Ed Brill

Lotus Notes Traveler 8.5 news coming this morning

Ed Brill — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 23:36:03 +1100

It's 1:41 AM in Wellington, New Zealand and I should be sleeping. Since I will be sleeping in a couple of hours when this news goes out.... IBM and one of the device manufacturers will be announcing the expansion of Lotus Notes Traveler support to the manufacturer's line of Sybmian-based devices, in addition to Windows Mobile, in the Notes/Domino 8.5 release. I'll update this post when I wake up with a link to the press release and the name of the manufacturer....

Apple Enterprise Best Practices roadshow in the US

Ed Brill — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 07:34:02 +1100

Since I transitioned into my new job, I've been spending a lot of time and energy around our partnership with Apple. One of the concrete results of our work is that IBM and Apple are teaming together on our focus on enterprise customers. As such, Apple has indicated that they would love to see some of the Lotus customers or prospects come learn about Apple in the enterprise at an upcoming roadshow in the US.

Apple is looking for attendees from Fortune 1000-type enterprise organizations, and the attendee should be a decision-maker or key influencer in terms of enterprise solutions.

More details on dates and locations between now and February, 2009, can be found on Apple's website (this specific link is for IBM Lotus customers).

Link: apple-enterprise.com >

Lotusphere 2009 session abstracts now online

Ed Brill — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 15:22:24 +1100

The Lotusphere team has published the list of 99% final session abstracts for Lotusphere 2009. Go here to check out the conference session topics!

If you are already registered for the conference, you should also have received an e-mail with a link to the session preferences and birds-of-a-feather voting. Feedback on a tight turnaround -- looking for your responses this week. We use this feedback to help allocate sessions to rooms, and also to pick the BoFs for the conference. Please take ten minutes to provide your input, thanks!

ZDNet/Tom Foremski: Microsoft’s cloud is more about Notes migration and less about a new IT architecture

Ed Brill — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 23:29:17 +1100

Lots of people have sent me links to news coverage of Microsoft's official announcement yesterday of Microsoft Online, including their hosted Exchange offering. I was especially interested in Tom Foremski's view on ZDNet, because he sees it for what it is

Ron Markezich, corporate VP of Microsoft Onlne said, "Two-thirds of our users are using our Online Services because they want to move away from Notes."

It can cost corporations as much as $1,000 per user to move away from Notes. By signing up for Microsoft Online Services it is a quicker and cheaper way to move to a different solution.

Microsoft's Online Services Group might be better renamed the Lotus Notes Migration Solution Group!

Well, it's quicker and cheaper, but does that make it a good idea? Microsoft has been aggressively promoting Exchange Online at existing Lotus customers in the last few weeks...it's the "play du jour" for their sales team. Why? Because for the last four years that Microsoft has been running their Notes Compete program, nothing else has worked, so they might as well try this approach. Nobody really knows if it is a good idea, if they truly will save money, if the system will be reliable, if it will work globally, what happens to their data if they stop using the system, and a myriad of other issues. Still, since nothing else has worked, Microsoft is trying to play the fixed cost game and get CIOs to focus only on the per-user per-month hosting cost, which is still only a portion of the total cost of ownership. And in the media coverage as well as the discussions that are taking place, Microsoft is desperately trying to keep the focus and scope to e-mail only. Why? Because they've completely given up on the idea that Notes applications can be migrated, so now with a hosted mail offering, they try to attack the commodity piece of the equation, hoping to bite off something rather than nothing. And they know they need to do it now, because if you are already deploying Notes 8, the last good reason they've ever had to have the migration discussion -- usability -- is out the window.

I met a customer earlier this week who said that their Notes 8 deployment is growing virally, as users see others in their organization running Notes 8, ringing up IT, and saying "I want that!" When is the last time that happened for Notes? This is incredible validation of Mary Beth Raven's leadership and the entire usability effort that went into Notes 8. So, Microsoft is quickly running out of candidates to go after with their last remaining arrow in the Notes Compete quiver, and they come up with....

