest to some of our users...
The backend email servers need to be at least up to 7.02
Finally, the last item worthy of note is the IBM Websphere Everyplace Mobile Portal (you've got to love those snappy product names), which is a bolt-on product to websphere which automatically adjusts the website to best fit your mobile device. Check out the IBM home site from different devices to see how/whether it works!
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2 comments:
Google have been doing the same thing in terms of reframing for mobile devices for a couple of years.
Who am I realistically going to use, google who may well be my home page, or IBM who never will be.
Are you seeing a cohesive strategy from them or does it feel like a scatter gun approach to what they think people might want?
Obviously I didn't explain the Websphere Mobile Portal thing very clearly - it's not an end-user service, its something a corporation can put in front of their web sites that enables automatic reframing within the corporations control. You could even use it for internal websites if you so wished...
In terms of cohesive strategy, I can't help but be impressed with the way everything fits together across all the products while still being based on open standards. As a user you really don't know or care which tool you are using at any given point in time, it all just ... works!
I also spent several hours last night at the bar with the Lotus chief strategist, and I have hazy recollections of some really interesting directions for Lotus over the next few years. Stuff I probably shouldn't be posting on a public blog, but we'll definitely have a chat when I'm back!
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