Well, at least now you know the code is done...

December 18 2008

On my way out of the Westford MA labs yesterday, I was pinged by Jan Kenney and alerted to a little hiccup in our release staging process.  See, the Notes/Domino 8.5 release was completed and signed off by the development organization earlier this week.  The final builds were done last week.  The code is complete.

That means we're now in the submarine-like phase between code completion and actual release to market.  Microsoft calls this "release to manufacturing", which I think is a bit of an outdated term for software since physical availability of CDs/DVD-ROMSs is no longer the first access a customer has to new software releases.  Whatever you call it, there's a bit of process work that goes on to ready download/entitlement/delivery sites, marketing content, developerWorks updates, support queues, press announcements, and everything else.

Honestly, the critical path for all those activities would normally have finished up sometime around Tuesday next week...not the ideal date/time to launch software and expect anyone to notice.  Moreover, like many organizations, we have a lot of people at IBM heading out for holiday vacations, and driving to a date next week simply made no sense.  Thus, we made the call that we are not actually releasing Notes/Domino 8.5 products (including things like Traveler 8.5, LEI, etc.) during the next two weeks.  It's not a "slip" in the sense that we weren't able to finish the project in time... simply a marketing decision (we make those, you know) to optimize release for its greatest impact.

I still can't say publicly what our official release and launch plan is, but we've pre-briefed a number of industry analysts --their feedback has been universally positive.  It will be exciting and different (which you can translate to meaning that we're not waiting for Lotusphere), and you will hear all about it at the right time.

Ed Brill Highland Park, IL USA Category:  Notes and Domino 8.5  Add/View Comments [24]

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  1. 1  Darren Duke http://blog.darrenduke.net | 12/18/2008 7:31:50 AM

    I would be nice if the partners could get a hold of the gold code. Especially considering the oft-touted space savings. We could have blog postings ready to go on gold day and not have to test for a week or two after we get the code.

    Just a thought.

  1. 2  Lars Olufsen http://www.olufsphere.com | 12/18/2008 7:34:22 AM

    Weeee ... just in time for christmas! :-)

  1. 3  Jim Casale http://www.jimcasale.net | 12/18/2008 7:48:13 AM

    Hey Ed, Did you go as the Riddler for Halloween this year? ;-)

  1. 4  Pete McPhedran http://www.corefusion.com | 12/18/2008 8:18:43 AM

    Hey Ed,

    Nice to see your humour still in tact at this point of the year (Q4)

    "simply a marketing decision (we make those, you know)"

    --Pete

  1. 5  Tony Tipping  | 12/18/2008 8:39:17 AM

    January would seem like the right time to do this, as much as I'd like to play with it over the Christmas break (whaddya mean "family time...?"). This is without doubt going to be very exciting to a lot of developers; Xpages for example make a lot more sense (to me) right now than composite apps.

    BTW, are we _ever_ going to get proper HTTP session-tracking in Domino like we get with JSP/PHP/ASP? I know Xpages are hinting at this, but it still looks like a bit of a hack...although that may be hugely unfair as I haven't tried it yet.

    But to be able to pop objects in and out of an HTTP session like you can so easily with J2EE or even PHP... Ah, something to dream of.

  1. 6  Matt White http://11tmr.com | 12/18/2008 9:00:02 AM

    @5 - There is session tracking in the sense that you have a sessionScope variable in which you can store information for each individual user for the life of their session. (Have a read about the requestScope, sessionScope and applicationScope variables in the Domino Designer Wiki). But there is no session persistance out of the box for the Domino server that I know of yet, we'd need to continue using tools like NCT Remember Me if that's what you were referring to.

    Matt

  1. 7  Tony Tipping  | 12/18/2008 9:29:02 AM

    @6 - Thanks Matt. I will have a detailed look at that and freely admit that I haven't done so yet, tut tut. However, I still dream of being able to do the Domino equivalent of the (IMO) lovely 'session_start()' call in PHP. It's just so nice to be able to instantiate a persistent server-side session with a simple line like that. Imagine the equivalent in the WebQueryOpen event of a form, and popping captured field values into the session in a (currently imaginary) WebQueryClose event. How nice would that be?!

