Mobile collaboration leadership

September 27 2011

About a year ago, I declared that IBM had turned the corner from follower to leader in the mobile space. I was mocked for the statement, but not only do I stand by it, I feel like we are even further out front now. How so?

I had the opportunity today to present a slide showing our current and planned future device support for IBM collaboration and Lotus solutions on the relevant enterprise mobile platforms -- Apple, Android, Blackberry, and Nokia. It's pretty impressive:

Image:Mobile collaboration leadership

Now, of course, any IBM roadmap is subject to change, this is only a roadmap, etc.etc. Having said that though, it really shows what a busy year we have had already, with more still to come -- native apps for iOS and Android galore, Connections on multiple platforms, and further innovation in Sametime's full suite of capabilities. Also, this is only a front-end chart; in 2012, we plan enhancements on the back-end including a high-availability approach for Notes Traveler servers. I don't want to be a tease, but there is still more beyond that as well.

I can hear the grumbling now, that one thing we could still do is build out the rest of our ActiveSync support so that Notes Traveler can be a generic email provider to a broader range of mobile devices. It's not out of the question, but it is more complicated than it appears. One of the things we worry about incessantly at IBM is supportability, and right now, we can assure a Traveler customer that their combination of device and OS have been tested against Traveler. It would be harder to make that commitment to the full spectrum of handsets available worldwide. Inevitably, some of you will say "just do it anyway, unsupported". I've heard that. I understand what's behind that.

My point in sharing this chart is how much the need for mobile collaboration is growing, and moving away from just basic email service as being sufficient. Our investment in this area is demonstrable, and will continue to be into 2012 and beyond.

Ed Brill | AA91 LHR-ORD Seat 12C Category:  Notes Traveler  Add/View Comments [23]

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  1. 1  Mat Newman http://www.matnewman.com | 9/27/2011 10:15:38 PM

    WOW - Looks like the LS12 OGS could be very, very interesting! :-D

  1. 2  Michael Kobrowski  | 9/27/2011 10:20:34 PM

    I hope I'll be at the LS12 OGS to participate in that Mobile Maddness!! :) Maybe its going to be a mobile OGS? Playbooks for everybody to watch the videos up close.....

  1. 3  Elijah Lapson  | 9/27/2011 11:38:35 PM

    Very impressive. I am constantly touting the Traveler product and how well it works. Ed you may want to start to refer to support platforms by the Operating system. For instance iOS (Apple) and Android (Google) , Blackberry OS (Blackberry), Symbian OS (Nokia). It will start to get confusing if you say you are supporting Nokia devices going forward when they will be exclusively Windows Mobile OS (Microsoft) devices.

    Anyway not intended to nitpick just want the strategic direction to be clear.

    Keep up the great work!

    Elijah

  1. 4  Alan Hamilton http://alanghamilton.com | 9/28/2011 1:44:51 AM

    Great roadmap, Ed. The broadest possible mobile support is clearly well understood by IBM. I would like to +1 the build-out of support for ActiveSync because the multiplicity of devices and de-risking of producing client and web-compatible versions would surely balance the extra effort involved.

    As a long time Traveler user please pass on my thanks to the team for a great product.

  1. 5  Rob Hayden  | 9/28/2011 1:48:49 AM

    Great slide. Some interesting offerings ahead. I'm curious about the ongoing Symbian support though. Haven't Nokia officially switched to WinPhone? Will there still be a market for that in 2012 and beyond?

  1. 6  Tony Bugge http://uio.no | 9/28/2011 3:08:02 AM

    Traveler works very smooth and nice. Traveler is king in our world of sync products - no dought about that :)

    I would still like to see a few more functions in place - like ToDos and better use of an addressbook for inviting to meetings. It should be possible to use the iPhone for all the "nessesary things" - scheduling, meetings, todos.

    But again - how much more work do we wish to take on per mobile - today a profile do the work seting up the iPhone - with dedicated apps a la the clients databases will genereate more support and admin.

    A solution as simple as the profile setup, with some more function, is what I wish for :)

    Best from Tony.

  1. 7  Lutz Haller http://www.lhitc.de | 9/28/2011 4:31:23 AM

    Traveler & Android ... we love it !! Tnx Ed, tnx IBM.

    But the "next" stuff like social mobile toolkit should not take too long, because waiting is tough and the competition is not sleeping either, especially Google.

