My thoughts on today’s Lotusphere announcements

January 22 2007

I've spent most of the day directing or echoing comments from others.  I listened intently during the press conference and blogger Q&A, I scanned the "lotusphere2007" postings, I read the media coverage.  Now during a short breather, I would like to share my thoughts on what was announced and discussed in sessions so far today.

First off, it's been incredible to see the crowds and enthusiasm today.  In some ways, this feels like the most intense Lotusphere -- we haven't had a crowd this size in a "two hotel" format, with all the breakouts being in the Dolphin and Swan.  I know that many sessions have "sold out", and the content team is quickly adding more repeats and even more repeats on key sessions.  

As for today's content.  I was talking with Mike Moignard in the hall, and he noted that there had been very little competitive positioning in the general session.  I said, to borrow the metaphor of the day, that IBM Lotus is now in such a different universe than the competition, it hardly seems appropriate to be making comparisons.  Besides, we had so much new news to cover, why spend any cycles on those other guys?

In the Notes/Domino space, there's a lot to like about today's content.  First, Ken Bisconti specifically called out 30% growth for Notes/Domino in his OGS comments.  This is the first time in quite some time I can recall one of our executive explicitly revealing per-product results.  I felt this was key, as some skeptics thought maybe that Lotus's phenomenal Q4 was accomplished through other portfolio products.  Now you know that we did it with Notes as much as anything else.  Ken also made a public announcement of the "Domino release beyond 8", and Kevin Cavanaugh followed it up later in the day with some specific feature commitments for that release (I'll write those up at a later point).  With all of that, the task of talking about the amazing  progress being made in Notes 8 was left for breakout sessions -- and those have been overflowing.  The bottom line for many is that there's not even a hint of confusion anymore -- Ken said point blank, "Lotus Notes is the 'one and only' strategic e-mail platform for IBM."

The biggest buzz I've heard so far today is about Lotus Quickr.  It's clear that this teamspace product hits a sweet spot in the market for capabilities, openness, and integration.  You'll definitely want to check out ID308 tomorrow at 1:30 for more details.  I've taken a peek at their presentation, and it feels like they just nailed it -- exactly what users are demanding, with the capability to work with a variety of back-ends -- rather than introduce yet another one.

The mini-keynote on Lotus Connections is starting in just a few minutes -- and I'll bet the room is full.  While the 10 minute section of the keynote announced the product, most I've talked to are seeking the next level of detail on that offering.  Some interesting questions about it in the press conference as well.

Last, I think that Alistair Rennie's section of the keynote might have gone by too quickly.  Maybe he need to do a "developers! developers! developers!"-style monkey dance.  But people I've talked to who went to sessions on Lotus Component Designer and composite applications say they get it -- that their skills are moving forward without having to walk away from what they know now.

Thank you to all who have introduced themselves so far -- please don't be shy, it's great to put faces and names together.  And don't forget--you can still read the transcript of the live blogging from the Lotusphere opening general session on www.lotuspherelive.com.

Ed Brill | Lotusphere2007 Category:  Lotusphere2007  Add/View Comments [27]

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  1. 1  Neil http://www.dominoconsultants.com | 1/22/2007 4:52:56 PM

    I think the most interesting thing about Quickr is that is does use a variety of back ends.

    I like the fact that if you have a Domino infrastructure you can use that, if you wanna use Websphere, no problems. This is how it should be, now if Activity Explorer can have this capability (say in a point release) this would be cool.

  1. 2  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 1/22/2007 5:17:36 PM

    "some skeptics thought maybe that Lotus's phenomenal Q4 was accomplished through other portfolio products"

    I never said that, I just wondered what the breakdown was. :-) And I did catch that during the opening session.

    Quickr is going to be revolutionary. When Ron demoed that drag and drop and it asked if he wanted to send a link or the full attachment, I nearly fell out of my chair. That alone is absolutely astounding. I'm also thrilled that it's being bundled with the Notes and DWA license.

    Connections I really don't get yet. I know Activity Explorer and Dogear rolls up under it, but I still have no idea how it's licensed or delivered -- even after Julian's question in the Blogger Q&A.

    If LCD didn't require Portal to be useful I'd be interested. In fact, I was excited until I found out you have to have Portal to use LCD components in Notes 8. Then my enthusiasm fizzled. I already talked to Peter Jantzen (I think that was his name) about that, and I really think you're excluding a massive chunk of your customers from participating. Maybe if I better understood how all this fits together I'd be more accepting of the limitations.

