IdoNotes (and sleep)

Live from the Lotusphere Opening General Session

Packed to the back of the room, not sure of overflow from where I sat, but packed more than definitely. (Update: Ed posted that there was overlfow in the Swan Ballroom, quite the hike)

Mike Rhodin (Gen Mgr of Lotus Software)

• Double digit growth
• Seats, seats and more seats sold and maintenance renewed
• 6,000 attendees in the house

• what's the big idea?
• how can I use it?
• when can I get my hands on it?

• Announced expanded support for Mac with Sametime and DWA on Firefox
  • Ron Sebastian showed off Notes client on the Mac.  Dialog boxes are tied to the look of Mac.
  • Also support for Apple's new Intel PC's later this year
  • Over 1500 customers did migrations from Exchange
  • New support of mobile devices including Blackberry, Nokia, Intellisync, Good Technology (GoodLink)
  • WANDA is new initiatives for USB memory stick (hmm, I think I said U3 didn't I? no one listens to early hints)
    • Ron Sebastian showed SAP and Lotus integration expanded
    • Blackberry and Sametime integration for IM capabilities was shown live...quite cool and got applause
    • Blackberry integration using Web Services for databases for live work
    • Google Search was shown including mail searches returned with web and local files
    
    Mike Rhodin
    He popped back out to discuss Real Time in our communications.
    • AOL connectivity is back, even Apple iChat.  There will be no additional purchase required to connect the two
    • Yahoo! connectivity for IM
    • Google talk connectivity (makes sense with the AOL and Google talk agreement)
    People are spinning in their heads all around me on some of these announcements.  Mainly because they are geeks but there is also some managers that were loving it
    
    Craig Hayman, vp for Sametime
    His quote:

    "We stopped working (sic) on what name it should have, switched it back to Sametime and got back to work on the product"

    • Sametime 7.5 with spell checking, emoticons, timestamps, type-ahead name checking, reporting structure, voice chat, photo business cards.  It matches Skype on voice since they use the same Codex.  Can you say Mac, Linux, Windows??
    • Based on Eclipse for make it open and extensible for telephony
    • Avaya, Polycom and Nortel announced more partnership
    • Of course we are looking at the new user interface
      • Ron Sebastian is the demo man it seems.
      • Last chat is shown when you hover over names in Buddy List
      • New launch pad for plugins on the bottom
      • Misspelled words are underlined in red and can correct
      • Screen capture built into the client to show pictures  (hey they used Powerpoint, where was the Workplace Productivity Tools)
      • VoiceJam was the name they used for the voice chat
      • FreeJam and SkillTap was integrated from the IBM Common Tools (ICT)
      • The where are they brought up Google tools
      • Polling was enabled
      • web Conferencing
      • Additional slides can be uploaded while in conference
      • Real Time Collaboration Gateway was announced
      
      We made a jump from Sametime into forms..  Bowstreet, Portal and tons of other parts together to make the Bowstreet Portlet Factory.
      
      Allister Rennie, vp of Lotus software
      He got the run on IBM Workplace overview
      • WCS and WMC (Workplace Managed Client) 2.6 is shipping as of today
      • Customer story was early adopter using the WMC at the retail stores
      • Ron was back again for demos.  This time he covered WCS starting with mail and the integrated 130+ file attachment type conversions.  Plus documents can be detached to libraries
      • Open Document Formats and Office were included in the Productivity Manager of the WMC 2.6
      • WBSE (Workplace Business Strategy and Execution) came along next.  People got the glazed eye here and I heard whispers behind me asking him to get back to Domino and even Portal.  Of course, I know there is at least a handful here wanting to see this new product and more on Workplace
      
      He then took off into IBM Lotus Domino
      • He asked for Lotus Developers to stand and take a bow, there was like 4.  Eli counted 5 but that guy left out the Disney staff entrance
      • Maureen Leland, Chief Architect for the Designer, stepped in
      • She covered Workplace Designer 2.6 with built in samples out of the box
      • Cool tool that mixed different kinds of code,  JavaScript and @Functions.  Eli says cool and awesome
      
      Her demo took a bomb at the last sec but we could tell it worked, she clicked some code wrong.  One more time for Workplace Designer on Eclipse and that went well.
      
      Tim jumped back on stage and followed the format for the Identity 2.0 presentation I saw before that set a new standard in presenting.  A big impact through hundreds of slides with pictures and a couple words per slide.
      
      Activity Explorer was shown and that got some attention and people woke up.  The ability to drag docs and maintain activity information in threads was impressive.  All this available now. The future takes Activity Explorer to a web based solution as well.
      
      Mike Rhodin to close it out, the home stretch
      • 2 Million seats at time of IBM acquisition.  Now to 125 million
      • For the record, there is no shift or regression, all growth and support for past and future Notes apps adding Eclipse and Java to make it stronger
      • Hannover was an early preview but now Ken is back with an update
      • Ken Bisconti - Domino "Next" sounds just like RNext years ago.  Websphere Portal technology is moving into Domino to move the browser interface forward
      • Jeff Eisen (Chief Architect Notes and IBM Distinguished Engineer) took the stage for demos
      • Hannover - Preview pane can be on the bottom or left.  I don't preview anything personally, either I read it or not, but ok...
      • Invitations are ghosted onto the calendar
      • Mail threads works pulling mail from all views, not just the current
      • Sidebar has frequently used applications on right side.  You can add your own app links everywhere
      • Recent Collaboration was very cool showing chats, emails whatever that you recently had with the person selected.
      • Contacts are greatly enhanced with pop-up window or embedded like now through policies and preferences.
      • Quick Find will be found everywhere in the client
      • Activities is huge, too much to type at the end here.  I will find the slides or something for you
      
      
      Ok, that was it, time up and over!

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On Monday, January 23rd, 2006   by Chris Miller        

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