New LotusLive release today
October 5 2010
Today, IBM is announcing the latest release of LotusLive, the best cloud collaboration offering available. Today's announcement is the first press announcement of LotusLive Notes, the most-comprehensive US$5/user/month cloud messaging solution, several customer references, partner integration, and new community features and enhancements across LotusLive. In short, this week's service update is a major step forward, and a demonstration of how powerful the cloud delivery model is at iterating and innovating.
When we first made LotusLive Notes available in August, I said that we would move quickly to add features and services. I also said that we would do an update in October, and here it is. New in the 2nd release of LotusLive Notes:
- Full implementation of our hybrid architecture. Link a new OU in your Domino domain and you are fully interoperable with your LotusLive Notes implementation. It couldn't be simpler.
- Lotus Notes Traveler is now available as an add-on service for LotusLive, supporting iOS, Nokia, and Windows Mobile. Android support in LotusLive, along with RIM Blackberry support, are expected in the first quarter of 2011.
- 22 languages are now supported for the Notes client against LotusLive Notes as well as LotusLive Notes web...and most are now supported throughout LotusLive.
- Minimum order quantity has been reduced to 1, down from 25 at the first service release and 1000 from the Lotus Notes Hosted Messaging offering.
You can see coverage of today's announcement already in ReadWriteWeb and InfoWorld, and on a plethora of blogs. The press release will be posted in a bit and there will certainly be more to come.
Now, what's next? I'm at the Lotus Leadership Alliance conference this week, with some of the IBM Lotus customers and partners at an event where we discuss our plans and strategy for the next year and beyond. The event itself is under non-disclosure, so you won't see anyone blogging about the details. But in about 90 minutes, I have the distinct pleasure of presenting the messaging and collaboration strategy session, and I'll be talking about plans for the next release of the Notes/Domino product family. Our roadmap, which we have been showing customers all year, goes through 2014 with specific release commitments, and beyond that for higher-level direction. No surprise, we're building on the IBM Project "Vulcan" vision which was publicly announced at Lotusphere 2010. The roadmap, of course, includes frequent and regular updates to LotusLive Notes as well as the on-premises software.
I think there's no surprise in the previous paragraph, so why state the obvious? I've learned in the last week that Microsoft has trotted out a very, very tired old song in front of IBM Lotus customers that "IBM hasn't announced any future versions of Notes, so therefore it must not be investing/must be dead". Man, haven't we seen this movie for ten+ years? Who possibly believes them? Apparently, someone listens, because it filters back to me, more than once. But it seems strange that a company that can't even update their Exchange Online offering to a year-old version of the Exchange server and are instead stuck on the November, 2006 version, haven't announced a next version of Exchange or Outlook, and are struggling with adoption and reliability for both their premises and cloud offerings might want to choose another competitive vector.
Enough about them or any other competitor. Today is another day to celebrate shipping a milestone release for the Notes/Domino product family. In my travels the last few weeks, I am sensing that the market is reaching that point where the reasons for considering the cloud, or a hybrid deployment approach, are starting to be better-understood. We as a vendor have to do more to help with education. There's a ton of new materials available, including videos on the new LotusLive features.
Gartner issued a report on LotusLive Notes last week, "IBM Gets Serious About Cloud E-Mail" by Matt Cain (G00206703). It's not all positive, of course, but Gartner says "IBM enters the market with a significant advantage". I'll agree, and I'm ready to capitalize on it. We have a great story to tell about the future and a growing set of opportunities across the Notes/Domino family. Let's talk and let's continue to be successful, together.
Post a Comment
- 2
Mark Hughes http://hughesconnect.com | 10/5/2010 9:29:19 AM
Why is the conference under NDA? Shouldn't we all get to hear about the future of the product?
- 3
Albert Buendia http://www.slug.es | 10/5/2010 9:45:23 AM
Hi Ed, perhaps it's time to blog about that ** THE CUSTOMERS ** (not InfoWorld, Computerworld ... or whatever) have voted IBM Number ONE in cloud computing.
IBM announced that it ranked as the leading provider of cloud computing (cloud computing), five suppliers to the award of Nemertes Research PilotHouse in cloud computing.
"Winning an independent award is based solely on the qualifications of business customers that use our cloud computing services speaks to the commitment of IBM to deliver the highest levels of technology, service and value to customers," said Gerald Kato manager and strategist for Cloud Computing at IBM Mexico. "Since 2007, IBM developed an intense work to make the cloud viable for customers who want to leverage their resources to the maximum and can not make concessions on such factors as security, compliance and availability" .
Nemertes PilotHouse Awards, now in its third edition, is based solely on the ratings for business customers who use the products or services from a supplier. To define the winner of each award, the analysts at Nemertes interviewed and surveyed more than 2,000 decision makers in the area of information technology.
