Portaldomosphere

 Yes - I used to HATE Websphere - and to some extent Portal. And I wondered today - why did I not like these products? (And you are asking why I ask myself question like this on the weekend) The more I thought about this, I came up with many answers.

My first answer came from the marketing that IBM and Lotus subjected us to from some years back. I think the biggest fears about Websphere taking over the Domino arena came with Workplace. Workplace was seen and marketed as the next big thing. Since Lotus was pushing this and just coasting around with Lotus Notes the community felt very much like I did - rejected. We have made Lotus Notes our friend and now the rules were completely changing. Luckily for us, the focus turned back on Lotus Notes. (And lucky for us that Workplace took so long to set up and configure that is was basically not worth the effort to mess with)

My second answer - I LOVE Lotus Notes. I am a yellow-bleeder for sure. I know this down in my heart that this software is like the perfect canvas for me to create something wonderful. So the thought of letting go of that turned my stomach and angered me. How dare they change everything I have been doing...

But the real reason - well, I did not know nor understand or really want to know anything about the Websphere brand. Even in all the training and early working with Websphere products - I still got a bad feeling about it. But in all of this I realized that IBM/Lotus did itself a horrible disjustice. The main reason is that Domino products and Websphere products are completely different. I mean this on all levels. Neither could do the others job - and I mean this in total. Totally from technical to the type of customer who would purchase each for each reason.

So - for all of you who felt this way before - have an open mind and try not to get caught up in the bad feeling you had before.

 Over the next few days - I wil be posting about integrating Lotus Notes 8 Client and Portlet Factory 6.0.2 Portlets.

Assuming you will want to try this out, you will need the following software :

1. Lotus Notes 8 Designer
2. Portlet Factory 6.0.2 (I will not be using RAD in my examples)
3. Lotus Component Designer
4. Websphere Portal 6.0.1.1
5. Cloudscape 10.1
6. Derby Workbench (optional if you know how to use the command line tools for Cloudscape)

My first post will be in a couple of days.