IBM Lotus Connections software announcement

May 15 2007

IBM released pricing and packaging information today about IBM Lotus Connections.  The announcement indicates the planned electronic general availability date is June 29, 2007.  

IBM Lotus Connections V1.0 empowers users to share and refine innovative ideas and helps you execute tasks more quickly by using dynamic networks of coworkers, partners, and customers. Lotus Connections delivers the following essential components of social software that meet the security, scalability, and integration requirements of a growing business:

  * Profiles enable you to quickly find the people you need by searching across your organization using keywords that help identify expertise or current projects.
  * Communities allow you to create, find, join, and work with communities of people who share a common responsibility or area of expertise.
  * Blogs help you to present your ideas and receive feedback while learning from the experience of others.
  * Dogear allows you to save your bookmarks, either as private or shared, so you and others can quickly find information.
  * Activities component empowers you to organize your work, plan next steps, and easily tap your expanding professional network to help execute your everyday deliverables faster.
Some interesting things in the announcement:
  • The Connections 1.0 license includes the right to use WebSphere Application Server, DB2, Tivoli Directory Integrator for Connections -- these are not additional charge items.  In the case of DB2, it's optional -- Oracle10g is also supported.
  • There are three license types: Connections, Connections profiles, and Connections activities.  All are priced per-user.  Pricing isn't included in IBM channel announcements.
  • While Connections 1.0 is limited to Windows 2003 Server or RHEL, the announcement contains a "statement of direction" for AIX, SLES, and i5/OS to be available by the end of 2007.  Additional integration with Notes/Domino, Sametime, WebSphere Portal, and Microsoft Office are all also called out in the "statement of direction".
Link: IBM.com: IBM Lotus Connections V1.0 delivers social software for businesses  (or PDF) >

Ed Brill | Zürich, Schweiz Category:  Lotus  Add/View Comments [17]

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  1. 1  Russ Mayes http://therightnotes.wordpress.com | 5/15/2007 2:31:25 PM

    Very exciting news, Ed...I've passed the info up the reporting change. Now I just have to hope we get to see it in my organization!

  1. 2  Stuart McIntyre http://lotusconnectionsblog.com | 5/15/2007 3:00:25 PM

    Woohoo, what unexpected, but very exciting news! I was expecting this to be Jun30 announcement with GA later, so great to have the formal announcement now.

    Awesome...

  1. 3  Keith Brooks http://kbmsg.blogspot.com | 5/15/2007 10:12:38 PM

    So its a stand alone product right now without hooks into Domino or Sametime yet? Um, what makes it run then :-)

  1. 4  Ian Randall  | 5/16/2007 1:42:58 AM

    @3 Not quite stand alone. The Product Announcement seems to advise the following minimum system requirements:

    Hardware requirements: IBM Lotus Connections requires the following minimum hardware:

    • IBM-compatible x86-32 processor

    • 4 GB RAM

    • 4 GB hard drive space

    Software requirements: Server side operating system

    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux™ Enterprise Server (ES) V4.0 on x86-32 (Nahant Update 4)

    • Microsoft™ Windows™ 2003 Server — Standard

    • Microsoft Windows 2003 Server — Enterprise

    Client side operating system

    • Microsoft Windows XP Pro Service Pack 2

    • SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED) 10 XGL

    Web browser support

    • Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.x, 7.x on Microsoft Windows XP Pro

    • Mozilla Firefox 2.0 (Microsoft Windows and Linux)

    Application server*

    • IBM WebSphere® Application Server V6.1.0.3*

    HTTP Server*

    • IBM HTTP Server from WebSphere Application Server V6.1.0.3* (IHS)

    LDAP Directory

    • IBM Tivoli® Directory Server (ITDS) V6.0.0.3

    • Microsoft Active Directory 2003 Service Pack 2

    Database

    • IBM DB2® V9.1 Fix Pack 2*

    • Oracle 10g 10.2.0.3

    Feed Reader

    • Must support Atom protocol

    For profiles only

    • IBM Tivoli Directory Integrator V6.1*

    * Denotes bundled with IBM Lotus Connections, with a restricted license for use with IBM Lotus

    Connections only.

