Posted by Christopher Pepin July 2 2009 03:07:14 PM
I upgraded my iPhone 3G to a new 3G S model a little over a week ago. While the new device has some nice features over the original 3G, it's not as dramatic an upgrade as the 3G was to the original iPhone. Evolutionary, rather than revolutionary would be the best way to describe it. That said, sales have been brisk with over one million devices just in the first weekend.
I've been using iNotes Ultralight, Lotus Traveler, Lotus Connections as well as accessing IBM's corporate intranet via the Safari web browser on my new 3G S. For network connectivity to IBM, I've been using the built-in wi-fi when I'm in an IBM location and both the Cisco client and Lotus Mobile Connect (clientless) when I am away from the office. We've created a security profile that users manually install that configures the VPN, ActiveSync as well as creates a device password with 90-day expiration. We're also developing our own iPhone applications that integrate with backend IBM systems. We've seen great interest in iPhone/iPod Touch from our end-user population of 385,000 users world-wide to supplement our current production BlackBerry smartphone service.
Posted by Christopher Pepin June 17 2009 06:04:39 PM
I upgraded my iPhone 3G 16GB to 3.0 earlier today. The upgrade was painless and includes a number of new features listed below. I have a iPhone 3G S 16GB on order and hope to get it next week.
iPhone OS 3.0 Software Update
This update contains over 100 new features, including the following:
• Cut, Copy & Paste with shake to undo • Landscape keyboard in key applications • Enhanced Messages application - Send and receive photos, contacts, audio files, and location via MMS* - Forward and delete single or multiple messages • Added search feature in Mail, Calendar, Notes and iPod • Spotlight search across iPhone • Support for CalDAV and subscriptions in Calendar • Improvements to Safari - Performance - HTML 5 support - HTTP Streaming audio and video - Auto-fill usernames and passwords • New Voice Memos application • Sync Notes with a Mac or PC via iTunes • Internet Tethering over USB and Bluetooth* • Browse and download movies, TV shows, and audiobooks from the iTunes Store** • Stereo Bluetooth*** • Wi-Fi auto login • Enhanced Stocks application • More Parental Control options for Apps, Music, Movies and TV Shows • iTunes account creation and login** • YouTube account login and access to subscriptions, ratings and favorites** • Shake to shuffle • New languages, dictionaries, and keyboards • Find my iPhone and Remote Wipe via MobileMe (subscription required)** • Support for more Exchange policies • Create and send Exchange meeting invitations • Search mail on server (Exchange Server 2007 and supported IMAP servers) • Search LDAP company directory • VPN on demand and VPN proxy support • Encrypted configuration profiles • Encrypted iTunes backups • 1,000 new developer APIs, including: - In App Purchases - Apple Push Notification Service - Accessories support - Peer to Peer Connectivity - Embedded Maps - iPod Library Access • Bug fixes
Products compatible with this software update: • iPhone • iPhone 3G • iPhone 3G S
* Compatible only with iPhone 3G and iPhone 3G S and requires support from your wireless provider. ** Not available in all regions or in all languages. *** Compatible only with iPhone 3G and iPhone 3G S.
For feature descriptions and complete instructions, see the user guide for your iPhone at:
For more information about iPhone, go to:
To troubleshoot your iPhone, or to view additional support information go to:
For information on the security content of this update, please visit this website:
Posted by Christopher Pepin June 16 2009 08:37:05 AM
While I wasn't able to attend Apple's worldwide developers conference in person, I followed the conference remotely with great interest. In recent years, IBM has moved away from a homogeneous computing environment and to a more flexible model with greater choice and flexibility for employees including Apple products. For example, IBM employees have the ability to leverage personally owned devices, including Apple Macintosh and iPhone/iPod Touch devices for business purposes. IBM Software Group has a number of products in targeted to the OS/X platform including Lotus Notes, Lotus Sametime, Lotus Symphony, iNotes and the upcoming Lotus Traveler 8.5.1 with ActiveSync support for iPhone/iPod Touch. The following are the key announcements that I took away from the Apple conference:
iPhone - An evolutionary 3G S model with double the memory, a faster processor, video support and improved battery life. The 8GB 3G price is slashed to $99. Inside IBM, the iPhone is an extremely popular device and is used to access mail, calendar and contacts (iNotes and Lotus Traveler), Lotus Connections, Lotus Sametime 8.5. In addition, IBM is developing custom iPhone applications to access IBM backend systems.
MacBook Pro - The entire line is upgraded with new evolutionary features and lower prices. In recent years, IBM has seen growth in the number of Macs that its employees use for business purposes and this trend is expected to continue with Apple's new MacBooks.
Snow Leopard - Apple's upgrade to OS/X is due out in September and has a number of evolutionary features. The upgrade price is $29 and a family pack upgrade will be available for $49. I'd like to see Microsoft follow suit with aggressive pricing for Windows 7 as well as offer a family pack.
