IdoNotes (and sleep)

Microsoft Outlook Social Connector takes on Lotus widgets and plug-ins

Lotus introduced the LinkedIn widget, that I gave my opinion on back in July 2009.  It was not any type of connector, but a simple web interface that sat in the Notes 8 sidebar.  They soon did the same with TripIt for the same result.  I, admittedly, was disappointed in the integration I had hoped would appear.  I am actually able to use the TripIt app on my Blackberry to sync to my calendar which then goes into Notes.  It should not have taken that much work.  Tungle is exposing this now in their integration.  This week some more news hit the web.  Here comes Microsoft. A screenshot for your viewing pleasure first:



Before you jump on the Lotus Connections bandwagon commenting, we are talking about bringing in social contacts seamlessly to provide an integrated experience.  Shortly, there will be hooks from the announced partnerships with Facebook, and (ugh) MySpace with the connector.  LinkedIn did a great welcome blog posting for getting set up.  

Lotus Connections bridges integration inside the firewall with profiles from the Connections system.  The benefit given from the OSC is when we start exposing the social data that people are sharing and placing on the web into our history of email, CRM and local contact data.  Tungle (listen to podcast Episode 71) now opens your calendar information from Lotus and Gist (Iisten to podcast Episode 72) is attempting to work with contacts.  

The question we need to ask: Is Lotus moving fast enough to keep up with the social changes needed for the sites not deploying Connections at this time?  Is the majority of Notes users a large enough demand to have them create this type of integration or are the social vendors not working hard enough to write against the Lotus infrastructure?

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On Wednesday, February 17th, 2010   by Chris Miller        

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