    Cheers

    Lutz

  1. 8  Reynoutvab http://ibm.com | 9/28/2011 5:25:29 AM

    @5 Rob, When the market share for a mobile OS is below a certain threshold, e.g 5% MY guess is that IBM is not going to invest money and time to support it. So for Symbian is means that the code will probably remain unchanged an in Traveler, as Symbian OS is also unchanged (left to die).

    For Windows Phone 7 this means that the market share has to grow some more to be supported.

  1. 9  Stuart McIntyre http://blog.collaborationmatters.com | 9/28/2011 10:40:19 AM

    That's an impressive slide Ed. Real progress has been made in 2011.

    Just one question... When you are declaring 'Mobile collaboration leadership', who are you comparing IBM with?

  1. 10  Andy Stewart  | 9/28/2011 11:34:44 AM

    Traveler HA - now that is a tease. Shame you used 2012 in the same sentence.

  1. 11  Stephan H. Wissel http://www.wissel.net/ | 9/28/2011 11:55:57 AM

    Looks very good. Now we need to get the colleagues from Tivoli to provide seamless SSO and VPN for all these devices. A need to login again and again for web apps is a big turn off.

  1. 12  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 9/28/2011 12:14:59 PM

    @11 Lotus Mobile Connect has a client-less approach which is a good one on some of these devices. Others we investigate future options.

  1. 13  Victor Solis  | 9/28/2011 12:26:52 PM

    I would love to see Traveler for Windows Phone. With the new Mango release of the OS, there are some new features w/regards to networking that I *hope* were the roadblocks to developing for WP7.

  1. 14  Thomas Leriche  | 9/28/2011 2:07:24 PM

    Ed, I'm really confident that you'll lead Lotus products into the future. Awesome!

  1. 15  Richard Moy http://www.dominointerface.com | 9/28/2011 5:53:09 PM

    Any Lotus Traveler support for Blackberry in the future

  1. 16  Bill Geimer  | 9/28/2011 7:49:26 PM

    Really, really comprehensive in a small package. The information in the picture as well as the software for the mobile devices.

  1. 17  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 9/28/2011 8:04:02 PM

    @15 for what purpose?

  1. 18  Eric Mack http://www.EricMackOnline.com | 9/28/2011 11:49:50 PM

    Well done. Good news to share with clients. A native Notes client for the tablet space would be fantastic, but I understand there are challenges with that. Keep up the good work!

  1. 19  Martin Muehlemann  | 9/29/2011 4:08:29 AM

    Looks very nice. Specially my user will appreciate when they finally get a app for Sametime IM on iPhone, which has become our standard device.

  1. 20  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 9/29/2011 6:49:22 AM

    @18 I don't know honestly how we could engineer such a thing, and it isn't really the model for the tablet space. As portable as the Notes code has been, it isn't optimized for the memory-processor-storage limitations of the typical tablet form factor today. (Just think about the files that get stored locally in a notes client, whether or not the databases themselves are accessed from the server)

    What we see customers doing to get to apps on a tablet is either using XPages (we've done a ton of mobile controls, and partners like Teamstudio, iEnterprises, eBF, and others have made them more extensive) or remote/virtual desktop interfaces.

  1. 21  Thomas Leriche  | 9/29/2011 9:04:25 AM

    @20 Ed, think reverse engineering from the backend out. How about a Lotus xpages app for tablets. This would allow companies to deploy xpage apps easier and faster. You could tie it into Lotus Live also. The tablet app would make the xpages apps look sexier and more problem free than using Safari or other browsers. Giving it away for free might also attract some new business. Just a thought.

  1. 22  Paul Mooney http://www.pmooney.net | 10/2/2011 6:25:24 AM

    The Traveler product, and the team behind it has been the most impressive feature to come out of IBM in years. Well done Ed.

  1. 23  Rob Ingram  | 10/3/2011 10:22:53 AM

    @ 3 and @5 - IBM still in wait and see mode on how to manage the Nokia Symbian to Windows Phone transition. Right now we don't see enough volume of the Windows Phone devices among other vendors to make the investment worthwhile. Will Nokia sell more? - probably. I'm not sure Windows Phone Mango release fixes the huge security deficiencies (eg: no device encryption) on what is still essentially a consumer mobile platform. Will enterprises tolerate less security?

    2012 will certainly be an interesting year for the challengers to Apple and Google.