The new iPhone come out of Friday and I hope to receive mine next week and I will post my impressions on this blog.
Posted by Christopher Pepin May 26 2009 08:15:07 AM
IBM has announced the beta release of Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5.1 collaboration software, including plans to support Apple iPhone in version 8.5.1 of Lotus Notes Traveler. You can read the press release and preview this capability exclusively in the Lotus Greenhouse at http://greenhouse.lotus.com,
Posted by Christopher Pepin May 17 2009 08:57:46 PM
International Business Machines Corp.'s chief financial officer said IBM could meet its per-share earnings goal this year even if revenue tumbles further, as the company benefits from cost cuts and a richer mix of business while it continues buying back shares.
Upbeat comments on the changing nature of IBM which generates less than 10% of profit coming from hardware and the growth in software revenue, currently at 23%
Posted by Christopher Pepin May 12 2009 06:58:37 AM
IBM Lotus Notes/iNotes/Domino 8.5.1 Code Drop 5 is available for download by design partners. Code drop 5 includes the first Lotus Notes Traveler 8.5.1 beta version with ActiveSync support (Apple iPhone/iPod Touch), as well as a refreshes for Quickr 8.2 (Domino) and the Symphony Toolkit, and a reposting of the Expeditor Toolkit for Notes 8.5.1.
Posted by Christopher Pepin May 5 2009 07:42:31 AM
Key messages from the Research in Motion Wireless Enterprise Symposium for Blackberry 2009 opening general session:
Mike Lazaridis, Co-CEO of RIM
Conference theme: Enable, Empower, Inform
RIM has sold 50 million smartphones to date
RIM sold 26 million smartphones in 2009
RIM is the #1 smartphone in North America
2009 is the 10th anniversary of Blackberry
RIM has 12,000 employees
Blackberry Enterprise Server 5.0 now shipping
Security is a key differentiator of RIM
RIM acquisition of Chalk Media - mobile content on demand
Mobile Voice System - MVS. Wireless extension to the PBX. "Single-number"
Vocera (partner) - VoIP for nurses
Wireless Presentation Solution - leave your laptop behind and use your Blackberry to present
Blackberry App World
"Office in your hand"
"Doing things better and saving costs"
Bob Picciano, General Manager, Lotus and Websphere Portal Software, IBM Software Group
Lotus State of the Business - over 13K new Lotus customers (Notes, Sametime, Symphony, Connections, LotusLive, etc.). 30% increase in Sametime customers in 2008
Smarter Planet - the world is connected: economically, socially and technically. Smart people working smarter
Working Smarter - 71% of CEOs plan greater focus on innovation and doing things differently
Working smarter requires vision
Universal access to collaboration
Messaging becomes in integrated platform - Notes 8.5. Notes and Blackberry, stronger together
Managing through human networks and not rigid corporate hierarchies
Telephony becomes voice collaboration - Sametime Unified Telephony, Click to call becomes click to collaborate
Innovative desktop productivity tools - Lotus Symphony (Open Document Format). This keynote is Bob's one year anniversary of uninstalling Microsoft Office and using Lotus Symphony for all his presentations. BES 5.0 - supports ODF attachments (first applause from the audience)
Transform SMB into Global Trading Partners
Linux emerges onto the Corporate Desktop. 30% of netbooks purchased run with Linux. Divert critical spending to other initiatives
Proliferation of cloud computing - LotusLive. Collaboration in the cloud. More than just delivering services through a web interface. Planned beta for Blackberry 2Q/2009. Key value proposition is collaborating with other customers and sharing
Situational apps solve daily problems - mashups
Working smarter - Alloy by IBM and SAP. First public demo of Alloy on Blackberry. Come visit the IBM booth at the product showcase to see it for yourself. Working smarter on a smarter planet
Laurent Philonenko, Vice President and General Manager, Unified Communication Business Unit, Cisco
Improving the nature of work through mobile collaboration
Cisco & RIM - enabling mobile collaboration one capability at a time
End to End Connected Experiences
Great product demo showing participating in a meeting from a Blackberry
Audio conference on the Blackberry
Slide presentation on the Blackberry
Automatic re-connect to the meeting (audio and slides) when exiting a tunnel
Receiving a call on the Blackberry while in the meeting and adding the user to the meeting
Receiving an SMS message while in the meeting, ability to share the content with the team (slide presentation)
User arrives at the office and available conference rooms in displayed on the Blackberry
Upon entering the room, the audio switches automatically to the speakerphone in the room and the video is display on the monitor
Posted by Christopher Pepin April 29 2009 09:55:42 AM
I'm very pleased to announce that I have taken a new job in the IBM CIO office. In the past, I've had responsibility for collaboration strategy, specifically the IBM internal deployment of collaboration and social networking tools such as Notes, Domino, Quickr and Connections. In my new role, I have responsibility fo client hardware (netbooks, laptops, desktops, smartphones) as well as software (client operating system, web browser, software distribution, software license management) asset management, security management, backup, end user services and remote access (VPN). I'm very excited with this new role and the opportunity to play a key role in IBM's internal IT transformation effort.