One of the early customers is video retailer BlockBuster, which has been using Exchange Online for about six months. Blockbuster CIO Keith Morrow said in an interview that Microsoft's online services came at a good time for the company, which was on a several-generations-old version of Lotus Notes.

Morrow said the video rental company needed to make a change of some kind, and the option to move to Exchange without having to bring that skill set in-house was a key selling point, as was the ability to offer better mobile options, including Outlook Web Access and iPhone support.

Another Notes switcher in the crowd was Eddie Bauer, which has been a Microsoft Online customer for about five weeks. Chief Information Officer Rich Mozack said the clothing retailer wanted to move off Notes but couldn't make the numbers work to run Exchange on its own.

"We just couldn't justify the up-front investment," Mozack said.

Of course you couldn't, because I have yet to see, in all my years of this competition, a real, valid business case for migrating -- and even less-so as the market has moved on from e-mail being a strategic tool and towards collaboration.

That last quote was from CNET, "Microsoft aims to be a good host". But the CNET reporter missed an important detail, which Information Week picked up:

"On a Friday, 1,400 of Eddie Bauer's associates went home as Lotus Notes users, and on Monday they came to work as Outlook users with Microsoft Online Services," Rich Mozack, CIO at Eddie Bauer, said in a statement.

1,400 associates? Wikipedia says that Eddie Bauer has 10,000 employees. So what's the real story here? Were those 1,400 users retail store clerks and warehouse employees, who perhaps just need a basic mail experience? Did they consider Domino Web Access? What are those 8,600 other users using (something tells me it was never Lotus Notes...)?

As usual with Microsoft, there's a lot more to this than meets the eye. I am somehow reminded of their Lotusphere spoiler release in 2006, where Microsoft trumpeted the decision of retailer CompUSA to migrate from Notes to MS. Like the Blockbuster story above, CompUSA was a retailer whose very business model was under attack, and they had challenges with Notes. Rather than hire a housekeeper to clean up their current mail system, they decided, at a time when they likely could not afford to, to go buy a new house (if I finish the metaphor, they also had a sub-prime loan). Microsoft Online is just their latest attempt -- you don't even have to build the house yourself, you just move in. What happens when we find the mold in the walls?

If you find yourself in the situation where Microsoft is trying to sell you a new house in the neighborhood known as "the cloud", let me know. We've assembled the executive-level materials to show that IBM has a better idea -- solving your business problems. Whether that involves cleaning up your current premises-based deployment, our own Lotus Notes Hosted offering, working with a business partner, outsourcing, or something else creative, I promise we can do better -- whether you are a current Notes customer or not. More importantly, we will focus on collaboration as a strategic advantage, not just a way to try to negotiate your payment like that used-car salesman.

Link: ZDNet/Tom Foremski: Microsoft's cloud is more about Notes migration and less about a new IT architecture >

Network World: Lotus chief defines imminent battle plan

Ed Brill — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 06:48:49 +1100

John Fontana profiles Lotus general manager Bob Picciano. They talk Notes/Domino 8.5, Sharepoint competition, hosting/cloud/SaaS, and Lotusphere:

Microsoft went on record in July as saying it wants to get Lotus customers to convert five million seats of Notes to Microsoft's collaboration tools between July 1, 2008 and June 30, 2009.

Picciano doesn't see that happening.

"We are leaving others like Microsoft in the rear-view mirror because they are more caught up in protecting franchises and not focused on liberating workforces and getting people to democratically share information and link together in a business context," he said. "The golden egg Microsoft is laying [with SharePoint] is coming from the chicken they have, which is a monopoly desktop environment."

The story also includes quotes and references from analysts Peter O'Kelly and Rob Koplowitz of Forrester. A worthwhile read.

Link: Network World: Lotus chief defines imminent battle plan >

A resume/c.v. that crossed my desk while in Oz...

