Chris Pepin

I'm back from a relaxing family vacation to Narragansett, R.I.   The photo below is of the Point Judith lighthouse.    It felt great to relax after a hectic schedule of external customers briefings and publishing the final draft of IBM CIO's internal end-user computing strategy.   Inside IBM, we're taking a fresh approach to delivering information technology services to our employees and supporting IBM's business goals of focusing on emerging higher-value space and innovation.   I'll post more details later this weekend.

New Lotus Sametime Wiki built on Domino (notice .NSF in the URL) http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/stwiki.nsf

A new study from Microsoft on Web Conferencing.   Nothing really new or surprising here but I did find the the charts and graphs useful.  At IBM, we use Sametime Web Conferencing for predominantly internal meetings and Sametime Unyte for predominantly external customer facing meetings.

Lotus Connections 2.0 is scheduled to ship tomorrow.  Can wait?  You can try a free service at IBM.com.  

Lots of great blogging from Alan Lepofsky and many others on PlanetLotus.org and elsewhere that attended the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston.   While I wasn't able to attend, I've been following the event remotely.    I'm currently working on IBM's internal end-user computing strategy for our 385,000 employees world-wide and Enterprise 2.0 is a key area of focus.

Taken from the Web 2.0 Developer Kit on developerWorks, the following provides an excellent description of how IBM Software products support Web 2.0.   The website contains a wealth of excellent information, including podcasts from IBM's Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)

• IBM Lotus Connections. This easy-to-use social software provides new ways for your employees to connect, including Profiles,Communities, Blogs, Dogear, and Activities, all of which support access via RSS/ATOM allowing inclusion in users' mashups.
• IBM WebSphere Portal.  Providing a portal framework, WebSphere Portal supports user contribution of content, enterprise mashups of pages using portlets and/or Google gadgets, and RSS and ATOM.  IBM WebSphere Portlet Factory, IBM Lotus Domino Designer, and IBM Rational Application Developer for WebSphere software can generate Ajax portlets for improved responsiveness.
• IBM Lotus Quickr.  This team collaboration software with many Web 2.0 features offers content libraries, team blogs and calendars, wikis, pre-built business templates, integration with popular desktop software and with scalable repositories, and access via RSS/ATOM allowing inclusion on users' mashups and conversely inclusion of external Atom/RSS feeds into places.
• IBM Lotus Expeditor.  This universally managed client, which includes a server, client, and toolkit, extends composite applications (also known as business mashups) to laptops, desktops, PDAs, or Smartphones in occasionally connected environment. It helps increase responsiveness by deploying flexible mashups that aggregate both browser-based and non-browser applications that can be accessed online or offline.
• IBM Lotus Sametime.  This enterprise instant messaging and Web conferencing software supports the creation of mashups, combining different applications or a mix of real-time and non-real-time data, instant polling, and free jam.
• IBM Lotus Forms.  This open standards-based, electronic forms (eForms) software enables you to use interactive, online forms in a pure Web 2.0 environment. Lotus Forms makes it easier and faster for customers to extend business processes outside the firewall by offering the ability to create, fill, sign, and submit forms data via a Web browser without downloading additional software.
• Web 2.0 Starter Toolkit for IBM DB2.  This conveniently packaged set of products and technologies that enable the quick creation of DB2 Web services and feeds using PHP technology.
• MQ (HTTP Bridge).  This HTTP bridge provides simple access to message queues via REST.
• WebSphere Application Server Feature Pack for Web 2.0.* This feature pack enhances J2EE applications with Web 2.0 and rich user experiences in Ajax.
• WebSphere sMash.  Enables the creation of dynamic Web applications using scripting languages such as PHP and Groovy to solve situational business needs
• WebSphere Datapower.  These easy-to-deploy network devices help developers focus on business problems without concern for security processing, data transformation, or proxying into their Web 2.0 application.
• IBM Rational Functional Tester. This testing solution enables functional testing of rich internet application and Flex applications.
• IBM Rational AppScan.   This is the only Web security application scanner in the market to properly identify Ajax functionality and navigate those sections of the application that other scanners fail to automatically crawl.
• Rational Application Developer.* This application development tool provides capabilities that help extend existing J2EE applications with Ajax features and rich and dynamic user interfaces that ultimately deliver innovative capabilities to business users, partners, and customers.
• IBM Data Studio.  This solution provides flexible data delivery supporting Web 2.0 messaging protocols (SOAP and REST) and common formats (Feeds, XSLT, JSON). IBM Data Studio speeds up data-driven application design, development, deployment, and management while improving data access efficiency, performance, and governance.  Find out how to turn frequently used database operations as Web services to client applications. IBM Data Studio helps you service-enable database operations for reuse.
• IBM InfoSphere MashupHub. *MashupHub provides visual tools that can be used for creating, storing, transforming, and remixing feeds to be utilized in mashup and situational applications, and a central catalog for users to tag, rate, and share mashable assets.
• DB2.  pureXML in DB2 9 offers you a way to store, access, and manage the XML data needed for this infrastructure that thrives on dXML. From Web services that are built on XML, to repositories that use XML as a medium, to the technologies that enable Web 2.0, pureXML technology offers technology that takes multiple source applications being cached in XML format and exposes them as a service to consuming applications.

