Craig's reporting from Lotusphere 2008
Category Lotusphere 2008Bookmark :
Hi Everyone!
Having a great time here at Lotusphere - today was the opening session, and wow did it impress!
I thought I'd give you a brief summary of what is up and coming from Lotus in the next year:
New partnership with RIM to work more closely with each other.
(also see this).
Lotus Notes Traveller - allows for Notes/DWA mobile access on Windows Mobile Devices (to start)
(also see IBM Unveils Next Generation Collaboration Software Suite)
Notes
-Lotus Notes for Macintosh 8.5 Beta was released today
-Clients for Windows, Linux, Ubuntu, Macintosh (see IBM Accelerates Desktop Customer Choice With Support for Ubuntu, Red Hat and Novell Software)
-Lotus Notes 8.0.1 is being released in February
New features of LN 8.0.1:
-Widgets!
-Integration with Yahoo/Google Widgets (we all know how much I love widgets, I love this feature!)
-Ability to create your own widgets using any web 2.0 source or from notes views
-Distribute widgets through a catalog or e-mail
-Live text - Notes will scan e-mail for patterns, identify things like stock symbols, locations, various information that it will link to the web - so for instance if you type in a stock quote, you can click on it and get the stock information, or if you type in an address and click on it, you can get a google map location
-Mail quota indicator
-Quickr connections will now be enabled
Domino Web Access improvements
-No longer are their seperate templates for Notes and DWA, the 8.0.1 template looks exactly the same in both DWA and Notes client
-New lite mode, for low bandwidth...uses AJAX to the max, can switch easily between modes, and lite mode looks exactly the same as the full mode
-Live Text
-Even lighter version for iPhone
Domino 8.5
-New ID Management - central vault for ID files (very similar to our UMS)
-Notes client can now retrieve ID files from the central vault (this should be a huge time saver and greatly improve the ease for installation)
-New directory freedom (ability to connect to any directory, including LDAP..not sure yet if this is Tivoli Directory Integrator with another name or not)
-New Attachment Datastore - this will automatically remove attachments from e-mail and put them in a store so that they are not duplicated, eg. attachment x number of recipients...this will greatly reduce storage space and backup space and be totally transparent to the user (they still see the attachment, can save it, open it, etc.)
-Lotus Protector antispam/antivirus product
-huge CPU/IO/storage improvements (up to 30%, this is on top of the 30% that came already with Domino 8)
Domino Designer 6.5
-Now allows for Web 2.0 development and eclipse
-I understood that it would allow us to re-skin current domino applications into web 2.0 apps which would work on a browser, mobile device or notes client - I will find out more about this tomorrow when I attend a domino session - if I understand correctly, this would allow us to take any of our domino apps and make them web accessible, even on BlackBerry
-New class browser for LotusScript
-Java Script and Java editing improved greatly
Lotus Symphony
-This is IBM's free Word Processor/Spreadsheet/Presentation software
-Already 400,000 downloads
-Not just rebranded OpenOffice - integration with other IBM products and many enhancements
-Beta 4 is coming out this February
-will have mashup capability
-Separate Symphony roadshow will be coming
Lotus Sametime
-now 10 years old
-New integration with telephony - voice icon in sametime allows you to call a person either with your PC or office phone
-A person can set up many different numbers in sametime, so if they are offline or away for instance, and someone calls your office number, it will redirect it to your home/cell/other number
-works with Nortel phone systems (see Sametime Adoption Expands IBM Unified Communications to Millions of New Users)
-New collaboration communities allow you to post announcements, have group chats, etc.
-instant screen share with ability to take control - (very useful for remote helpdesk and 1000% easier to use than our current solution!)
WebSphere Portal
-#1 portal in marketshare for the last 10 years
-New Accelerators allow you drop in custom portals for specific applications....one of these is a learning portal, I'm looking into if this is meant as a CLE for schools
-Integration with .net apps, widgets, Lotus Notes, Sametime, Quickr, blackberry - portlets work across this entire spectrum without any additional programming
Lotus Connections
-This is amazing social networking software from IBM...can create a social network in our organization, find people, experts, share information
-Media library for files of all types, podcasts and RSS feeds
-Integration with Facebook and Confluence
-Lotus Connections brings in data from Notes/portal/Quickr and external sources
Lotus Mashups - New product
-Allows users to build and deploy their own mashups
-Can gather data from internal (notes/quickr/connections/whatever) and external sources, and then by using open standards, can be used in Notes, portal (not just websphere, any standards compliant portal) and RSS feeds
-This might be very neat to integrate our own Notes stuff with our UWindsor portal
That's about it for now...it's late, and I have another jam-packed day starting tomorrow at 6AM, and the IBM Canada Reception tomorrow night!
Hope all is well in Windsor!
Craig
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Craig Brown
Computing Consultant - Lotus Notes Administrator
Information Technology Services
University of Windsor
Phone: 519.253.3000 ext. 2743
E-mail: cbrown@uwindsor.ca
