The last session on Tuesday was a demo/feedback session for some provisional new features of Quickr. The single most interesting new feature is the "Personal Place" - think of it as a web based replacement of the trusty H: drive. It also enables seamless transfer of documents into team spaces, and from there into enterprise content management systems.
The connector for windows file explorer allows familiar access to the documents, but the true power is the ability for users to work on any of those documents with others, including full versiong and editing control.
It will be interesting to see how the MS products compare...
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
SameTime Unified Telephony (SUT)
It's been a year since I last looked at SUT, and it's moved on leaps and bounds since then (it's actually a product rather than flash mock-ups!)
For those that don't know, SUT is the main Lotus play for the telephony integration which sits on top of SameTime, the Lotus Unified Communications platform.
The main idea behind SUT is that the user controls how they want to be contacted (Softphone, Deskphone, Cellphone, Voicemail etc) along with 'rules' for how to route their calls depending on things like their online status, location, time of day etc. What this means in practice is that you don't need to 'guess' where the person is or worry about calling them at an inconvenient time. It's all integrated right into the SameTime client, which then includes additional rich presence (i.e. it shows you whether I am currently on a call)
The product is now up and running, and while there are still some issues to work out with the network vendors around billing and call control, the product direction is now very focussed and it's looking really slick. It is clearly targetted purely at large enterprises, and I'll be talking with Steve next week to see how we can lay our hands on some early kit!
For those that don't know, SUT is the main Lotus play for the telephony integration which sits on top of SameTime, the Lotus Unified Communications platform.
The main idea behind SUT is that the user controls how they want to be contacted (Softphone, Deskphone, Cellphone, Voicemail etc) along with 'rules' for how to route their calls depending on things like their online status, location, time of day etc. What this means in practice is that you don't need to 'guess' where the person is or worry about calling them at an inconvenient time. It's all integrated right into the SameTime client, which then includes additional rich presence (i.e. it shows you whether I am currently on a call)
The product is now up and running, and while there are still some issues to work out with the network vendors around billing and call control, the product direction is now very focussed and it's looking really slick. It is clearly targetted purely at large enterprises, and I'll be talking with Steve next week to see how we can lay our hands on some early kit!
Productivity Tools for the Mobile Worker
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!
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!
Simplifying Notes ID Management
My first session today was a (far too) detailed look at the new identity vault mechanism that will be delivered as part of Notes 8.5
The basic mechanic seems to be that all the id files are stored in an identity vault (a specialised notes database), and allows specific functionality for the user to download their id file as required.
As the id file is now accessible centrally, this enables some 'forgotten password' type functionality which sounds good, but unfortunately is not compatible with the "Notes Shared Login" which is the functionality that allows single sign-on integration with the Windows account.
Strangely enough, when people were commenting that this "didn't seem very sensible or aligned with the rest of the Lotus vision", the response was that the best solution was to integrate everything direct with Active Directory!
Ho Hum, and I had such high hopes too...
The basic mechanic seems to be that all the id files are stored in an identity vault (a specialised notes database), and allows specific functionality for the user to download their id file as required.
As the id file is now accessible centrally, this enables some 'forgotten password' type functionality which sounds good, but unfortunately is not compatible with the "Notes Shared Login" which is the functionality that allows single sign-on integration with the Windows account.
Strangely enough, when people were commenting that this "didn't seem very sensible or aligned with the rest of the Lotus vision", the response was that the best solution was to integrate everything direct with Active Directory!
Ho Hum, and I had such high hopes too...
Monday, September 22, 2008
The Pursuit of Happyness & Chris Gardner... what "some" of the audience didn't tell you
By the time it was time for the surprise guest speaker to come on stage and wrap up the day, I was focusing hard on testing how far down my chair I could slide without actually falling off it. All I could hear was a vague buzz buzz... buzz buzz buzz... and then suddenly "Pursuit of Happyness"! That made me sit up rather quick and promptly feather up my layers (for the naive ignorant, that's part of a haircut) because I had these 2 uplifting microseconds of feverish blissful hope that the guest speaker was Will Smith! :D It wasn't though; as Chris Gardner rightly said, Will would probably not fit the budget ; )
Jokes apart, he was brilliant. There were of course the cheesy moments when people actually applauded the worst nightmares this guy's had in his life (doh!), but to hear the story from the man himself was very deeply moving. For those who didn't know, in real life his son was actually only 14 months old when they became homeless, not 5 years old as in the movie. Also, for those who didn't know, some of the audience was not reduced to tears. They fell.
Pleasantly surprising close to the day though. IBM we're told have a history of getting some rather special people to talk at their conferences; apparently they had Neil Armstrong Himself share his experience a few years ago. Anyway, I'm buying the Pursuit of Happyness book as soon as I'm back in the UK. And Brian said he'll be watching the movie, so I'm guessing some of the audience although they'll never admit to it did get a bit touchy feely about things eh? ; )
On this note, more after the breakout sessions tomorrow.
