Lotusphere 2012: Mobility

January 24 2012

One of last week's announcements that I didn't quite get to on the blog was the plan to support Windows Phone with the upcoming release of Lotus Notes Traveler. Specifically, IBM called out the intention to support Nokia and HTC devices on Notes Traveler. Yes, this is a reversal from my previously-stated position that Windows Phone wasn't interesting in the enterprise and thus, we wouldn't be investing. What persuaded me was our partnership with Nokia, and relative newcomer to the dance HTC, and their plans around the Windows Phone platform.

For Nokia, The Lumia devices are clearly aimed at recapturing some enterprise momentum. I visited the Lotusphere product showcase and had the opportunity for an incognito demo of the Nokia Lumia 900. I was skeptical last year when Nokia told us that look-and-feel would be the reason that buyers would choose this device, but the demo was pretty darn impressive. I didn't exactly sign up for one on the spot, but I understood why this device would be meaningful in our market.

For HTC, last week was their first time at Lotusphere. They didn't come quietly -- even Engadget noticed -- and they were more focused on their Android-based tablets than Windows Phone. Either way, though, HTC is making a run at the enterprise market, and Lotusphere customers reacted favorably.

There was other mobile news at Lotusphere, including a new, more-competitive version of the hosted Blackberry service in LotusLive SmartCloud Notes. Of the three major cloud email vendors, only IBM offers a full BES implementation (not BES Express) and some ability for user policy setting. We also back the offering with the experience of IBM Mobile Enterprise Services, experts at service delivery for smartphones.

We also announced plans for a high-availability implementation of Lotus Notes Traveler. Because of its storage architecture, Traveler can't work with Domino's clustering approach, so the mobility team had to design a solution specifically for the Traveler environment. This too is on the roadmap for 2012, though we are hoping to deliver the update earlier than the Notes/Domino Social Edition release.

It feels to me like the last remaining pieces for our mobile leadership strategy fall into place this year. We already moved up from niche to challenger last year by some analyst measurements, I expect to move all the way to the top as we continue to invest in this space in 2012.

Ed Brill | Highland Park, IL USA Category:  ls12  Add/View Comments [28]

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  1. 1  Bill Geimer  | 1/24/2012 8:47:17 PM

    I have to admit that there are some definite improvements in the HTC Win 7 phones, any probably in the coming Nokia ones, although I doubt Nokia is likely to ever get back to where the once were in the US.

    I'm not sure that Microsoft will get past 20 percent of the market any time soon,

  1. 2  Steen Viberg  | 1/25/2012 12:23:48 AM

    Ed, this is very good news! :-) I have now "played" Lumia 800 for 6 weeks - a great phone with a great OS - but miss Traveler to complete the package. Did you plan your release date? ;-)

  1. 3  Eric  | 1/25/2012 1:14:10 AM

    Hi Ed, thanks for the update. I understand that Traveler is the first base when thinking about Mobility. But I'm wondering what the strategy and vision is around Mobile Connections, Mobile Sametime (with SUT and UC² capabilities), Mobile Portal aggregations, etc. Can you elaborate on that in another post?

    Cheers, Eric.

  1. 4  Hogne B. Pettersen http://www.elfworld.org | 1/25/2012 2:17:35 AM

    Glad to hear that Traveler will be supporting phones with windows OS.

    However, are there plans to improve the traveler application for Android? The GUI is really, really bad, and the fact that the Traveler calendar is NOT integrated with the Android calendar was really starting to get on my users nerves.

    I solved it by telling the Android phone that our Domino-server is an Exhcange-server and now everything works beautifully.

    Too bad I had to bypass the traveler app, though. On the other hand, that is how Traveler works on the Iphone and Ipad, so maybe that's the idea?

  1. 5  Colin Williams  | 1/25/2012 3:22:36 AM

    Enough with the snuggling up to Nokia/HTC--is this a full ActiveSync implementation or not?

  1. 6  Henning Heinz  | 1/25/2012 3:41:28 AM

    I am wondering why a product that is solely used with a Domino server can't use the "Domino storage architecture"!?

    A full Active Sync implementation, even if you only actively support Nokia and HTC, would be a smart move.

  1. 7  Alan  | 1/25/2012 4:41:42 AM

    The next step I'd like to see for Traveler is integration with the mobile Connections app. Hopefully something we'll see with Social Edition. Just the ability to add emails to Activities and attachments to Files would be great.