Source: IBM developerWorks

A case study for IBM's internal usage of unified communication and collaboration has been published.   Key benefits include:

Higher productivity due to faster, easier collaboration and decision making; estimated savings of US$16.5 million per year in reduced phone costs from use of instant messaging (see body copy); estimated savings of US$97 million per year in travel costs from use of Web conferencing (see body copy); open standards-based platform runs on alternatives to Microsoft® Windows® for potential cost savings on unified communications and collaboration

A similar case study on General Electric was published last year.  

Lotus Symphony 1 is now available in 24 languages with the API toolkit.  Complete list of features can be found here.  Page thumb slider is great!  In addition, Lotus Notes 8.5 public beta is now available.   The list of new features in Notes and Domino 8.5 can be found here.

The ten biggest hurdles to innovation from Ziff Davis Enterprise:

1. Patents
2. Monopolies
3. Lawmakers
4. Entrenched business models
5. Special interest
6. Stock market
7. Inertia
8. Customer base
9. Education systems
10. Happiness

Source: Ziff Davis Enterprise

I was in Washington, D.C. last week for an external customer briefing.  I was asked to speak on IBM's internal deployment of Sametime which, given new product capabilities in the last two years, is much more than chat and web conferencing.     It was impressed with what our customers are doing with Sametime client plug-ins to extend the capabilities of the client and support innovation.

While waiting for my flight, I had some free time and did a brief walking tour of the city.  I posted some pictures on Flickr.   I also had an opportunity to catch up on my reading and podcasts.   I finished Presentation Zen which is chock-full of real-world advice on how to improve your presentations and delivery.   I also listened to my favorite podcasts TWiT and Windows Weekly as well as some new audiobooks from Audible.  

I have two additional customer briefings this week focused on IBM's desktop environment.

The Windows Home Server team is pleased to announce details of the public beta of Windows Home Server Power Pack 1. This public beta will include the fix for the data corruption bug described in Knowledge Base article #946676 as well as a host of other bug fixes and new capabilities. The Power Pack 1 download is planned to be available in early June and Beta participants are encouraged to sign up http://connect.microsoft.com/windowshomeserver and begin preparing now.

I've had a HP MediaSmart Window Home server since December, 2007.   Right now, I use it primarily for backups and I'm pleased with it.  I recently purchased Windows Home Server for Dummies and I'm looking forward going through in the coming weeks and learning more about the advanced features.  Regarding the Windows Home Server Power Pack 1 beta, I think I'll pass and wait for the gold code given the number of other things on my plate at the moment.