  1. 3  Felix Binsack http://TIMETOACT.DE | 1/22/2007 7:26:14 PM

    >>Microsoft-Aktien verloren 1,3 Prozent auf 30,72 Dollar. >>Grund für den Rückgang war eine Nachricht, wonach die >>IBM-Sparte Lotus eine neue Internet-Software auf den Markt >>bringen will.

    { Link }

  1. 4  Dave Madison  | 1/22/2007 7:28:02 PM

    What's the major difference between Quickr and the now defunct Workplace Express Team Spaces, particularly on the back end?

  1. 5  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 1/22/2007 7:56:19 PM

    @4 Dave, this is a Domino-based product, it has nothing to do with Workplace, and there was no product called "Workplace Express Team Services" anyway.

  1. 6  Asad Quraishi http://quad4b.blogspot.com | 1/22/2007 7:57:41 PM

    Quickr sounds an awful lot like QuickPlace (as in name is similar, functionality is what I was expecting from QP 8). What is the relationship? Will QP 8 be equivalent, weaker, stronger, or replaced? What happens to QP 7 customers?

  1. 7  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 1/22/2007 7:59:14 PM

    @6 Quickr 8 is the next version of Quickplace.

  1. 8  Bob Brodsky  | 1/22/2007 8:35:42 PM

    @7 Oooooooooooo

    I thought Quickr was just a new spelling for DNFS on steriods!

    Bob

  1. 9  Karen Demerly  | 1/22/2007 9:24:35 PM

    Quickr reminds me of Flickr. I'm worried that's the new buzzword - add an 'r' to the end of anything it's cool (I swear I saw an ad recently for something 2-point-oh that was SO not even web/software related - it was like aspirin 2.0).

    Anyway, neither here nor there, Quickr sounded viable, and I like viable (as in, my company isn't an early adopter, but I could see us using this eventually; way better than "Cool! Yeah, we'll never use it").

    @1 - I too loved hearing that we have some choice of a variety of back ends for this stuff.

    Did I hear "Dogear server", at the Social Computing keynote?

    I still hope to intruduce myself, but my time is limited as I seem to have a knack for choosing sessions that are as far apart, distance-wise, as possible. No strolling from one room to the other right next door for me - that would be waaaay too easy. :-|

  1. 10  Jeff Picco  | 1/22/2007 10:32:43 PM

    Thank goodness no competition bashing happened this time around. There were a few pokes, but that's fine. In fact, I think my mgrs felt good about the day. Still skeptical, but they came out of the sessions feeling better toward the Lotus brand today.

  1. 11  tonyo  | 1/22/2007 10:50:25 PM

    is a webcast of the keynote available?

  1. 12  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 1/22/2007 11:35:19 PM

    @11 it will be in Second Life tomorrow. Don't know about other means/timeframes.

    @2 I wasn't actually referring to you, though I remember reading your comments last week and thinking "I wish I could say more...." I was actually, you won't be surprised, referring to this: { Link } in the comments

  1. 13  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 1/22/2007 11:52:16 PM

    Oh. I guess I'm fortunate that I can just file him away and forget he exists.

  1. 14  Sean Jennings  | 1/23/2007 5:45:20 AM

    Very smart move bundling-in a personal edition of Quickr with every Notes license. I guess it shows that including the free instant-messaging/presence-awareness in Notes 6.5.1 resulted-in alot of corporates subsequently buying-into Sametime. Get 'your feet under the table' and thats half the battle won.

    Its good to see the marketing strategy is paying-off.

    Now if we could just convince IBM to give copies of Domino Designer away too...

  1. 15  Stuart McIntyre http://macsfacts.vox.com | 1/23/2007 6:42:39 AM

    @12: Yeah I noticed that... Strange he hasn't commented on the announcements yet. Boy, you must have been biting your tongue over the past few months given what we've heard this week...

    PS. Loved your karaoke last night ;-)

  1. 16  Ian Scott  | 1/23/2007 7:27:04 AM

    "Now if we could just convince IBM to give copies of Domino Designer away too..."