    For activities only

    • Content repository

    – File system

    – Lotus Domino® Server 7.0

  1. 5  Sandra  | 5/16/2007 3:31:51 AM

    Great news and what a coincidence that you are right now in Zürich. In two hours I'll try to sell connections to a very important customer(here in Zürich). ;-))

  1. 6  Manning Clark  | 5/16/2007 7:34:34 AM

    Ed, do you know if Domino will be supported as an LDAP directory?

  1. 7  Manning Clark  | 5/16/2007 7:37:17 AM

    Sorry. I just saw Domino 7.0 LDAP support in the statement of direction section.

  1. 8  Keith Brooks http://kbmsg.blogspot.com | 5/16/2007 8:32:10 AM

    Thanks Ian for the details. I saw them, I was wondering from the perspective of customers how they would see this.

    It needs a lot of pieces, which hopefully will be easy enough to install when this comes out in production.

    Which is why I asked what it was based on, since it obviously is not Domino.

    Ed,what plans are there for this to be hosted/run for the SMB market? It is too big, in theory, for small clients, but at 30-50+ people I can see the advantages.

    A HA! a new BP plan, hosted connections :-)

  1. 9  Chris Miller http://www.IdoNotes.com | 5/16/2007 9:41:18 AM

    Lotus Connections in the hosted arena is already sponsored and announced by us :-)

  1. 10  Stuart McIntyre http://lotusconnectionsblog.com | 5/16/2007 10:09:47 AM

    @9 We're doing hosted Connections in the UK too...

  1. 11  John Head http://www.johndavidhead.com | 5/16/2007 1:15:20 PM

    @8 - Is it really that many pieces? It has an application server, http server, database, and directory tool. It connects to existing LDAP directories. For most of the MS solutions out there that do similar things, you need IIS, SQL Server, ASP.NET or Sharepoint Server. To run all that, you need comparable hardware than what is mentioned above. Will a company of 30 to 50 people put all those pieces in? If yes, then why would they not do that with Connections?

    Spin is spin ... if you spin the requirements as "its too big for SMB" ... then that is what people will believe. For customers of that size, then hosting solutions are a great option. Question for Chris and those who might know ... is there an ASP server or are you setting up individual instances for each company?

  1. 12  Chris Miller http://www.IdoNotes.com | 5/16/2007 2:14:43 PM

    @11 - There is no current ASP code, it will be dedicated or shared depending on their requirements

  1. 13  Rob Butterworth  | 5/17/2007 3:40:11 AM

    I just job pricing for this from my reseller, and I have to say it's pretty high, IMO. Additionally, I had read in several places that Activities would be included as an optional ND8 service, and it seems that this isn't quite true - the Activities plug-in is part of Notes 8, but you still need to pay for the server.

    I was very hopeful that we would be an early adoptor of Connections, but the cost of entry is very likely to be prohibitive, which is a shame, as it seems like a solid product (with the exception that Communities really should have email-enabled discussion threads in there...)

  1. 14  Keith Brooks http://kbmsg.blogspot.com | 5/17/2007 8:11:20 AM

    Chris and Stuart good luck with it and I will make sure to let some people know about it when we have that disussion.

    @11, is it too many pieces? Who knows, it's all about the setup/install for these people. or they leave it up to me, which means I get some more "unofficial" training :-)

  1. 15  Stuart McIntyre http://lotusconnectionsblog.com | 5/17/2007 8:14:42 AM

    @13, that's interesting because I am of the opposite opinion, I think it's a really good pricing model, particularly if you want to take the whole suite of components for an extranet-based user population...

  1. 16  Alan Bell http://www.dominux.co.uk | 5/17/2007 9:54:45 AM

    I think this is of interest to the SMB/VSB segment, but not to individual companies (mostly). It would be good for communities of SMBs, and perhaps customers of SMBs. How about a Connections site for all the customers of a builders merchants? All the plumbers, joiners, brickies, hod carriers, turners, kitchen installers etc. all having a connections site to help them work together better. Don't think of it as a single company solution. Quite how you sell something for money to a community is a bit more of a puzzle though. Maybe Connections needs a subscription system. IBM needs to present Connections along with a business plan for the customer showing how they can recoup their investment.

  1. 17  Rob Butterworth  | 5/18/2007 4:20:37 AM

    @15, we're looking at it for a 400 person company for internal use, which makes it look costly, at least to those who give the final ok to spend money !