IdoNotes (and sleep)

During the keynote today from Ted Stanton (his bio from UKLUG):

Ted Stanton is a World Wide Executive Consultant for IBM's Software Solutions Group. Ted is committed to maintaining high customer satisfaction while helping customers align software solutions with their strategic business goals. Ted’s strong technical background includes over twenty IBM product certifications allowing him to proactively work across technical teams and line of business to build solutions and articulate the business value, ROI, and transformation required for success

He confirmed that over the next two years that IBM will be retiring many of it's brand names by the end of 2012.  Products (think Sametime, Connections and more) will not be going away at all. Brands like Lotus, Websphere, Tivoli and DB2 will be folded in.

We have already seen this with IBM Connections and now IBM Sametime just last week.  Many were questioning and looking for a statement from IBM.  I think we have some answers they were looking for.  This is an overhaul of direction and branding to make IBM seen more as a single package, instead of multiple requirements.  For example installing Lotus Sametime was including Websphere Application Server, DB2 Enterprise and possible Tivoli Directory Integrator.  With the change you will install IBM Sametime that includes an IBM Application Server, IBM Data Enterprise server and IBM Directory Integrator.

Earlier this year I wrote and article for another online publication which I will post in later today in a follow up article.

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On Monday, May 23rd, 2011   by Chris Miller        

Day #1. A daily posting for a work week of the best and worst of 2010 in the Lotus world from my eyes.

Best - Project Vulcan
The announcement of Lotus continually inventing and moving forward was well received. Everyone is waiting patiently for more news, to probably come at Lotusphere 2011.  Ed Brill just announced the IBM collaboration toolkit availability, giving a hint of what is to come.  Some screenshots have leaked to the web and it looks to be a Web 2.0 UI in purest form.  I know of many partners and customers looking for the next big thing to win over new and existing Lotus software customers.  It also reportedly brings in streams of activity (according to the Lotusphere 2010 session covering that).


Worst  - Project Vulcan
The original announcement left everyone going, what just happened?  How does this fit? When do we see something in our hands?  Is it real? The idea of a web only interface did scare me into thinking the possible end of the Lotus client.  Demos shown on YouTube show an embedded browser in the Notes client and then more with the web interface.  What happens to local replicas, id files and more?

I only listed it here because there is so much more to learn and it has been a long time since the original announcement.

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See the best & worst from Lotus 2010 day #1 of 5

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On Monday, January 3rd, 2011   by Chris Miller        

I have pondered this entry for some time.  Edited a few drafts.  Created new entries.  Hesitated.  However, after seeing yet more demos of Project Vulcan by IBM Lotus at NLLUG this past week, it hit me.  The demo I just stood watching at the IBM sponsor booth did a fine job of hiding all of the browser toolbars, menu items and other indicators. Note the keyword is browser for all the demos.  Never a Lotus Notes client of any form.

Back in August for IamLUG, I watched Ed do a live demo of Vulcan I saw him use a browser.  Not a new fangled client.  Now as I think back about other demos, screenshots and sneak peeks,  I never saw a client.  It just doesn't exist in the plans for Project Vulcan at this time.

Stop being such a Notes client tree hugger already

I am not claiming the client is always the best solution.  But I know that applications would need to be rewritten or surfaced properly in XPages.  A massive undertaking. The Vulcan interface, workflow and design is made for the web browser.  Not any Notes client as we know today.  We would be looking at a total manipulation of the client coding, installation and more to get that type of behavior locally. That is not in the current plans of what Lotus is trying to reach with Project Vulcan and Project Northstar.  The collapse of social streams into  the client is a logical next step.

holy crap, they could expand this locally if they went back towards DOLS

DOLS still appears in things like Quickr, but would need a lot of effort to get it up to par with a widescale deployment.  There are issues with renames, security, synchronization and more.  While I can see how Project Vulcan can open new doors, it does seem to have a hole when it comes to offline and local type work if no local client appears.

From the demos, Project Vulcan appears Facebook-ish in a way. The idea is in the stream, subscription and flow of information and data being brought to you. It goes beyond the enterprise mindset of go open a database.  It changes to bring it to me.  Yes, subscriptions have been part of the Notes client for some time.  But not in this context and expansion.  Finding sources and having information brought to you based on context is a desktop of the future for workers.

I am eager to see how Project Vulcan evolves and how Project Northstar shows companies how to bridge the social and enterprise realms.  I certainly hope that a local client of some form is in the works for Project Vulcan from IBM Lotus, or a massive undertaking to move your existing investment in Lotus Notes and Domino will soon appear.

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On Wednesday, September 15th, 2010   by Chris Miller        

IamLUG is happy to have Ed Brill presenting his strategy update session with a touch of Project Vulcan thrown in (according to the keynote from Doug Cox yesterday.  Watch the full IamLUG 2010 keynote replay here.  We apologize early for the first few minutes of missing audio.

The presentation will be 11:15am CST / 17:15 UTC.  You can watch on the IamLUG channel or here.  You have choices to view.

• Live from this blog posting.  There is time to RSVP to watch the event.
• From the IamLUG uStream Channel
• on your iPhone via the uStream mobile player

Nathan Freeman and Tim Tripcony will also be streaming The XPages Revolution: Scalabilite, Maintainabilite, Usabilite at 9:45am CST on the same channel.  You can RSVP to watch as well right here at 9:45am CST / 15:45 UTC

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On Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010   by Chris Miller