Ed Brill — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 12:38:12 +1100

My colleague Matthew Trendinick just forwarded along an e-mail from a job applicant...I suspect he will get a lot of people checking him out:

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Lotus^® ND8 (Notes Domino^® 8) and I believe I possess the attributes necessary to improve collaboration within your business.

Now, I know you might not be hiring at the moment -- and have a previous version of me -- but I'd really appreciate it if you took a moment to look at my attached resume. I have an excellent employment record, have been trained in a wide array of fields and am well recognised for my efficiency, effectiveness and robust nature. I'm capable of leading a team or working as part of a group, and classify myself as an enthusiastic self-starter able to work across multiple locations around the world.

If you're still not satisfied after seeing my resume, I'll give you the opportunity to come and see me working in person. That way, you can judge whether I'd make a valuable contribution to your organisation.

I look forward to hearing from you.

I'm ready to hire him!

US Customs and Border Protection’s new Global Entry program

Ed Brill — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 12:58:00 -0500

It was a very long journey from home to heaven, with about 24 hours total in transit between Chicago and Sydney. I'm here in one of my favorite cities in the world today, even though tomorrow I'll be up in Brisbane for a public user group event and some other meetings. I couldn't miss spending an extra day in Sydney, even though I desperately need a few hours' more sleep to be functional.

Before leaving from Chicago O'Hare, I had the opportunity to meet some of the nice people at US Customs and Border Protection. No, this wasn't a run-in with the law, though I did get fingerprinted for the first time in my life as part of the process. Instead it was the application processing for the CBP's new "Global Entry Program". This is a new automated way for American citizens to bypass queues at US airport immigration control, through a swipe-and-go kiosk system. After fifteen or so border crossings this year, I jumped at the opportunity to sign up for this new program. Apparently I'm an early adopter -- there are about 5000 Americans enrolled so far, and on a typical day at O'Hare, they are only processing one or two dozen people through the kiosks.

The concept here isn't new -- I've seen automated systems like this in place in several Asian countries, and the US has tried a few previous times. I'm hopeful that this time it's all going to work for the long run.

I was very impressed with the way the Chicago CBP office administers this program. I started the process by applying online and paying the $100 fee, which covers five years of the service. That makes it less than $2 per anticipated use for me, an absolute no-brainer (especially after that last time, when it took more than 40 minutes coming back from Frankfurt). The application took about 20 minutes to fill out. The next day, I had a conditional approval and was directed to an online system to make an appointment for final screening. Knowing I was passing through O'Hare a few days later, I picked a time just before check-in for my flight, and went straight to my interview. The CBP officer was professional and courteous. He displayed an attitude that, honestly, seemed to convey the feeling that this was like a VIP program. He even gave me the business card for the branch office manager, and encouraged me to e-mail the manager anytime with comments or complaints.

Assuming the final system checks all work, my passport should be enabled for the kiosk system by the time I fly back to LAX on Friday afternoon. It won't make much difference, since I still have a multi-hour layover before the connection to Chicago. Still, at least I won't be waiting in line after the long set of flights from Wellington to Auckland to LA.

Lotusphere 2009: Lotusphere idol returns!

Ed Brill — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 13:45:00 -0500

Over the last few days, 99% of Lotusphere session acceptance/rejections have gone out to those who submitted proposals. Congratulations to those whose proposals were accepted -- as Rocky wrote the other day, this was another tough year for the track managers! Many, many great abstracts were proposed and we're going to have another excellent conference.

Now, on the minus side, I've seen some public grumbling by those whose proposals were not accepted, on twitter or blogs. I tweeted about this the other day and heard from some with guilty consciences -- but not from the grumblers. Of course, I understand that some are disappointed, but there are professional ways to express that (and I saw some fine examples of that as well).

So, rather than just grumble back, I'd like to offer some advice, and an opportunity. If you weren't accepted as a speaker, you may need to build up your resume. Are you speaking at other conferences -- ILUG, UKLUG, Admin/Developer, Entwicklercamp, or user group meetings? Are you blogging or contributing to content in a way that demonstrates your subject-matter expertise? These are all factors that track managers take into consideration when selecting sessions.