    (Before anyone posts to tell me, I know I am misusing the references to web form events. But it would be nice to have something similar to the InitialiseAction and FinaliseAction structures in Struts, if you see what I mean.)

  1. 8  Alan Hamilton  | 12/18/2008 10:17:29 AM

    Just in time for Lotusphere.

  1. 9  Kevin Mort http://www.theglobalmind.com | 12/18/2008 10:18:26 AM

    Nice. Thanks for the update Ed...onward to 2009!

  1. 10  John Turnbow http://www.recondite2.com | 12/18/2008 10:38:05 AM

    Give all the guys on the R8.5 a big "Thank You" for their hard work. I know this can't be easy.

    I look forward to using it.

    Thanks!

  1. 11  Cesar Zavala  | 12/18/2008 10:53:04 AM

    Good work! Now go and have a Merry Christmas, and when we all return next year we can spend a good time with it.

    Even if it's released before Lotusphere, I'd still look forward for an 8.5 DVD with the software and hopefully a good extra showing videos or pictures of everybody that was involved maybe with their kids or partners ... it would be cool, specially on these times. Credit to whom credit is due :)

  1. 12  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 12/18/2008 10:58:34 AM

    @7 - Tony, you should definitely check out the public 8.5 betas, then. You get pretty much those events on Xpages. :-)

  1. 13  Simon Létourneau  | 12/18/2008 11:04:53 AM

    Awesome, but the lotusscript editor is still missing.

  1. 14  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 12/18/2008 11:08:35 AM

    @13 I know. Planned for 8.5.1. You'll see it at Lotusphere.

  1. 15  Norman Sprunger http://www.mma-online.org | 12/18/2008 12:01:22 PM

    Is it coming out in 09 so 08 maintenance contracts won't include it?

  1. 16  Rod Stauffer  | 12/18/2008 12:06:45 PM

    @14: My reactions:

    - Woo hoo!

    - it's about time

    - Woo hoo!

    - LotusScript class browser at Lotusphere? Been there, done that.

    - Woo hoo!

    In the sense that I'll believe it when I see it "shipping", I am a cynic re: the LS class browser (can you tell it's been sorely missed). However, I can't wait to see the class browser at LS...again. Any evidence that it's closer to release is extremely welcome news.

    8.5 is just a couple/few weeks from release, and you've already got me jonesing for 8.5.1. Very sneaky. :)

    Thanks for the updates Ed. Enjoy the holidays.

  1. 17  Chris  | 12/18/2008 12:43:17 PM

    Does this mean we will get a full release version of Symphony 1.2 for Mac soon?

  1. 18  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 12/18/2008 12:44:31 PM

    @17 soon, yes.

  1. 19  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 12/18/2008 1:20:09 PM

    @15 The release date is determined by many factors, and like I said, code signoff is only one step in the process. I can't comment here on the specifics of particular contracts or agreements but am happy to discuss with you offline.

  1. 20  Gerry  | 12/18/2008 5:10:32 PM

    New Years day??

  1. 21  SIlvia Garcia  | 12/18/2008 5:14:09 PM

    Does this means that Language Packs for National Group languages (SPANISH!!!!) would be released at the same date that the product ?

    please...please...please......:-)

  1. 22  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 12/18/2008 5:32:45 PM

    @21, no, but it does mean that work has started on them already...

  1. 23  Henry Ferlauto http://www.geniusinside.com | 12/18/2008 6:02:23 PM

    Congratulations on wrapping up what will be another major milestone for the platform.

    Looking forward to many positive press reviews.

    Alright everybody, let's start talking about ND9! :)

  1. 24  Ursus Schneider  | 12/19/2008 1:47:29 AM

    Was just wondering which iNotes Ultra Lite (the iPhone web access) updates made it into 8.5 - I was hoping the "simple" appointment additions, my users really want to like the Ultra Lite but find it lacking in this area! The problems with attahments (we cannot open any mails containing attachments) was also fixed - fingers crossed :o)