It seems that someone bribed and beat a bunch of people into having IamLUG again this year.  Don't tell anyone, but registration for attendees, speakers and sponsors opens this week.  If you want in early as a sponsor (please sponsors only) click here and let them know.

The ConsultantInYourPocket Series 3 launched today for all developers.  First up in the series is Julian with an awesome iPhone First Steps webinar.  Head on over and register before it fills up.  Yes, it is free and sponsored by SNAPPS and Collaboration University

I received a request to fill out a survey from RIM on support.  I imagined it to be a check on how well they are doing in responding to our needs, tickets, issues and more.  Instead, I got a small chill when the crux of the questions hit me.

The questions were driven heavily to make you decide which was more important from a list of options.  Then each option was compared one against one in further questions.  These included:

• faster response time
• core hour or 24x7 phone support
• software updates included
• phone support at all

The list went on.  After running through the multiple pages, it appears as if they are looking into reducing costs and restructuring offerings included in T support levels.  You might pay for enhanced services or better offerings.  Maybe self service will become a forefront.  Either way, look carefully for this survey.

In news from VoiceCon today..

ShoreTel^® , the leading provider of brilliantly simple IP phone systems with fully integrated Unified Communications (UC), and IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that general availability of ShoreTel for IBM Lotus Foundations is planned for April, 2010. ShoreTel for IBM Lotus Foundations is a unique unified communications and collaboration (UCC) offering for small and midsize businesses.

This affordable, "UCC-in-a-box" solution is designed for the SMB budget and combines comprehensive enterprise-class UCC features, including mobility, security, email, presence, instant messaging and advanced IP telephony, in an appliance-based solution. With survival dial tone and built-in redundancy, ShoreTel for IBM Lotus Foundations contains integrated intelligent data backup for enterprise-level reliability. The solution is quick and easy to deploy in just a few clicks, and does not require on-site expertise, so SMBs can focus on running their business, not IT.

With the pish of Unified Communications, it is interesting and exciting to see the partner race to capture part of the Lotus market by the telephony providers.

Registration looked good, plenty of badges.  Awesome room and presentation center I have had the pleasure of being at previously inside of Washington University at the Charles Knight Executive Center.  All the presentation material will be available on LotusLive for attendees which was nice.  I wonder if they will create a new account or use our existing one?

Ed Brill - Keynote

The Collaboration Agenda (I dissected it here back in January at Lotusphere) mentioned at Lotusphere was the opening portion of the slideset.  Ed moved right into the building blocks to help companies work smarter, which is the Lotus Collaboration software.  Partners are a key part of the growth of the strategy.  The Collaboration Agenda (CA in my notes from here one for simplicity) is about translating technological innovation into industry-specific contexts.  It is not about products but about basing solutions around needs.

18,378 new customers have been added since the launch of Lotus Notes and Domino 8 with growth in LotusLive as well.

LotusKnows was the next impact statement from Ed talking about the influence it had had and the advertisement placement everywhere.

The technology roadmap is based on customer evolution as much as the drive to enhance the products themselves.  Desktop productivity was a highlight with Lotus Symphony.  He moved deftly into LotusLive and LotusLive labs talking about such things as the Slide Library.

Ed showed a video on Project Vulcan, hosted by Ron Sebastian.  It was a good demo walk through.  I hope this video is out there for everyone to see.

Smarter Collaboration: Integrated Lotus Portfolio

A huge client demo was part of this.  Widgets, Activities and more.  I did ask a question around sources for best practices on security controls and deployment for all of these widgets.  Yes it might have been a slight set-up but I see IBM sales push widgets constantly with no idea of the complexity of including and deploying 3rd party widgets into your environment.

"Lotus Knows you should stop begging and stealing from people and borrow from them instead" -  yes this was an actual slide.  The idea is learning how to search and find information, leveraging communities of interest.  Lotus Connections is the key here.  Many, many slides and commentary on Connections and social sharing.

The PeoplePod plug-in was cool, wish we had it to play with.  He then moved into live demos and click-to-call technology.

IBM Websphere Portal - the awesome Jon Raslawski

Jon did a bang up job explaining the why to use Portal without making it a huge sales pitch. The partner references were not just a name, but the story and the integration portions and making your day perform better.

Social Collaboration Delivers Real Business Value - Randy Frink, and Americas Business Unit Executive

Social networking is part of our fabric as human beings.  Lotus Connections and Quickr install base grew 34% and millions of users.
Social collaboration helps people work smarter.  We moved through Quickr Connectors, Connections and about how you share and locate not only your data, but co-workers.

He discussed Lotus Connections Next and Quickr Next.  Enhanced mobile support for Andriod.  As well as microblogging and better profile support.

Notes and Domino Strategy - Ed Brill

Ed rapidly moved through 8.5.x, licensing, packaging and more in a nicely paced presentation.  I think this is a core of what poeple wanted to know and what licensing works for them.  Mainly with Travelr, CAl's, free Designer and Mobile Connect.

Notes 8.5.2+ and the naming on iNotes/DWA plus lite mode and ultralite mode.  Ultralite will move to support Andriod and more.  Ed said it, I repeat it.  Learn XPages!!  (I personally might suggest the upcoming developer webcast in Series 3 of ConsultantInYourPocket).

OpenNTF.org was also highlighted which was nice to see.  In 2009 traffic was up 25% to 3.2million page views.  67,000 members and registered.

IBM and SAP managed to get a slide.  Not a lot of hands went up but I know it is important.