There is another opportunity, too. At Lotusphere 2008, we introduced Lotusphere Idol! Lotusphere Idol will return for Lotusphere 2009, and I will once again be hosting the session. During Lotusphere Idol, 4-6 contestants will have the opportunity to give a short presentation. A panel of expert judges will decide which contestant is Lotusphere Idol! The winner will get their own speaking slot on the Thursday Lotusphere agenda, and have the opportunity to work with track managers and coaches to get ready for that session.

We'll begin the contestant search process in a month or so, and I will post updates accordingly.

Last, in case you are wondering, I will be speaking at Lotusphere 2009. On Business Development Day, David Via (who replaced me as the worldwide product sales executive for Notes/Domino) and I will discuss the realities of Notes/Domino TCO and the competitive landscape. During the main conference, Brent Peters (VP Notes/Domino Product Development) and I will present the Notes/Domino strategy session. My calendar for Lotusphere 2009 looks a bit different than in past years, but I'm sure it will be the usual wild ride. That is especially true because registration continues to trend ahead of numbers for Lotusphere 2008. Now if we can figure out the little issue of this US presidential inauguration, which overlaps the conference on Tuesday morning...TiVo anyone?

Microsoft thinks two hours a week is an improvement for time spent on upgrades

Ed Brill — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 15:49:50 -0500

Microsoft announced Small Business Server 2008 and Essential Business Server 2008 earlier today. The emphasis of their press release seems to be about saving time and money, displaying a good grasp of their marketing 101 lessons:

They are designed and priced to help customers save money and compete more successfully in the global marketplace.

"If time equals money, then we're saving a lot of money," said Rob Harris of Robby Gordon Motorsports.

Wow, sign me up! But wait, there's more:

Based on feedback directly from customers, SBS and EBS greatly help reduce the setup and ongoing management of IT, while enabling new scenarios to enhance end-user productivity, as well as saving companies money on license costs.

"We used to spend 15 hours a month doing upgrades," said Tom Goddard, director of Information Technology for Lee Company. "Instead, with EBS, this is down to two hours a week.

Two hours a week for upgrades? Call me right now! I can't wait!

Bilal Jaffrey, who does all sorts of great marketing stuff for Lotus Foundations, caught this first, and calls MS out:

I am confused. As a small business owner, I am looking for maximum uptime and minimum IT headaches. Small Business owners cannot afford to have downtime, they don't have backup data centers in place nor they can afford to have in house IT guy to constantly upgrade the darn server.

Should I even talk about the fact that Microsoft's own case study on Essential Business Server deployment outlines deployment time reduction from 4 months to 1 month. That is right, a month to setup a small business server? Lotus Foundations take 30 minutes.

More on Bilal's blog: Microsoft admits to wasting 2 hours a week on upgrades alone! >

Niklas Heidloff and Steve Castledine are asking questions related to Domino application development

Ed Brill — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 07:41:06 -0500

Two blog entries that several of you have seen, but more input would be welcome...

Niklas Heidloff, "Feedback needed: Open catalogs for Lotus Notes/Domino applications ":

I'm convinced that public and open catalogs help our community and all of us to succeed. Very often people implement useful and cool things that they or their company cannot or don't want to make money with. Many other people could benefit from these things if there were easy ways to share them.

Niklas touches on a few different types of catalogs...and in the end, I think we need multiple approaches. None of what we really want to do is met fully in the market today, but Niklas is brainstorming on some key ways to address the notion of code and sample application distribution.

Related, we have Steve Castledine, "Lotus Notes Domino templates and open source":

So I'm asking an open question really on people's thoughts on the current templates and how we could best improve on them, and at the same time use them to promote additional development on the Notes/Domino platform especially around the new technologies. These opinions I can then capture and see if there is any opportunities to enhance the template world we live in by using this data to present an internal report.