Lotus Notes 8.0.1 with integrated Sametime now has the ability to log into extst.ibm.com  - IBM's extranet Sametime server.   IBM Registration  is used to authenticate and the client must be configured to use port 80 (and not 1533).   Additional information on the service, including the web client for non-Sametime/Notes customers can be found here.

On Wednesday,   Microsoft announced plans to expand Microsoft Office support to include ODF and PDF in Microsoft Office 2007 SP2 which is expected 1H2009.  My reaction - it's about time!  Microsoft is finally listening to its customers that want open standards and should allow users more choice and flexibility in their selection of and office suite and interoperability via the ODF standard (ISO26300).   Customers will be asking themselves "What's the value proposition of Microsoft Office relative to other alternatives that support ODF (e.g. OpenOffice, Lotus Symphony, StarOffice)."   The key value proposition of Lotus Symphony for the IBM internal account include:

• Support for OpenDocument format (ODF), as well as Microsoft Office and Lotus SmartSuite formats and the ability to export to PDF
• Support for multiple client platforms including Windows, Linux (Mac support coming soon)
• Tight integration with the Lotus messaging and collaboration software portfolio and feature/function not found in other suites including an engaging, tabbed user interface.
• Free!

IBM has expanded its blog guidelines first published in 2005 to include wikis, social networks, virtual worlds and social media.   While these guidelines apply to IBM employees, they are published on ibm.com and may be useful to customers in developing their own company guidelines.

A new performance report from IBM on Lotus Traveler 8.0.1 is now available on Developerworks.   For those unfamiliar with Lotus Traveler, it comes free, out of the box with Notes and Domino 8.0 and provides two-way, over-the-air synchronization between Lotus Domino servers and Microsoft® Windows® Mobile handheld devices.   Lotus Notes Traveler synchronizes email, calendar, to-do, address book, and journal data in real time.

I received the following e-mail excerpt from RIM since I'm a registered user of the site announcing a free download for Lotus Connections.  I've been running it for a few weeks now and I like it.   Social software and collaboration are the new killer applications for mobile devices once e-mail, calendering and instant messaging are deployed.

BlackBerry® Client for IBM® Lotus® Connections is a free download that gives mobile professionals the ability to connect wirelessly with colleagues. Collaborating on projects, locating internal expertise, and sharing information is made easy through the tried and proven architecture and security model of the BlackBerry® Enterprise Solution. To download the BlackBerry Client for IBM Lotus Connections, free of charge, please visit:
http://www.blackberry.com/redirect/rdr?sap-client=110&target=https:%2F%2Fwww.blackberry.com%2FDownloads%2Fentry.do%3Fcode=7FCC48D22804DBBE9B66B607D51389D4&mig=482941FEBE52345FE10000000A659D4A

This free download does not add incremental costs for an organization, allowing employees to take advantage of the intuitive graphical user interface of IBM® Lotus® Connections on their BlackBerry® smartphones quickly, while being cost-effective for the organization. Because there are no additional components to install on the BlackBerry® Enterprise Server, installation is easy.

Technical Requirements for BlackBerry Client for IBM Lotus Connections
- Have IBM Lotus Connections installed in your corporate environment and the appropriate IBM Lotus Connections user license.

- Use BlackBerry Enterprise Server v4.0 or later (BlackBerry Enterprise Server v4.1 recommended) running BlackBerry® Mobile Data System (BlackBerry MDS). This can be BlackBerry® Enterprise Server for IBM® Lotus® Domino®, BlackBerry® Enterprise Server for Microsoft® Exchange, BlackBerry® Enterprise Server for Novell® GroupWise®, or BlackBerry® Enterprise Server for MDS Applications.

- Use BlackBerry® Device Software v4.2. Service Pack 1 or BlackBerry Device Software v4.2. Service Pack 2.

In other news Blackberry announced the new Blackberry Bold handheld and support for Domino 8.0.1 with Blackberry Enterprise Service 4.1.5.  Finally, South Korea announced that they were easing rules to allow the use of Blackberry.    WES also started today in Orlando.