Posted by Christopher Pepin April 28 2009 07:43:12 AM
IBM has unveiled the details of its plans to build a computing system that can understand complex questions and answer with enough precision and speed to compete on America's favorite quiz show, Jeopardy!
Posted by Christopher Pepin April 10 2009 04:57:29 PM
Lotus® Mobile Connect 6.1.3 software adds support for Apple Macintosh desktops, Microsoft Windows 6.1 clients and Nokia E71 devices and provides some usability enhancements. Using Lotus Mobile Connect, enterprises can efficiently extend existing applications over a security-rich connection to mobile workers using many different wireless and wired networks. The software supports a broad range of servers, clients and use cases -- including both client-less (such as through a Web browser) or client-based access. See the IBM announcement for details.
Posted by Christopher Pepin March 9 2009 08:06:54 AM
Lotus Connections 2.5, scheduled to ship later this year, promises a wealth of new features designed to deliver additional business value:
Advanced community experience - Reach out to communities of customers, partners and employees and work more effectively in your customized communities. Tools to reflect your goals and needs including new services - Wiki and Files Capability.
Improved community experience - Integrated view of social networks Individuals can more easily discover expertise in social networks, focus on what’s important and filter out the noise, choose what they are interested in following.
Social profiles - Promote social interaction and adoption including searches for expertise and people will be more effective and update profiles with current personal status and notify your network with message posting.
Extensibility - New partnerships to enhance integration with business applications including Microsoft SharePoint integration, site owners will be able to add industry leading social capabilities and mobile access to empower customer-facing employees. Remote employees will have a more productive experience using Web enabled Mobile access.
More information on Lotus Connections 2.5 can be found on the Synch.rono.us blog
Posted by Christopher Pepin March 2 2009 09:09:34 AM
Inside IBM, we're in the process of upgrading our Blackberry Enterprise Services (BES) from 4.14 to 4.16. The following the table compares 4.1 and 4.16. Over the weekend, my particular BES server was upgraded to 4.16 so I'm now able to leverage the new features including HTML email support (great!).
Going forward, some of the areas of interest include Blackberry Enterprise Server 5.0 testing, Enterprise Messenger testing, Lotus Connections 2.0 and Quickr testing, XPages support, DB2 support, increased BES scalability and support for additional server platforms beyond Microsoft Windows Server.
Posted by Christopher Pepin February 25 2009 09:17:11 AM
Inside IBM, we've been running a successful Apple iPhone pilot for the past several months. We've been using Lotus Mobile Connect (LMC) clientless-VPN to provide connectivity to the IBM internal network so users can use the Safari web browser on the iPhone to access e-mail, calendar and contact via the iNotes Ultralite interface. Initially, SSO was not enabled so users needed to authenticate first for the VPN and then again for iNotes Ultralite. However, with SSO enabled this significantly improves the user experience as users only need to enter a single userid and password.
That said, a key limitation of Lotus Mobile Connect clientless-VPN is the fact that each site the user wants to access on the iPhone needs to be pre-configured on the LMC server. The desire is to be able to access the entire corporate intranet from the iPhone. To address this limitation, IBM is testing the Cisco VPN that is included out of the box on the iPhone. An IBM-developed iPhone profile pre-configures the VPN as well as required a device password to lock the device.
Initial experiences have been positive and we've also been testing this solution on Mac PC's as well. IBM CIO corporate strategy is to expand smartphone device support beyond Blackberry to include Symbian S60 and iPhone in addition to other devices. With the success of iNotes Ultralite web-browser access we're exploring offering tiered mobile services, from both IBM and employee-owned devices, with both browser and push-mail solutions.
Posted by Christopher Pepin February 19 2009 02:05:28 PM
IBM and Amazon Web Services have joined forces to make IBM software available in a reliable, high-performance virtual computing environment. The Amazon Elastic Computing Cloud (Amazon EC2) environment enables you to access IBM Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) of DB2, Informix Dynamic Server, WebSphere sMash, and WebSphere Portal Server with Lotus Web Content Management Standard Edition for development, testing, and evaluation of your commercially available applications. Tight budget? You pay Amazon Web Services only for your EC2 usage. (Look for beta versions of full production AMIs on Amazon EC2 in months to come.) If you already have an IBM software license, you may be able to bring your license to Amazon EC2 -- check the PVU table for Amazon EC2 to see if you qualify. To find out more about this unique opportunity with Amazon Web Services, visit the developerWorks Cloud Computing Resource Center. Want more background on cloud computing? Check out our robust cloud computing for developers space.
Posted by Christopher Pepin February 19 2009 11:29:11 AM
An improved xPages-version of the Domino wiki template used for the Lotus and Websphere Portal product wikis is now available on OpenNTF.org. Note that the live product wikis are not yet using the new XPages wiki template, but the team is investigating an upgrade in the future.