We've had this template discussion from time to time on my blog as well. Steve's first question, about the supportability level required for templates, is one that we've been examining on the product management team as well. My assertion and desire is that we should provide more templates that are functional solutions, but that they do not necessarily need to be fully supported. If they are sandboxed with open design, then anyone can update or modify them to add or change functionality. Obviously, supported = better, but Steve also raises the question of when too many templates would get into a channel conflict stance versus our partner community.

Great discussions on both sites, but there's the opportunity for more voices on both.

PC World: Study: SharePoint, Lotus in for Long Collaboration Fight

Ed Brill — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 20:50:25 -0500

PC World covers the new report from Forrester analyst Rob Koplowitz, "Notes Versus SharePoint: Which Collaboration Platform Is Right For You?":

IBM still has an edge in providing third-party applications that run on Notes and Domino if companies want to use software from more than one vendor, according to the report. Also, Notes, Sametime, IBM's corporate instant-messaging client, and Quickr, IBM's content-sharing application, are built on the open-source Eclipse developer platform, which allows them to run Eclipse plug-ins natively and provides a more open development architecture for third-party applications. ...

Lotus also provides a valuable piece of functionality that SharePoint does not -- the ability to replicate data and application logic from server to server, as well as from server to client, Koplowitz said. This comes in handy in instances where information and application logic spans multiple locations across low-bandwidth links to the Internet, giving users the ability to replicate data with the back-end server once and then work in an offline capacity, he said.

I just had the chance to read the full report, which follows on from the teleconference Forrester held back in August. No winner in this report, and both vendors and our supporters will find things to quarrel with, but the bottom line is it shows that each vendor has a solid position in the market ....that there is no likely "single winner" in the collaboration space, other than you the customer.

Link: PC World: Study: SharePoint, Lotus in for Long Collaboration Fight >

Some thoughts on Lotus Notes Hosted Messaging and TCO

Ed Brill — Sun, 9 Nov 2008 18:59:21 -0500

Three weeks ago, IBM Lotus announced Lotus Notes Hosted Messaging, a Passport Advantage fixed price offering where IBM hosts e-mail boxes for customers on a pay-as-you-go basis. I've spent a ton of time in calls and conversations about this announcement ever since, and with more on this week's calendar, I'm thinking about why.

To recap, the offering comes in four flavors -- regular (99.5%) and high (99.9%) availability, and with or without the Lotus Notes Messaging license. The price ranges from US$8 to US$14 per user per month. This is the cost of, among other things, IBM providing the service, the hardware the server runs on, the administration of that server, the data center space and monitoring, backup and recovery, Future plans include addition of iNotes, Blackberry, and Sametime instant messaging services. Lotus Notes Hosted Messaging is one component of the Lotus brand's strategy to provide service-based offerings; others include Sametime Unyte and "Bluehouse". This is still a relatively nascent strategy...while IBM has been in the data center and hosting business longer than all our competitors combined, the move to a fixed-price standardized approach is one of the aspects that makes the new offering so interesting.

The customer inquires and conversations on this have been diverse. Some customers are looking for the "silver bullet" that will solve their operational cost issues with running an e-mail system. Others are looking for hosting of applications, something that IBM does offer but not through the standardized approach. Some know that SaaS/cloud/hosting are the buzzwords of the moment, so they're looking at it because they feel like they should. A few have come to us because our competitors are suddenly running scared, pushing their hosting approaches with an "ours is better than IBM's!" sky-is-falling mindset that is surprising given how careful IT should be about decision-making in a time of cost-cutting.