    Increasingly I'm consuming my corporate email on a variety of mobile devices and not having this is one of the few reasons I hop back in to a full Notes client.

  1. 8  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 1/25/2012 6:58:32 AM

    @3 I need to get you a copy of the mobile strategy presentation - I don't own all of it so I can't speak eloquently on the entirety of the line. But Rob Ingram and team did a great presentation on it so I will find it.

    @4 We are building improvements for the Android client in the Social Edition release. Thing is, every Android distribution has handled calendar different and we chose the route of building our own - stand-alone - because of those inconsistencies. I understand the desire to have it integrate with the personal calendar on the device, but many customers actually prefer to have the corporate data completely separate from the personal data. Tradeoffs always. On iOS, we use the Apple client because it's a good client and there is only one on all iOS devices. (see more below)

    @5/6 - the implementation for supporting Nokia and HTC Windows Phone will use the ActiveSync protocol. :-)

    @7 - hard to do on iOS and other devices (e.g. future Windows Phone) since we don't control the desktop app. The tradeoff of my reply to #4 above is that we are doing things like presence awareness in that Android client that we can't easily do or do at all in the other mobile device apps because of who is building the client.

  1. 9  Alan  | 1/25/2012 11:37:02 AM

    A +1 here for keeping the Android calendar client separate, makes support easier which is important when allowing users to not only bring their own but also provision their own devices as we do with Traveler.

    Looking forward to the Social Edition Android client.

  1. 10  Rob Ingram  | 1/25/2012 12:40:28 PM

    @2 We announced a target beta later in 1H 2012 for Traveler on Win Phone, but no release date has been announced.

    @3 and others - there is a full overview of all our mobile capabilities and a preview of whats coming in my LS12 session. Make sure to watch the live demos as they are very impressive. Replay is available here { Link }

    @4 a new Android Traveler set of Traveler apps is in the works - there is a screen shot or two in my session towards the end. Its a huge improvement in terms of function and ease of use based on my early internal testing.

  1. 11  Don  | 1/25/2012 7:56:13 PM

    @6 I was wondering the same thing when I read "Because of its storage architecture, Traveler can't work with Domino's clustering approach" Traveler is running in Domino which provides one of the best, most robust, and most scalable storage architectures available.. what's the story here, Ed?

  1. 12  Erik Brooks  | 1/25/2012 9:31:37 PM

    @Ed - I too would like to hear an explanation as to why Traveler "can't work with Domino's clustering approach".

  1. 13  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 1/26/2012 7:34:21 AM

    I guess I mistakenly thought it was well known that the Traveler server runs atop an embedded Apache Derby instance.

  1. 14  Erik Brooks  | 1/26/2012 11:46:38 AM

    @Ed - I actually *did* know. I'd still like to hear the reasons why this direction was chosen, because it's eyebrow-raising.

  1. 15  Hogne B. Pettersen http://www.elfworld.org | 1/27/2012 6:08:23 AM

    Thanks for the reply.

    I have another question, though. We are going to use a product to administer all cell phones in my company. When I asked their Channel Sales Manager how we could push out Traveler with all the right parameters to our users cell phones, I got the following reply:

    "Our product is able to push out email settings for Domino 8.5 through the Active Sync protocol. IBM has given up on developing t heir own system for synchronization and they will from now on be using Active Sync from Microsoft. This means they have made it possible to use ActiveSync as if one was using an MS Exchange Server.

    This means you don't need the Traveler client and will be able to use whatever calendar and email programs that exists on the mobile device."

    Is this correct? If so, why should we continue to use Traveler?

    Are there other ways to roll out Traveler with all the settings we want?

  1. 16  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 1/27/2012 7:39:29 AM

    @15 it's not correct and if you could contact me offline with the details of which IBMer told you this, I would appreciate it.

    For some devices, Traveler uses ActiveSync and for others it uses SyncML. The protocol isn't really the important piece, it's how it connects to the Domino mailboxes via the server task that does the magic. On iOS, we use the built-in mail and calendar apps on the device so there the information you were given is correct. On Android, we ship our own client which needs to be installed. On Windows Phone we plan to use the native device applications. On Nokia today (Symbian), it's a hybrid where we use what's on the device but install a connection tool.

    Anyway Traveler works with most mobile device management software (Boxtone, Tangoe, etc.) so if that is how you want to manage the right parameters, you can do so, but Traveler server itself can also do so.

