Collaboration Matters!

The only thing missing from the slide is Lotus Foundations. I know the Net-Integration occurred officially the Friday before LS08 and they displayed the product icon and had a few slides mentioning it--plus an actual server prototype on-stage. So why then, would the strategy slide exclude it? Arguing that it was an unfortunate oversight, I would think that any slides just after the show should include Foundations in their strategy, I would think.

Also, as a side-note, any approximate dates for Bluehouse and Foundations going live would be appreciated. I have a couple of colleagues who are interested in these tools for their clients, but (a) Bluehouse is out of trial accounts {guessing too much demand here}; (b) excepting one link which you have to explicitly search, Lotus has no information on Lotus Foundations on the Lotus site--quite surprising after their big fanfare during the OGS at LS08.

Foundations Link, searched for, {{ Link }

Try this instead: { Link }

@1/@2 - the Nitix acquisition was only finalised in the last few days. I would hope we will see either { Link } or { Link } come alive in the next few weeks. My understanding from L'sphere, though, was that nothing will ship under the 'Lotus Foundations' product name until mid-year, although I don't know what the cause of that delay is.

@0 - on the original point, YES YES YES please IBM get rid of that 'Websphere Portal' purple blot. It just looks stupid on a Lotus slide, frankly. Whatever political battles have to take place inside IBM to turn that yellow - just HAVE THEM and get on with it. From the point of view of anybody who doesn't have a vested interest in the 'Websphere' brand name, it is blindingly and painfully obvious that it should be a Lotus product with a Lotus name and a Lotus logo. "Lotus Portal". What's so difficult about that? How many Websphere purchasers are there anyway? A few thousand? Call them. Explain. They really won't mind. For every person that's heard of 'Websphere' there are a thousand that have heard of 'Lotus'. That's a good thing - use it!

Have I made myself clear? :-)

@3, I do wish you wouldn't sit on the fence Julian ;-)

It's not just the "purple blob" for me, it's the fact that it is such an ugly purple blog! I probably differ from the majority of the Lotus community in that I believe that Portal is a good product - used in the right place and at the right time it brings a huge amount of value to an organisation. However, in many cases it is mis-sold, poorly implemented and badly integrated - I believe that much of the reason for this is the fact that it is sold to, and delivered by the "enterprise computing" folks rather that the "people productivity" folks in an organisation. i.e. the team(s) that would normally deal with Websphere products.

As Julian points out, it is clearly a Lotus product in purpose and direction, if not in technology, and it really should be renamed.

@1 I believe that Lotus Foundations will sit in the "On Premise" section of the arrow on the right-hand side of the strategy - I'm not sure why we don't have a logo there yet.

Given the recent closure of the Nitix deal, as Julian points out, I suppose that we should expect to hear more about Foundations in the next few weeks.

Personally however, I find it a little frustrating that Lotus seems to have lapsed into a "January announcement, June delivery" cycle of product delivery. In the modern world of Web2.0 and SaaS, a 5-month lag between news of a new product coming to market and delivery of that technology is starting to seem awfully long. It gives the competition time to meet the challenge, for other SaaS vendors to move into the space, and for customers to seriously consider other alternatives. With the resources and abilities that IBM has, I would really hope that the pace of development can be improved in years to come - after all isn't that the promise of the Rational/Eclipse/Expeditor solution?

I agree about Portal, no question.

Rebrand it and we all look at it, otherwise it gets Websphered and left alone.

As to FOundations, my server(the mini like Mike had on stage) is coming today or tomorrow hopefully.

Some issues about it which prevent it from being wholly useful, like it ONLY supports Domino on it(and really just the basic server waiting on more details for clustering and similar topics), no addons...yet. Sametime will be first.

Also the mini box is not very practical on most levels for major clients, but will have a space in home or smb sites.

But the idea of it used as a failsafe backup serevr or as a remote drp solutoin is excellent, once it is available.

The only issue is pricing which I am waiting to see how that works out.

@5 - "January announcement, June delivery" is lightening fast by comparison with the past! :-)

Actually, I know I criticise IBM from time to time, but I think you're being slightly unfair comparing release cycles for on-premises software to those for SaaS/Web2.0. If BlueHouse falls into the same cycle then we will have something to complain about, but actually I think the pace of progress at the moment is quite reasonable, and 5 months from announcement to release is pretty damn quick.

Now your challenge is to post a response that will make me similarly rush to the defence of the IBM 'marketing' effort (or lack of)

:-o

@6 Keith, I'd love to know more about the Nitix/Foundations server when it arrives - it will be interesting to see if it is really "SMB ready"...

@7 Julian - I do like a challenge! I do agree that IBM has a tougher time of it with the commitments to worldwide coverage, multiple languages (including DBCS) and multiple platforms.

However, my point was rather that announcement at Lotusphere should not necessarily mean delivery in June (or "mid-year"). You very rarely see Apple announcing product at MacWorld and not delivering until 5 months later (yes they did for Leopard but this is an exception).

Whilst having a clear and transparent roadmap is clearly a positive thing (MS Exchange anyone?), if a product is ready to demo at Lotusphere, then I think it should be ready to ship much earlier in the year - thus stopping the competitors from simply matching features and even more importantly, stopping customers delaying deployment until the next version is released (as we're seeing with Lotus Connections at the moment). It would make much more sense to me to work toward a Jan announce, Feb/March release, September patch calendar...