It is that "silver bullet" group that continues to surprise me. We did not announce Lotus Notes Hosted Messaging to be the bargain-basement hosted e-mail provider. For what it's worth, Microsoft's Exchange Online isn't, either -- their cost calculator, which is clearly a theoretical model, has the typical cost in the $8-10/user/month range as well, whereas their partners like 1&1 charge less (as, I believe, do some of ours, though it's hard to tell through the grumbling that a few of them have engaged in). Regardless, the response I've had from some customers is, "we think our internal costs are lower than what you are charging". That may well be! Consider Lotus Notes Hosted Messaging when you are looking for a predictable cost model, the expertise of IBM, the removal of concern around server upgrades (HW/SW) and maintenance, an approach for multiple sites or locations, and a single-vendor solution. As more services are added to the Lotus Notes Hosted model, it may well be that the economies-of-scale change, and the offering may appeal to additional customers. But like most things in the IBM world, we did not create this offering under the belief that it is the best or only approach -- IBM offers a range of solutions. In fact, Lotus Notes Hosted Messaging is not our only way to approach the problem...IBM Global Services can do a broader custom proposal (still at a fixed cost) or there's the complete strategic outsourcing model that has existed for ten or more years.

What the introduction of Lotus Notes Hosted Messaging may really mean for customers is that it is a catalyst to look at your operational costs. Too many organizations don't know what the operation of your e-mail/collaboration systems costs, and those that do may have ways to optimize. One of the things my team is looking at is a set of tools to help you with operational streamlining of your Notes/Domino environment. The Lotus brand services team is especially good at "health check" and TCO optimization exercises, and there are so many tools that have been introduced in Notes/Domino 7, 8.x, and coming in 8.5 to help. When I first started looking at Notes/Domino TCO ten years ago, we saw costs that were 5-10x what they seem to be today. Whether you look at a hosted or on-premise deployment, the opportunities exist -- and moreso with the release of Domino 8.5 -- to streamline.

Your suggestions or experience on what you did that helped with your operational costs would be appreciated as this topic is the subject of much energy at the moment. Thanks!

I would like to recognize your Notes 8 deployment at Lotusphere

Ed Brill — Fri, 7 Nov 2008 09:57:14 -0500

During Lotusphere 2009, my team is putting together a special recognition for customers who have completed their deployment of Notes 8, or at least a significant-sized deployment of Notes 8. Now, I don't want to give away the plot as to what the recognition will be, but it will be more than just a t-shirt. At a minimum, we'll have an event of some kind and some in-session mentions.

Details on this Notes 8 user club can be found in Jan Kenney's posting on developerWorks Lotus:

If you or your customer is an IBM Lotus Notes/iNotes and Domino 8.0.x customer who has EITHER:

Deployed Notes/iNotes and Domino version 8.0.x (i.e. versions 8.0, 8.0.1 OR 8.0.2) to 1000 or more seats within your company
OR

Deployed Notes/iNotes and Domino to your entire company AND your company has 500 or more employees
Then we would like to recognize your company's accomplishment at Lotusphere 2009!
If this applies to you or your customer's company then Congratulations and please let us know a bit more about the 8.0.x deployed environment, HERE:

Quick questionnaire--> https://www-304.ibm.com/software/earlyprograms/surveys/cust/survey.wss?id=632(provide your IBM ID at the prompt. if you don't have one click the 'register now' link on the Sign in page to create one. Easy!)

If this does NOT apply to you or your customer's company yet, then please continue with the Notes/iNotes and Domino 8.0.x deployment work and return to this questionnaire once the criteria described above has been met, as there will be other opportunities for recognition after Lotusphere 2009.

Please help spread the word -- I would love to have to go ask for more resources for this recognition program!