  1. 17  Rob Ingram  | 1/27/2012 8:15:19 AM

    @15 - you may also want to take a look at the upcoming IBM product for device mgt that is in beta now. There is some info posted here { Link } Goes beyond the capabilities offered by Traveler but also integrates well with Traveler.

  1. 18  Don  | 1/27/2012 5:17:29 PM

    @16 I believe @15 is saying that the Channel Sales Manager at some other company was saying this, not an IBMer.

    @14 I agree.. I'd like to hear as well.

  1. 19  Hogne B. Pettersen http://www.elfworld.org | 1/30/2012 2:42:35 AM

    Hi, Ed!

    Thanks for the reply. It wasn't an IBM-er who told me, it was a Sales Manager from the company that will deliver a system called Afaria to us.

    I really like Traveler myself, but it seems that my company will from now on be using ActiveSync instead of Traveler, and that all the parameters will be controlled by Afaria. The company delivering Afaria to us say they can't push out control parameters for Traveler. Well, at least I will still be able to use my Notes mail, contacts and calendar on my cell phone.

  1. 20  Hogne B. Pettersen http://www.elfworld.org | 2/1/2012 7:26:50 AM

    I've been testing the Lotus Traveler for Android now and I'm trying to set it up with our new admin system for mobiles.

    I've got a question thought: How do I set Traveler to play a reminder before the meeting starts? As it stands now it only displays a small icon in the upper left corner of the screen, which doesn't even show if the phone is locked.

    That's no good as I'm not reminded of the meeting (unless I'm also sitting in front of my Notes client). Is there any way to set Traveler up so that it behaves like the calendar does on my old Nokia or on the Ihone?

  1. 21  Don  | 2/2/2012 9:09:14 PM

    Anything on the question that's been raised 3 or 4 times in this thread..? To sum it up, as Erik Brooks (@14) put it, "I'd still like to hear the reasons why this direction was chosen, because it's eyebrow-raising."

  1. 22  Victor Solis  | 2/3/2012 12:11:04 PM

    I'm excited to hear that Windows Phone will be supported with Traveler. We have deployed iPhones and Android phones in our organization and would love to add Windows Phones to the list of recommended operating systems.

  1. 23  Anantha http://www.macys.com | 2/8/2012 7:30:44 AM

    Ed, are there plans for making the mobile integration easy by fully implementing ActiveSync protocol? Most mobile devices implement the client side ActiveSync on their native mail client. For whatever reason the Traveler server side doesn't implement the fully protocol stack including encryption.

  1. 24  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 2/8/2012 3:15:59 PM

    Our current ActiveSync implementation is specific to the iOS devices. We also plan to use ActiveSync for Windows Phone in Notes/Domino Social Edition which will likely expand the level of support.

  1. 25  Kari Muru http://www.securitas.fi | 2/13/2012 12:19:16 PM

    Do you have any detailled information about Lumia Lotus Traveller support. That H1/2012 is a bit inaccurate :-)

  1. 26  Don  | 2/13/2012 7:07:35 PM

    .. and of course if you could get to answering the question a few others and I had, it would be greatly appreciated. If you can't discuss it, that's ok, just say so. Ignoring the question while continuing to answer others seems a bit weaselly.

  1. 27  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 2/16/2012 3:54:18 PM

    I don't see how the 1H is inaccurate. We said we would be in beta in 1H and we will be (probably even sooner). Release is planned for later in 2012.

    Re the discussion of the database architecture, there's a lot of history there and it is what it is. I am not sure what the net impact of diving for a deeper answer would be?

  1. 28  Don  | 2/21/2012 7:51:07 PM

    @27 I can't speak for the others who wanted to know, but I was asking because having another database embedded inside of Domino (a database itself) is akin to having a copy of Microsoft Word inside of Lotus Symphony. If the only reason is "historical reasons" that speaks volumes about the technical decisions in the product's development, which have in this case inhibited Traveller from being able to take advantage of Domino's powerful clustering and replication abilities. This is why I was hoping to hear a real reason. Anyway, I'll [hesitantly] accept the 'ole historical reasons argument and leave it at that. Perhaps you should just not be so forthcoming with the fact that Domino is built on top of Derby. :) Anyway, thanks a lot, Ed, for responding and shedding what light you were able to shed on the situation. I really do love Traveller, and your team has done a great job, which is why this one was surprising.