off the Hook - 911s Chief Lotu...

I'm usually not a big fan of Lotusphere Online, mainly because it has such a short life. This year though, it has a few features that may not be *new*, but are at least easier to use. One is the session scheduler. You can look at the sessions in each time slot, view the description (and the speaker's profile if they have bothered to fill it out) and easily add sessions to your personal schedule. Many of the sessions even already have the slides attached so you can get a sneak peek at the content. When you're finished, you can easily export them to an ics file and import them directly to your Notes calendar. Easy and useful. Note that the ics file gets emailed to your lsonline email account, which is accessible from the lsonline.info home page.

My mom, a most-of-the-time-workaholic herself, called me last night and was concerned about "how hard [I have] been working lately." Admittedly, I have had several 16, 20, and even 24 hour days of "work" over the past few weeks and I took very little time off for the holidays (and I continue to work today), but looking back on it, I don't resent it. Everyone else at Lotus 911 has been doing the same thing.

Lotusphere is our annual celebration of our passion for the amazing and transformative things that the Lotus brand of solutions can allow us to achieve. I know we are not alone. The cumulative energy of the six to twelve thousand of you that join us at this event every year somehow erases the sleep deprivation of the preceding weeks. The opportunity to show what we have done, see what you have done, and reaffirm the direction we are all heading provides more than enough motivation to keep doing it for another year.

Simply put, "this is what we do" - and I feel blessed to have the opportunity to do what we do. And in the evolving global "network of social networks," it is getting inreasingly infectious. So as we embark on this week together, thank you for being part of this community. If you share my sentiment, leave a comment so that my mother doesn't think I'm crazy.

I've just completed a week at Lotus "Top Gun" training, which is targeted at  updating the IBM sales team and Business Partners on the latest innovations in the Lotus portfolio and strategic direction, including solutions such as Notes/Domino 8.0, the Sametime product family; Quickr 8.0; Lotus Connections; the Portal offerings, including Web Content Management & e-Forms; Lotus Symphony; the Mobile & Enterprise Access offerings; Dashboards, and more. It's amazing how much has changed since Lotusphere just a few months ago. Lotus has delivered significant updates to each of these products and I got to see under the hood of what is coming in the next few months.

Along those lines, Lotus 911 has conducted some Lotusphere Comes To You (LCTY) events in a few cities, but I'd like to offer a "LCTY, NO REALLY" event to those who may be interested. Essentially, my idea is to set aside a full-day (less if you prefer) to come visit you at YOUR location and share these updates, do live demos, and perhaps even help you break through some admin and/or development barriers you may have. I will be in the central Florida area the second half of this week and in Chicago next week, but I'm pretty open the weeks after. Drop me a line if this sounds like something that appeals to you.

We were enetertained before OGS by the Orlando Symphony Orchestra rocking hard. Mike Rhodin opened with the theme of Emergence and introduced special guest: Bob Costas. Rhodin returned and emphasized the continuing demand growth for collaborative software and the changes in business technology needs being driven by the new generation of professionals, who expect tools like instant communication and social software in the workplace. He then announced an IBM partnership with RIM that showed a screenshot of a Blackberry with Lotus Connections on it. We at bleedyellow.com will get right on that. 

 

Project "Atlantic" is a new initiative focused on integrating SAP Business Suite with the Lotus Notes client. It sounds like Notes will be able to used as a front-end to SAP for certain workers. "Demo King" Ron Sebastian showed an "Atlantic" sidebar application that inferred it will allow real-time interaction with SAP based on documents selected in the Notes client..

 

Alistair Rennie introduced Jeff Eisen and Russ Holden (chief architects of Notes and Domino) who confirmed that Notes/Domino 8.0.1 will include Notes Traveler and some DWA enhancements, including a web-based interface for the iPhone. They also confirmed client support for Ubunto and Mac and emphasized the improved performance of Domino server. Ron demonstrated features like a better mail quota indicator, Sametime Unyte integration with meeting invitations, and a sidebar "Widget Palet" that allows a user to easily add widgets from Notes views, web services, or Google Gadgets. Widgets can be distributed to users via an online catalog, or by email, which install with a drag and drop to and from the email message. These gadgets can be automatically linked to text in Notes documents by using a pattern-matching scheme. They are calling this "Live TEXT". The new DWA "lite" looks and functions astonishingly similar to Notes 8. Ron then did a live demo of DWA access from an iPhone.

 

For Notes/Domino 8.5, they announced support for a server ID vault allowing easier ID management, an intelligent attachment store they project will reduce attachment storage by as much as 35%, and an Email security appliance emerging from the ISS acquisition. This is the release that will include project "Atlantic". there is also a great looking new discussion template. Domino Designer 8.5 will run on Eclipse and include an xPage design element that allows easier development of Web 2.0 applications. There is a drag and drop palette and class browser similar to WSAD.