    @14: I might add "....even if it's just one or two copies with Domino Collaboration Express"

  1. 17  Steven Kennett  | 1/23/2007 7:29:41 AM

    @7 - I noticed that Quickr is being branded as a new product rather than QP 8, so:

    1) Does this mean we will upgrade from QP7 to Quickr?

    1.1) We currently have over 200 places will they continue to work in Quickr?

    2) Was QuickPlace not doing very well in the market so it was re-branded?

    Maybe 1,1.1 are questions for the future, we have an established QP environment and I would like to be able to say to the business asap that we will be able to upgrade from QP to Quickr and that is the way to go.

  1. 18  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 1/23/2007 7:53:47 AM

    @17 1 -- yes, it's an upgrade. 1.1 - yes, as part of the upgrade process. 2 - the rebranding is to reflect the increased capabilities.

  1. 19  Dave Madison  | 1/23/2007 9:00:25 AM

    @5 Really? { Link }

    I said "team spaces" not "team services" I guess you are right, it was never an actual product, just appears that "team spaces" was a component of WSE. Anyway, just trying to understand the differences... Other than WSE being dead.

  1. 20  Jean Salnave  | 1/23/2007 9:55:50 AM

    @2 I agree, the fact you need the portal to run this offering is bit disappointing. But I think I understand the technical reasons behind going down this path. Much like you can store all sorts of data into an NSF file, LC allows you to do same (Chats/E-mail/attachments etc...) via the portal which puts everything into dB2. Lets face it, after a certain point the NSF does not scale very well as you bombard it with attachments (documents, pdf, spreadsheets etc) it will simply get out of control, especially in large organizations. Since the back end of the portal is DB2, your options for scaling are broader.

    With licensing still up in the air, what are the chances of getting this portal requirement hosted for you? In Notes 8 the use of this (Lotus Connections) adds too much value not to have it easily available for non portal customers. Do 20-30 people organizations need a portal? Probably not. It would be amazing if you could simply point to this hosted (LC) server and get productive right away.

  1. 21  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 1/23/2007 11:14:09 AM

    @19 WSE as a set of technologies is nowhere near "dead". Check out WebSphere Portal Express 6.0, which just had a double-overflow session.

  1. 22  Paul Robichaux http://www.robichaux.net/blog | 1/23/2007 4:01:22 PM

    @2: how is this different from Outlook 2003's offering to send a document as either an attachment or by placing it in a SharePoint document workspace? (Not a sarcastic question; I didn't see the Quickr keynote and don't understand what's revolutionary about this particular feature).

  1. 23  Ben Poole http://benpoole.com | 1/23/2007 4:35:53 PM

    @22: who's saying it's different? Charles was expressing his delight with the feature is all... But to answer your question, if this is anything like the technology employed in the content store integration within Workplace (I believe it is), then the store is considerably more "open" than Sharepoint's (JSR 170 anyone?)

    (NOTE: I'm not at LS07 either, so could be wrong ;o) )

  1. 24  Mark Hughes  | 1/23/2007 4:59:42 PM

    Screen shots of Quickr now on the web,

    ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/software/lotus/lotusweb/product/quickr/screenshots.pdf

  1. 25  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 1/23/2007 9:50:55 PM

    @22 - For starters, Quickr is completely self contained and you don't have to run another server to use it. Also, the license for it is already included with Notes, so there is no acquisition cost. The reason I said this would be revelatory (and I meant this in the context of Notes users, I'm not sure what Sharepoint features have to do with this discussion) is that until now the only way to do anything similar in Notes was to code a file:// URL, which many admins block via GPO because of the potential for malware abuse. It's a highly technical thing and not very friendly to end users.

  1. 26  Rob Wills http://www.inter-weavers.com/ | 1/24/2007 8:06:56 AM

    Hi Ed, Nice to keep in touch with what's happening even though I couldn't make it this year. Will be at a "LotusSphere Comes to you" in Warrington, UK in about a month.

    One of my clients have a need to better Document Management and I have always suggested using Domino Document Manager (aka Domino.Doc). Would I be right in saying there is a lot of overlap between QuickR and DDM? Is DDM still part of the picture?

  1. 27  Dave Madison  | 1/29/2007 5:41:23 PM

    @21. Well, thanks for splitting hairs. Will I or will I not be able to buy Workplace Services Express in the future? (Or any Workplace branded product for that matter)? If the answer is "no" the my point remains.. WSE, as a product,is dead. If the answer is "yes", then I stand corrected.