Aliens at the ‘Sphere

A visit from Beldar Conehead and 3 Blue Men started off the morning events at the Lotusphere 2009 Opening General Session. Then down to business, or at least the business of IBM Lotus. The big news items include:

• RIM support of most things Lotus, including, Connections, Quickr, Symphony (Docs for now), and XPages.
• The new iNotes interface is very Web 2.0-y and didn’t look like a browser app.
• Bluehouse has a new name: LotusLive. The first of the product/feature bundles, Engage, includes SaaS-based comms and collaboration applications.
• Sametime integrated telephony is handy allowing group calls (with video), switching phones mid-conversation, availability detection based on calendar entries and user created rules, and supports different working modes.
• XPages are cool, although no deep demos of them.
• “Atlantic” is planned for released as Alloy in March (or thereabouts).
• Mashups are getting easier to use and understand.

Oh, gosh, and a whole bunch more. I have to say the one thing that stuck out for me was the iNotes interface. It didn’t get much airplay in the OGS so I’m planning to explore more in the showroom this week (and soon at my own job). There were plenty of demos but attendees really only got a whiff of new functionality areas. The deep dives are being saved for the 3 other “mini-keynotes” being held throughout the week. I will report more as events unfold.

Leaving on a jet plane - Jan 17

As I jet across the lower half of the US I’m studying the slide decks from the Lotussphere 09 (LS09) Analyst pre-briefs (yes, more than one) that were held late this week. There’s quite a bit of content in the presentations, so LS09 attendees be prepared for an information-packed OGS. No need for spoiler alerts, I’m not giving up anything until IBM says it’s OK (that would be Monday January 19th).

My studying is going to include building matrices of products and offerings. I tend to do that the Sunday of LS - it gets mind mind into some sort of data mapping (after all I started out as an application programmer), gap finding (gapware), and gauging my (and maybe Lotus’) level of confusion/understanding. I also need to go to the Internet and brush up on a few things before I go into briefings. Lastly, I’ll probably hold a few strategic talks with a few trusted cohorts to compare our pre-game notes and thoughts. Such is the life of a research analyst.

The big news leading up to LS09 IBM’s announcement on Thursday to acquire Outblaze, Ltd., a SaaS-based messaging and collaboration provider. This announcement leads the build-up to Monday’s events. Outblaze’s messaging services are slated to fill the glaring messaging gap in IBM Lotus’ Bluehouse strategy. Something that apparently I wasn’t alone in noticing. This is grand news for Bluehouse although I’m curious in finding out how it all plays out with the rest of IBM’s messaging solutions - Notes/Domino, Lotus Notes Hosted Messaging Services, and some other stuff that I can’t talk about yet. IBM’s press release states that:

Enterprise clients will be able to use IBM as a single provider for all their messaging needs, whether on-premise or online, serving a range of user needs from occasional to full-time. Small business customers will get a 
simple-to-acquire, integrated set of collaboration services that allow 
them to easily work with their network of customers and partners. 
Partners such as telecommunications operators and Internet service 
providers will be able to package and sell collaborative services to 
their clients under their own brands.

An interesting and broad proposition, something Outblaze is likely to provide. I still have questions that you can be sure I’ll ask this week.

Now the decision is what productivity editors do I use? Office? Symphony? iWork?