IBM overcame significant cloud service providers in the categories of technology, customer service and value. As defined by Nemertes, technology skills reflect the views of clients to the sophistication of the technology incorporated into the infrastructure and systems of computer vendors. The customer service ratings cover the performance of cloud computing providers in areas such as response time to problems, the service received help desk or portals, and issues relating to service level agreements. The scores measured value if customers perceive they are doing worthwhile expenditure for the benefits they receive, including the ability of a supplier to provide safety and compliance to overcome barriers to the adoption of the cloud.
To determine the winners of PilotHouse, Nemertes analysts also held talks in depth with a subset of customers to understand the reasons behind the results. Nemertes developed the methodology, as customers rated their providers in the areas of technology, customer service and value. In some categories, Nemertes also requested scores in integration, management tools and ease of implementation and troubleshooting.
Regards,
Albert Buendia
- 4
Steve | 10/5/2010 9:51:57 AM
What is the status of FISMA compliance with this offering?
- 5
Patrick Picard | 10/5/2010 11:25:36 AM
Any plans to allow direct sales on the web site instead of going thru a sales agent over the phone?
As a single user, I just want to get my account and be done with it :)
- 6
Ken Yee | 10/5/2010 12:06:11 PM
Love the OU integration in this release...I was wondering when that would show up (I still remember the Notes Net days ;-)
- 7
Christer Eklundh | 10/5/2010 12:09:16 PM
@ Ed "...Minimum order quantity has been reduced to 1, down from 25 at the first service release and 1000 from the Lotus Notes Hosted Messaging offering."
So does this means that I as an individual (not as a company) can register and get a Notes and iNotes account for 5% per month?
- 8
Ferdy http://www.ferdychristant.com | 10/5/2010 12:50:50 PM
I usually comment here when I disagree, but this time I just want to say...impressive stuff. Excellent work, Ed.
- 9
Bill Dorge | 10/5/2010 4:05:26 PM
Ed,
Great stuff, I've been using the Engage portion of LotusLive for a while and the new enhancements are great!! Congrats to all involved.
Going to have to get a LotusLive Notes account to see how all that works, probably not much different than what I use now, just in a different spot.
- 11
GarryL | 10/6/2010 4:51:03 AM
I think there is a bit of confusion in some quarters. TheRegister has the statement that....
"The multi-tenant version of IBM's Domino server is called LotusLive Notes, and it targets organizations with more than 1,000 users. It's priced $5 per user each month."
...kinda misses the new minimum order level of 1. I suppose there are actually various LotusLive titles now which would lead to this confusion.
{ Link }
- 12
Michael Falstrup http://www.intelliglobe.dk | 10/6/2010 5:19:37 AM
This is very positive, nice and candy. Still missing the most important feature yet ...... partner apps!!!!!! When can I as a partner provide LotusLive for my customers with full support and deployment of my applications!??
- 13
Mark Hughes http://hughesconnect.com | 10/6/2010 8:36:30 AM
Guess i just wish i was not looking in from the outside, i think allot of others like myself feel like our future and Lotus Notes future are intertwined, and would like to know things and give feedback as well as those that are in attendance. I understand you cant include everyone, just letting you know there are others who are very interested in the future of Notes.
- 14
Michael Dwyer | 10/8/2010 8:47:51 AM
Coming through Victoria Railway Station in London yesterday, I noticed the LotusKnows ad that was being played on the big screen (the one with the giant hand plucking the experts into the air). It was short, simple and got that message across.
I was rushing for my train but could have stopped and watched it again and again.
What about other ones with messages about "Lotus Notes/Domino Roadmap to 2014" or "No need for Patch Tuesday" or other counter propaganda themes?
- 15
Andrejus Chaliapinas http://www.infosana.com | 10/19/2010 9:28:28 AM
What about possibility of converting particular NSF app with simple categorized documents into LotusLive Activities entries? I've discussed that apps issue inside multi-tenant LotusLive infrastructure several months ago with Mike Masterson, but would be interested if we have any update in that area.
Also related to that - what about Activities and their metadata part. As of previous version of LotusLive that was not exposed via any API, but that could make some real life projects doable if exposed.
- 16
Paul Harper | 10/25/2010 9:56:01 AM
Could you direct me to "'@5 there is a small link on lotuslive.com for credit card orders. We will make this process better in the future."
I tried # Buy
# IBM Software online Catalog
and it took me after 4 clicks back to where I started.
https://www.lotuslive.com/en/services/notes
That is just insane. Internet commerce is not new in 2010. I would pay for an email account...if you'd let me!! I don't want to talk to an operator to buy one email account. Patrick Picard is correct and I think a lot of potential customers feel the same way.
"..Minimum order quantity has been reduced to 1.."
Now thats much, much better. Very positive stuff!