Now slides on delivery of Notes showing on-premise, appliance, cloud and hybrid.  LotusLive Notes will be getting a substantial update this year, according to Ed.  Slide had a ton of info:

• Cloud based Domino Mail, Calendar, Contact and Instant Messaging
• Seamless transition to the cloud from business
• Runs Domino
• Per user/per month licensing
• Archiving with Sonian
• Moving to 5gb mailbox with options for mobility and archiving
• lower entry of 50 users
• customers still handle user id management

I know we still currently offer a better deal on this, but I will watch closely.

Lotus Protector was next up.  it is a product line, not just a single product.  IBM has now moved to Protector for internal spam control. It is a per user software license on physical or virtual.  Up to 360k emails per hour filtered.  it is optimized for the appliance model.

Project Concord, or web based collaborative document editing, supports both individual and teams.  It isn't just Symphony on the web.  Web clippings, co-editing and more make you more productive.  Look for this in 2nd quarter in LotusLive Labs.

Collaboration In the Cloud - Ted Brufke, NA Sales Leader

LotusLive is of particular interest to us as we have been doing this model for years.  Keep in mind that LotusLive iNotes is NOT Lotus Domino based.  Their idea is to have you not manage your IT infrastructure.

LotusLive iNotes is~$3/user/month targeting users in factories, overserved or not served at all.

LotusLive Notes and LotusLive Engage with enhancements and partner offerings (Skype, SalesForce, etc).

Sametime Roadmap and Unified Communications

The first portion was talking about who could use the unified technology, such as healthcare.

He moved into plug-ins to jump you from Sametime Connect to Sametime 8.5 meetings and also peeked at audio and video.  Up to six people in the video environment.  They did a nice live demo over the network to another MCTY city.  He preloaded presentations and was able to change and navigate between them quickly.  Markups and the rest of the expected tools were there.  The discussion area was the tiny bottom left box, but could be expanded and also sorted to show only the questions or action items.

Meeting recording was demod next.  With Sametime 8.5 it records in mpg or mov format.  I am waiting for the hardware and software requirement questions to begin.

Why pay for all that expensive travel cost?  Join us for another quality webinar online in just a couple week..  We are happy to bring you the next webcast (another free one) in the series.  Soon, the subscription webcast series will open with deep technical content, so pay close attention for discounts and early registration as full series subscribers will be limited.

The next date is set for the ConsultantInYourPocket webcasts!  Series 1 launched with a hour of Troubleshooting SMTP in Domino occurring on March 24.  Below is the second event.

You can now register immediately for Understanding LDAP in Domino for March 31 2010. Registration is open and here is what to expect:

Many enterprises overlook Domino as the key LDAP directory source.  Lotus Domino is a scalable LDAP directory source supporting clustering, aggregated and federated directory services.  Explore network and topology design tips that help to guide your decisions in architecture, management, and security. Take away  best practices on building an aggregated directory infrastructure with Directory Assistance or as a federated source. Walk away with an understanding of how to service all of the Lotus collaboration software securely and easily.

Make sure you get on over and register right away before the rest of the series 1 and new Series 2 opens up.  If you want pre-registration news, join the IdoNotes newsletter in the upper right of the blog!

Some of us are heavy users of Blackberry Messenger.  With the new 5.0.x code it is easy to add another person by scanning their barcode immediately.  One of the other key items is that what service provider you utilize or where you are in the world does not matter.  It just works.  Well, RIM announced that as long as you are at versions 5.0.0.57 then you will see some exciting new changes coming in the next few days and weeks.

Insider sources say that time travel, the ability to make popcorn in your device and to cook bacon are imminent.  Yeah, I really have no clue but I am anxious to see what more features they include.

The next issue of the IdoNotes newsletter is coming up, don't forget to subscribe in the upper right.  If you are a new subscriber, the previous newsletter will show as a link in the sign up area.

In this March 2010 issue I talk about filtering yourself (or not) and the following:

IN THIS ISSUE #56
* From the Editor: Chris' 0.0133167 FKP
* From the IdoNotes Mailbox: Move Sametime Server to Existing Domino Server
* Quick Tip: How Does a Consistent ACL Affect Local Replicas?
* From the IdoNotes Mailbox: What is LotusLive iNotes Versus iNotes?

Don't forget to visit CertFX from the banner above and use the coupon code "IdoNotes" to get up to 25% OFF YOUR EXAMS

The first date is set for the ConsultantInYourPocket webcasts!  Series 1 launches with a hour of troubleshooting SMTP in your Domino environment on March 24 2010.  Registration is open and is filling fast already.

How often do you get stuck trying to find the best way to uncover ways to troubleshoot SMTP mail in your Lotus Domino Environment?  Dive into real-world examples and optimal settings for internal, external, and multi-domain SMTP configurations, anti-relay settings, extended SMTP settings, and more.  Explore the numerous notes.ini variables and see which ones to utilize for your current SMTP issues. Then explore effective solutions for many errors, such as refusal/error by receiving server, route not found, and RFC error codes.

Make sure you get on over and register right away before the rest of the series 1 and new Series 2 opens up.  If you want pre-registration news, join the IdoNotes newsletter in the upper right of the blog!

Spiked Studio Productions is happy to announce the launch of a massive spring 2010 webcast series covering all the topics you need to get up to date and in depth technical training, without ever leaving your desk!  Some of the webcasts will be free and others will be through a very minimal subscription and "a la carte" service.  Read the launch news now and get ready to block your calendars for this training event.

Look for speakers such as Gabriella Davis, Carl Tyler, Victor Toal, myself and even more.

This is an extension of the Consultant In Your Pocket book series.