The new Lotus brand home page

July 7 2009

Lotus software has a new front door on ibm.com, and some other interesting updates....

Image:The new Lotus brand home page  Image:The new Lotus brand home page

The changes are subtle but important.  First, the content is designed to be much more dynamic, with frequent updates.  Second, the "what we offer" box has been reorganized into two groupings -- by business need as well as by product category.  Click through on those, and you'll see graphics such as the second one above -- much more engaging, useful, and resourceful pages on IBM Lotus solutions.

These pages are still being refined and updated, which in and of itself is a change in that they're not looked at as static.  Updated customer stories, product links, news, and offers will all appear over time.  There is also work going on to improve how our product pages display in search engine results, so that it's not just those who come knocking that end up viewing the new front door.

Link: ibm.com: Lotus software >

Ed Brill Armonk, NY USA Category:  Lotus  Add/View Comments [25]

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  1. 1  Volker Weber http://vowe.net | 7/8/2009 3:14:15 AM

    Change is good. Can you make it as useful as { Link } ?

  1. 2  Ben Langhinrichs http://www.geniisoft.com/showcase.nsf/GeniiBlog | 7/8/2009 6:23:38 AM

    Good to see the effort being made. I'm curious to see how the "By business need" part is handled, because that can be a far easier way for newcomers to see what is available. Making a page dynamic, as you well know, is far more difficult in the long run, but it is a great idea in terms of attracting more readers. I hope it all works out for the best (and I hope to steal good ideas for my website).

  1. 3  David Schaffer http://bloginprogress.us | 7/8/2009 6:41:52 AM

    I know it's not a money maker for IBM but I thought it was part of the brand strategy. No mention at all on the new Lotus home page.

  1. 4  Keith Brooks http://www.vanessabrooks.com | 7/8/2009 6:54:58 AM

    Still missing 2 things which I want to see, and every website aimed at doing any kind of sales on the web has:

    1) BUY NOW or purchase here or get it fast or anything that just leads to buying it. No benefit to me, but for some people that is all they want to do.

    2) Where is the link to "If you need local help or a business partner, enter your zip code?" or something similar? This one does help me, potentially, and thus helps the greater IBM.

  1. 5  tom http://www.codepress.net/b | 7/8/2009 7:25:35 AM

    I'm not a big fan of IBM's base web template but you've done a good job working around its limitations.

    I wonder why you bury so many of your products under the first page... Quickr (well... there is a box at the bottom, Symphony, Connections, etc...

  1. 6  Mike McP http://openntf.org/mPortal | 7/8/2009 7:30:01 AM

    @1) Two different target audiences. MSO can assume visitors already have the product, and Lotus wants to tell you how/why to acquire it.

    Looks good, agree with @4. Would also like a link to some live web apps for users to see.

  1. 7  tom http://www.codepress.net/b | 7/8/2009 7:45:14 AM

    @6 Your link gives a 404 error. I want to know what mPortal is :-)

  1. 8  Devin Olson http://www.devinolson.net | 7/8/2009 8:03:51 AM

    LOVE the new look.

    LOVE that { Link } redirects to the new page.

    Others may hit you with "but it doesn't have xxx or yyy, and it needs to do zzz"; but we can't have everything all at once.

    LOVE the baby steps Ed, thanks for the air cover.

  1. 9  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 7/8/2009 9:18:03 AM

    @3 most of the individual *products* are not mentioned on the home page. Go to any of the appropriate categories, or quick links, or products A-Z, and you'll get a link to Symphony. There's no mention of Notes, Sametime, Connections on the top level brand page, either.

  1. 10  Craig Boudreaux  | 7/8/2009 9:30:24 AM

    @6 opening openntf and searching a bit gives

    { Link }

    (Even though there doesn't appear to be an actual "search" function.)

  1. 11  Craig Boudreaux  | 7/8/2009 9:32:51 AM

    whoops, that comment in @10 was supposed to be for @7

  1. 12  sean jennings  | 7/8/2009 10:04:22 AM

    Great new look but....

    when you click through to the page on Domino Designer, why is it still talking about release 7 and not 8 or 8.5? Also the pricing at over £500 is still too much for individual developers, especially those of us euphemistically 'between contracts' who would like to obtain the latest version to keep our skills current.

    Would be great to see a news item on the new Lotus home page about plans to port the Notes client to Google's new Linux-based Chrome OS.

  1. 13  Brad H  | 7/8/2009 10:54:58 AM

    It's a start, but still has a way to go. If you dig very far underneath the top level pages the layout doesn't appear to hvae changed very much other than some better images and icons.

    It seems too simplistic, but businesses large and small fail to deliver the things that will cause consumers to flock to buy and use their products:

    1. Make products and services easy to use.

    2. Make it simple for customers to choose your products and understand the pricing model. Don't have too many versions of your products or you will just confuse them. MS did a marvelous job of this with Vista...

    3. Make it easy for your (potential) customers buy your products. Efficient self-service with the option to consult a sales rep or expert prior to purchase is the best mix.

    4. Make your business - what it does and sells - as easy to understand as possible

    5. Make it simple and easy for customers to complain, and respond to them quickly, hopefully with a good solution. If it's too hard to complain - they won't - they'll just go elsewhere.

    Very few companies hit the mark on those simple criteria. Apple is an example of a company in the IT industry that has a pretty good batting average with these over the past few years, and they are reaping the rewards.