 

Symphony: Kevin Cavanaugh stated that there have been 400,000 downloads of Symphony. In February 2008, they plan to deliver API's that will allow integration with the document, spreadsheet, and presentation editors in Symphony and Notes 8 with full compatibility. He illustrated a "translater plug-in" that translates documents into different languages with a few simpe clicks.

 

Unified Communications and Sametime: Ron Sebastian showed "Broadcast communities" and "SkillTap" for Sametime 8 Advanced version, which also has the notion of persistent chat rooms and instant screen sharing. Nothing new there.

 

Portal: Larry Bowden recapped the past year's Portal enhancements and wins, which now has the #1 market position in this space, Ron showed Portal integration with Lotus Connections, client side integration of portlets, such as drag and drop data moves between portlets, "tear-away portles", and a web-based rapid forms development interface. A quick look at Ed's liave blog also clarified that there will be "support for WebSphere Portal applications in Notes, Sametime, Quickr, and Blackberry devices.  Portlet Factory portlets can run in the client.  Deploy to Portal, run in Notes."

 

Quickr: Jeff Schick indicated that Quickr 8.1 will ship in March and include integration with the Symphony suite and Outlook (whatever that is) as well as team space template improvements, Future versions may include document ratings (ala Netflix), tags for documents, and integration with Connections and FileNet.

 

For Connections 2.0 and beyond, they are working on an improved home page, discussion forums, wiki support, language translation tools, widgets, federated search across all Connections services, the "Atlas" relationship visualization tool, Quickr integration, and offline and mobile device support (including Blackberries). I can't wait to get these into Bleed Yellow for you. Activites will also be beefed up and easier to use.

 

Now for the new product announcements:

 

Lotus Mashups is a lightweight browser-based creation of mashup applications using widgets and content feeds that can be easliy layered and wired together. 

 

Lotus Foundations is the acquisition of the small-footprint autonomic Nitix flavor of Linux from Toronto-based Net Integration Technologies, which includes the Nitix Blue offering that includes an integrated Domino server, This solution is targetted at the SMB space as a Microsoft SBS killer, sets up in under 30 minutes, and can run on an appliance that fits in an 8 x 11 envelope as Rhodin illustrated on stage. Lotus 911 and I have personally been working with Nitix for over 2 years, so this announcement has a special place in my heart. Foundations will also encompass "bluehouse", which is a new software as a service offering of the key features across the Lotus Collaboration portfolio. It is also targetted at organizations with less than 500 users. Ron demonstrated the bluehouse web interface, which includes "live charts", an integrated visualization tool for data on the screen.

 

Links to other OGS blogs:

http://edbrill.com/ebrill/edbrill.nsf/dx/liveblog-lotusphere-2008-opening-general-session

http://www.lotus911.com/nathan/escape.nsf/d6plinks/NTFN-7B3GXA

http://www.timtripcony.com/blog.nsf/d6plinks/TTRY-7B3H9N

http://smokey.rhs.com/web/blog/PowerOfTheSchwartz.nsf/d6plinks/RSCZ-7B3HEZ

http://www.curiousmitch.com/CuriousMitch/mitch2.nsf/d6plinks/MCON-7B3HD8

http://www.alanlepofsky.net/alepofsky/alanblog.nsf/

 

 

Live blogging from the bus... For those of you that don't know, Lotus 911 typically takes an RV from Atlanta to Orlando and we party the whole way there. This year, we have 16 people attending Lotusphere, 11 of whom gathered in Atlanta this morning to board the "tour bus" we are taking this year (since the max legal limit for even a large RV is 8). This thing is LOADED! We're talking leather furniture, an HD LCD, 2 additional TV's, wireless internet access (obviously), a surround sound stereo (currently blasting The Crystal Method), a kitchen, bathroom, and a professional driver. As a bonus, we added a giant version of the Bleed Yellow claws to both sides and the back of the bus. Don't worry, we plan to host some events on it, so be sure to grab one of us (in the red shirts with the claws) and ask when the next bus party is.

We got a late jump, so we probably won't arrive at the Dolphin until about 6:00 PM. So for those of you that want to greet us, see the bus, and grab some early SWAG, keep an eye on this blog. I'll post again when we're close.

 That's not a bad thing folks. It all started at 2:24 PM today. Chris Whisonant (your bleeedyellow.com administrator) announced the launch in his blog at that time and we waited for the faithful blogging community to pick up on it. Within an hour (and with a little IM help from Nathan), we had 10 registrations and about 100 hits. Over the next 5 hours, we achieved over 100 registrations and 800 hits, and were posted on at least 6 blogs that I saw. We've had a few people start blogging already and new communities and dogears created too. So for those of you that have helped us get this started, here is a special early bird surprise: Look for the Lotus 911 / Bleed Yellow branded tour bus (no joke) pull up to the Dolphin at about 5:00 PM and be the first to get some Bleed Yellow SWAG.

 

Thanks to all of you.

 

Scott