Jokes apart, he was brilliant. There were of course the cheesy moments when people actually applauded the worst nightmares this guy's had in his life (doh!), but to hear the story from the man himself was very deeply moving. For those who didn't know, in real life his son was actually only 14 months old when they became homeless, not 5 years old as in the movie. Also, for those who didn't know, some of the audience was not reduced to tears. They fell.
Pleasantly surprising close to the day though. IBM we're told have a history of getting some rather special people to talk at their conferences; apparently they had Neil Armstrong Himself share his experience a few years ago. Anyway, I'm buying the Pursuit of Happyness book as soon as I'm back in the UK. And Brian said he'll be watching the movie, so I'm guessing some of the audience although they'll never admit to it did get a bit touchy feely about things eh? ; )
On this note, more after the breakout sessions tomorrow.
"Peeling back the onion skin..."
... must be a taster of Management Speak 2.0 !
Most of today was indeed around peeling back the onion skin around the strategy of those 5 areas (see Brian's post further down); this time IBM definitely seems to have thought through the next few years thoroughly and the promised suite of products look impressive.
Before getting into the details though, a have-to-mention word about the "decor" of the main conference room. See they have this totally awesome 2-m-in-diameter yellow sphere - not that it could have been any other colour mind you - hanging over the stage, with a couple of projectors projecting these dynamic revolving fractal-like totally cool monochrome shapes and graphics on it. Absolutely mesmerising. So much so it actually managed to keep me quiet for quite a while. That's how cool it is. I want one for christmas.
Other than that, Connections in particular looked appealing, both in terms of functionality & UI, although there seems to be some major overlap between what Connections does and what Bluehouse does. The official IBM line on it is that Connections is focused more on internal company collaboration and Bluehouse on cross-company collaboration. Call it a marketing stunt but it appears that Connections is the fastest growing software in the history of IBM, with 500 new customers every Q.
As far as SaaS is concerned, it seems like IBM have definitely stepped into the space but although BlueHouse is already out there, it feels like it is still early days. In fact this October they are running some POC-type activities on Bluehouse with a number of partners & customers. There was also mention of IBM's new initiative around external hosting of email in multitenant environments. Once again, still early days but a space we will definitely be keeping an eye on.
"Elegant integration" was another theme that was brought up and indeed the suite of products on the table seem to seamlessly blend into each other. Presence is obviously key, but what I thought was "elegant" was how you can Sametime from Connections by clicking on somebody's name, from Sametime hop onto the phone or Lotus Notes and start an email to your favourite person by a single right click, from LN go into QuickR to see what documents your person has posted, from the document onto the Document Management solution etc. Pretty cool stuff. IBM seems to be quite far ahead as far as UC is concerned.
All the sessions today were general ones and very much focused on strategy. Tomorrow we break out into groups and work on the sections in more detail. Should be good.
Most of today was indeed around peeling back the onion skin around the strategy of those 5 areas (see Brian's post further down); this time IBM definitely seems to have thought through the next few years thoroughly and the promised suite of products look impressive.
Before getting into the details though, a have-to-mention word about the "decor" of the main conference room. See they have this totally awesome 2-m-in-diameter yellow sphere - not that it could have been any other colour mind you - hanging over the stage, with a couple of projectors projecting these dynamic revolving fractal-like totally cool monochrome shapes and graphics on it. Absolutely mesmerising. So much so it actually managed to keep me quiet for quite a while. That's how cool it is. I want one for christmas.
Other than that, Connections in particular looked appealing, both in terms of functionality & UI, although there seems to be some major overlap between what Connections does and what Bluehouse does. The official IBM line on it is that Connections is focused more on internal company collaboration and Bluehouse on cross-company collaboration. Call it a marketing stunt but it appears that Connections is the fastest growing software in the history of IBM, with 500 new customers every Q.
As far as SaaS is concerned, it seems like IBM have definitely stepped into the space but although BlueHouse is already out there, it feels like it is still early days. In fact this October they are running some POC-type activities on Bluehouse with a number of partners & customers. There was also mention of IBM's new initiative around external hosting of email in multitenant environments. Once again, still early days but a space we will definitely be keeping an eye on.
"Elegant integration" was another theme that was brought up and indeed the suite of products on the table seem to seamlessly blend into each other. Presence is obviously key, but what I thought was "elegant" was how you can Sametime from Connections by clicking on somebody's name, from Sametime hop onto the phone or Lotus Notes and start an email to your favourite person by a single right click, from LN go into QuickR to see what documents your person has posted, from the document onto the Document Management solution etc. Pretty cool stuff. IBM seems to be quite far ahead as far as UC is concerned.
All the sessions today were general ones and very much focused on strategy. Tomorrow we break out into groups and work on the sections in more detail. Should be good.
I bleed yellow
Believe it or not, some of the guys are wearing canary yellow t-shirts proudly acclaiming the yellow nature of their blood! A bit sad really, and they wonder why they are not people ready ... tut tut...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