  1. 14  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 7/8/2009 11:49:56 AM

    @12 can you show me the path that got to release 7 information? I can't reproduce, I get to current Domino Designer stuff.

    As for your other comments, I hear you.

  1. 15  Bill Brown  | 7/8/2009 12:08:25 PM

    @12 Porting to Chrome OS would be low on my list of priorities. I would much rather see Admin (and to a lesser extent) designer for the currently supported distros before they add yet another. It took long enough to get support for Linux (I remember "there will never be a Linux client!") and then to get support for something other than the expensive enterprise distros.

    The Chrome OS is targeted at netbooks, so what impact will that have on it supporting a full feature client like Notes?

    So far, Chrome is not even a shipping product.

  1. 16  Mike McP http://openntf.org/mPortal | 7/8/2009 12:53:03 PM

    @7: Yeah, sorry..see Craig's link. I was just too lazy to look up the URL (idea: OpenNTF should have 'vanity links' by project name).

    @12: Agree 100%. That was actually in my initial post while I was writing it, but I've said it so many times I edited it out. I can't see Designer client licenses as a big profit center, but I can see a free version as a driver for quality apps that help sell client CALs.

    Ditto on a 3-concurrent server license for developers. I do some work on an open source app, and I don't have a legal designer or server license, and am forced to VPN into my company to do work!

    There should be a giant 'Try' banner somewhere on the site, with downloads and demos.

  1. 17  David Schaffer http://bloginprogress.us | 7/8/2009 1:51:04 PM

    @9 - Ed, I see your point on individual products but it was not obvious to me to look under "Email, calendaring and collaborative applications" to find a productivity suite. And since there's been a big link to Symphony on the Lotus home page for a while it was a more glaring omission.

    As I didn't say it in my first post, it is a nice job overall but still a bit in the old IBM style. Compare the visual impact to { Link } or { Link }

  1. 18  Bill Malchisky http://www.EffectiveSoftware.com | 7/8/2009 5:35:06 PM

    Like the new design. Congratulations on evolving the look of Lotus.

    @16 They do have plenty of whitespace above the "Smarter Planet" widget. Could put a button there that maps to the same place as "Downloads" goes.

    Any other comments have been addressed by previous posts.

  1. 19  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 7/8/2009 7:28:25 PM

    @17 compare ibm.com to novell.com or microsoft.com ... hmmm -- seems pretty similar to me. This is not ***IBM's*** front door, just the Lotus brand.

  1. 20  Eric Mack http://www.EricMackOnline.com | 7/8/2009 7:48:44 PM

    Ed, I'm pleased to see progress here. Congrats to your team.

    Now, what I want to see:

    1. End-user hears about Lotus Notes, either from a David Allen Book (There are millions out here) or a seminar or from our product marketing.

    2. He then goes to lotus.com which takes him to your new page. So far, so good.

    3. Then, in ONE CLICK, I want (wish?) for him to have a way to get straight to the Lotus Notes Notes product page.

    4. Then, he should have TWO BUTTONS: "Try It", or "Buy Now" and a page of learn more type information.

    That's it.

    That is what I wish for.

    You and your team are on the right track. I hope to see this soon.

    Eric

  1. 21  Bart Severein http://www.eniac.nl/essentials | 7/9/2009 3:48:39 AM

    Far more better looking, fresh but not cluttered. However, I would not recommend to link to "Take A Message: It's Lotus Vs. Exchange", the article just strengthens the wrong idea MS is successfully pushing: Lotus is just mail and C&S like Exchange.

  1. 22  Stuart McIntyre http://blog.collaborationmatters.com | 7/9/2009 5:26:51 AM

    Ed, this is a big improvement for sure. Well done to the team.

    My main "would be nice if..." is that there is more of a sense of community around the page. Clearly the main purpose is to sell more Lotus licences, but I think you're missing a trick if you don't build on the strength of the community around Lotus products - the thousands of partners, hundreds of ISVs, OpenNTF, 300+ Lotus blogs, Lotusphere etc.

    There is the link to the Lotus blogs (and I can understand why you highlight the IBMers involved), but no link to Planetlotus or even a suggestion of those hundreds of other contributors. This seems odd to me.

    Just my 2c... Stuart

  1. 23  sean jennings  | 7/9/2009 9:35:38 AM

    @14 here's the link to Domino Designer page with ND7 details

    { Link }

  1. 24  sean jennings  | 7/9/2009 9:44:23 AM

    @15

    as Chrome will be shipped on netbooks, ie low-cost, we can expect to see huge volumes of these sold - remember how the original netbooks running Linux frightened MiscoSoft into continuing XP and offering it at a cheaper price to OEMs who used it on MicroSoft's definition of a netbook.

    The design philosophy of Chrome seems to be to support apps via the browser, similar to Apple's original idea with the iPhone. But that assumes people will be net connected all the time at high-speed, which just isn't reality. The popularity of jailbroken iPhones showed that the browser approach wasn't sufficient and that people wanted to do more and locally.

    BTW hope we'll be seeing Notes Traveller on both iPhone AND Android

  1. 25  Bilal Jaffery http://www.Bilal.ca | 7/10/2009 3:24:01 PM

    We are still working with the homepage.

    Keith, there was a reason why we didn't want 'buy now' on the main Lotus brand page. It was there before and it didn't get enough click-thru's. As with everything, we are working closely with our audience and tweaking as it goes within the IBM.COM template framework.

    Few other things in the plan as we speak. Stay tuned.

    Bilal Jaffery

    Web Marketing, Lotus