What I learned at IBM Software University, day 2

January 18 2006

As Almar commented on my Monday report, I can't say much yet about what I saw and learned.  Come next week, all will be revealed, and it's all good news.  A few cool things:

  • IBM Workplace Forms has got to be one of the easiest software products to work with in the entire market.  No wonder that product has been making great strides in the market in the last few months.  I was totally impressed with the live demo of turning a paper form into an e-form, and the cool news about upcoming product integration plans.
  • Notes "Hannover" lives and is going to be a big "wow", very soon
  • WebSphere Portal 6 borrows some great concepts from Notes around templates, expands its own concepts around portlet catalogs, and has some very cool content management tools.  Watch for more about this.
  • With IBM earnings announced, there was some great discussion about the full year of double-digit growth for Lotus.
  • Lots of questions, with lots of good answers, around future support for Macintosh and Linux clients in the Notes/Domino world...
I've delivered two of my six sessions so far, and had a great dinner tonight at Tao in the Venetian hotel.  Strongly recommend the molten chocolate cake, but I did mine with vanilla instead of coconut ice cream.

Ed Brill Las Vegas, NV USA Category:  Lotus  Add/View Comments [15]

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  1. 1  Alan Bell http://www.dominux.co.uk | 1/18/2006 4:19:14 AM

    "Macintosh and Linux clients in the Notes/Domino world"

    cool, Notes Client and Domino Designer on Linux for me please! Next week? Pretty please?

  1. 2  Egor Margineanu http://www.egmar.ro/ | 1/18/2006 6:37:23 AM

    Ed,

    thank you for great news.

  1. 3  Ed Maloney  | 1/18/2006 8:17:38 AM

    An update on Mac support would be much appreciated, particularly with the new Mac/Intel announcement. This is a make or break issue for some of us...

    Thanks!

  1. 4  GarryL  | 1/18/2006 9:28:46 AM

    Hmm...

    Hannover, 'very soon'?

    Sounds interesting. Will we be finding out how soon during Lotusphere?

    Garry.

  1. 5  Joerg Michael  | 1/18/2006 10:45:54 AM

    GarryL: What? You mean you haven't downloaded the beta version yet? ;-)

  1. 6  Peter de Haas http://www.peterdehaas.com | 1/18/2006 4:54:54 PM

    I do wonder where Workplace forms differs from Microsoft InfoPath.

    What's its relates to Lotus Notes / Domino ?

  1. 7  Peter de Haas http://www.peterdehaas.com | 1/18/2006 5:53:20 PM

    On the earnings : seems that the trend of double digit grwoth for Lotus is broken looking in the 4th quarter earnings : 2%. That can't be good news can it ?

  1. 8  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 1/18/2006 7:18:17 PM

    @6 Have you even clicked on the link to see what Workplace Forms is? It is different because it is built around the concept of pixel-accurate forms automation -- in other words, replacement of paper-based forms (which there are still millions of in the world). InfoPath is not a competitor (for a lot of reasons).

    @7 As I'm sure is the case at Microsoft, very few people at IBM are authorized to speak publicly about IBM's earnings. I am not one of them. So I can't answer the question.

    What I can say is that Lotus > Notes/Domino and thus, looking at "Lotus" revenue is not the same as Notes/Domino revenue.

    Perhaps there will be more specifics about this at Lotusphere next week. Even if there isn't, I will be blogging in the next few days about my job and how I finished out 2005, and since I'm responsible for Notes/Domino...and I'm in a good mood... well, you'll get the message.

  1. 9  Brian Vincent http://racing.honda.com/ | 1/18/2006 8:01:46 PM

    I'll attend one of your sessions next week to cash in on your good mood.

    I hope "hanover" is ready for some previewing as well!

    Good job this past year.

  1. 10  Peter de Haas http://www.peterdehaas.com | 1/19/2006 3:38:49 AM

    @8

    I will click the link and try and figure out myself where the difference is, thanks. How does it rekate to Lotus Notes / Domino, is that something you can answer ?

    As for the earnings. I can't speak about MS earnings either, but I can talk about what I see and read.

    On what information is your question about MS' earnings based. MS will not release figure for Q4 of CY05 until 26/1/2006.

    What is included in Lotus' Revenue lines and are you implying that Lotus Domino is pulled down because of other Lotus Software solution performing "less" than Lotus Notes Domino ?

  1. 11  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 1/19/2006 8:46:18 AM

    @10 - I wasn't saying anything about MS earnings, just drawing a parallel around big company policies for speaking about financials publicly.

    Lotus does indeed comprise more than Notes/Domino. Heck, SmartSuite is still in that number.

    Workplace Forms relation to Notes/Domino.... hmmm, I'm aware of some work going on there, but it's a bit too soon to describe.

  1. 12  Peter de Haas http://www.peterdehaas.com | 1/19/2006 3:41:36 PM

    @11

    Ed, I bet the revenue objectives for smartsuite are not that aggresive and have not caused any surprises in your Q4. My conclusion still stands that the overall Lotus revenue took a big dive in Q4.

    Anyway look forward to more details, as you indicated, more next week ..

  1. 13  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 1/19/2006 3:56:35 PM

    @12 Peter - this is very difficult because I can't comment on IBM earnings. But the reported figure is about year-to-year revenue, not about "surprises". And year-to-year, some parts of the Lotus portfolio had different performance vs. last year.

    I'm waiting myself to see what my management will say on Monday at Lotusphere. I think there will be more (positive) detail than the earnings announcement.

  1. 14  Peter de Haas http://www.peterdehaas.com | 1/20/2006 2:33:44 PM

    @8

    Ed I viewed the whitepaper on Workplace Forms and I have to say its one big deja vue

    This is exactly what InfoPath is and it is fully integrated with SharePoint for example. { Link }

  1. 15  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 1/21/2006 12:56:16 AM

    If you read the white paper, you would know that there is quite a difference from InfoPath in the area of pixel-accurate form development.