30 days in...a progress report

Ed Brill — Thu, 6 Nov 2008 20:33:00 -0500

One of the great things about moving from Notes/Domino sales to Notes/Symphony product management is that there was no real "break in" period. In my new job, I work with most of the same people I worked with in my old job, albeit from the different perspective of product management and being a people manager. On the other hand, there's no real "honeymoon" period, either -- not that I am someone who wants to use "still coming up to speed" as a crutch. So, it's been an eventful 30 days, with some pretty exciting output from this organization:

We launched Lotus Notes Hosted Messaging, the first published, standardized software+service offering from IBM Lotus. While I don't have direct responsibility for this offering, I've been assisting with customer conversations, internal documentation, and a lot of other decision support around its market introduction. There are not enough hours in the day to handle all of the interest this announcement has generated, and as a bonus, it appears to have put our competition on defense.
We made major announcements around Lotus Symphony -- a new 1.2 release, the first Mac version, and a roadmap to incorporate OpenOffice 3, Office 2007 document support, and Visual Basic macro support. Eric Otchet, the Symphony product manager, reports that the Symphony sessions at the OpenOffice conference have been jam-packed, and reaction to our announcement has been well-received.
The team is prepping for the release of Notes/Domino 8.5 in the weeks ahead, and everything that that launch entails. We just made code drop 12 available to our design partners and internal IBMers, as we approach the end-game for this release. We also have one eye on the releases post-8.5, including new offerings like the SAP+IBM project "Atlantic".
We're also looking ahead to some early 2009 activities, including IBM participation in the product expo at MacWorld, and of course, Lotusphere.

In the background, I'm personally working on a number of ideas that I've discussed here, and have been slowly turning the corner from react mode to steady keel. I'm looking at a bunch of project tracking/management tools to help me with that -- thank you again to all that responded to my earlier blog on the topic. Rest assured -- I will be using something Notes-based.

The biggest challenge I've faced in these 30 days has been the mindset transition from being first responder and constant customer presence. I've always worked hard to respond to all e-mails within 24 hours, get out to customers when needed, and jump in wherever needed. In this role, I'm finding limitless opportunity to jump in -- but that success depends entirely on being selective about it. I still have a full calendar of customer travel commitments, too -- in just about a week's time, for example, I will be headed off to Australia and New Zealand for what has become my annual tour down under.

I'm immensely encouraged by what I see from the new vantage point. It helps to see the great press coverage, analyst reports, and blog entries talking about the health of the Notes/Domino marketplace. It's going to be so exciting to share so much of this with you all at Lotusphere 2009. Lotusphere speaker notifications will be going out within the next few days, and the session titles will go live on the Lotusphere website for session preference voting. The excitement is already building, too -- registration is ahead year to year vs. LS2008. From what I've seen of the agenda so far, it's going to be a great conference -- I hope you all have the opportunity to attend. Oh, and one little teaser -- we have a GREAT industry speaker lined up for one of our breakout sessions, more on that soon....

Symphony news from the OpenOffice conference in Beijing

Ed Brill — Wed, 5 Nov 2008 00:01:00 -0500

IBM's Michael Karasick is delivering a keynote at the OpenOffice conference in Beijing right about now, and here are some of the things he's announcing:

Over 3 million downloads of Lotus Symphony -- 2 million of which have come since 1.0 release in May, 2008
Symphony 1.2, with key new features such as data pilot tables (aka pivot tables), is now available on Windows and Linux (including Ubuntu Linux), and the first Mac beta available
IBM plans to deliver 60 new features in Symphony updates in 2009, including Visual Basic macro support, and Office 2007 file format support. These new releases will be developed with ODF (Open Document Format) 1.2 support and will begin use of the OpenOffice 3.0 code base
IBM and Sun have joined together to create the ODF Toolkit Union, at odftoolkit.org. This site will help a broader range of ISVs build solutions that leverage ODF
IBM is announcing a dozen customer references for Lotus Symphony, from all over the world. I will link to the list when it is available online on Wednesday US time

The key message to take away -- IBM is in it for the long-haul with Lotus Symphony. Over the coming months, you will hear more about our direction for personal and organizational productivity. We believe there is a significant amount of innovation that can be introduced in this space, as the market moves beyond office.

Will update this post with links to more information in the morning Chicago time. What time that will be depends on just how late the celebration goes tonight....
One link before bedtime: CIO.com: Sun, IBM launch ODF tools initiative >
Update: The press release is now on ibm.com >