Chris Pepin

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.

Earlier today, I was a speaker on an IBM Webcast: Unified Communications: enabling innovation, changing the workplace, creating business value—or just hype?  It was a great event and I understand that it will be available for replay.  I was asked to speak on how IBM is using UC inside the company and to collaborate with external customers.   The IBM CIO customer reference can be found here.

As soon as the replay is available, I'll post a link.

I'll be participating in a live IBM webcast on Tuesday, May 13 on the topic of unified communications.  I've been asked to share IBM CIO's experience with leveraging unified communication technologies inside IBM.   Registration prior to the event is available online

To enable collaboration, companies spend a great deal of money for email, calendaring, file sharing capabilities, instant messaging, unified communications and whiteboard conferencing.

However, a recent Ziff-Davis/Strategy Group survey found that although the general trend seems to be moving toward more use of collaboration within enterprises, there is a class of user who does not need such an extensive set of tools. As such, companies can save money, simplify management and improve security by offering these users Web-based collaboration messaging solutions as opposed to the traditional client-based offerings.

A good article on segmentation of the user population and different devices (PC, mobile) access method (public, private/VPN) and client (rich, web).  Inside IBM, we're evolving from a bundled, thick "one solution fits all" solution for our employees to more of an "a-la-carte" set of agile services that employees can pick and choose from.

Source: Ziff Davis Enterprise (membership required - free)

A new article on Developerworks on creating an Ajax-based IM client.   At Lotusphere 2008, Lotus demoed an Ajax-based Sametime client in the lab.  Will this eventually ship to customers and replace the Java-based Sametime Connect for Browsers client?

Lotus Mashups allows users to easily create applications that work with internal and external information to be shared with others. Using a variety of widgets, data feeds, and wiring capabilities, Lotus Mashups enables the creation of composite applications that integrate data and functionality from a variety of internal and external sources. (Note: Certain features shown in this demo may not be present in the final version of this software.)

Click here for the demo

Step-by-step video on how to use Sametime Unyte.   If you've never used Sametime Unyte before or if you have and need a refresher, this video is for you.

IBM has launched a new a website, http://www.ibm.com/green to bring all of IBM's "green initiatives" in one place.  The site contains a new video which does an excellent job of describing IBM's efforts in this space.

In the IBM CIO's office, we're working on a number of initiatives ranging from making our data centers more energy efficient to making our employee desktops and laptops more energy efficient.  

"The world is entering the 'Era of the Mobile Web.' In many countries, the mobile phone has become an electronic wallet, the window to the World Wide Web, an education device and more, and globally, mobile devices outnumber PCs, credit cards, and TVs," said Dr. Daniel Dias, Director, IBM India Research laboratory. "Today, we are launching projects that will make a mobile device an even easier to use than the PC, allowing you to do everything you can with a PC and much more."

The projects, which will be led out of India, but also are being incubated in IBM's eight global labs in six countries, include:

• The Spoken Web - Voice-enabled mobile commerce
• Instant Translation - Real-time communication between multiple languages through mobile devices
• SoulPad - Enabling any portable device to carry computing applications in your pocket
• Social networking on-the-go
• Good Samaritan - Mobile healthcare information made available in any emergency situation

Source: IBM

http://stdemo3.dfw.ibm.com (Sametime 7.5.1)
http://stdemo4.dfw.ibm.com (Sametime 8)

Videos have recently been added to the Sametime Unyte website with actual customers speaking to the business benefits of using the service.    Definitely worth checking out if you are considering Sametime Unyte.

http://www.webdialogs.com/video/default.asp

During last night's scheduled maintenance window, the Sametime client id for Notes 8.0.1 was enabled on extst.ibm.com.  This means that users can now log into extst.ibm.com from Notes 8.0.1.   This has been a long time coming, due to IBM's corporate information technology freezes and the team is committed to reducing the delay in enabling future clients.

IBM posted first quarter 2008 earnings after the market close yesterday

* Diluted earnings of $1.65 per share, up 36 percent;
* Total revenues of $24.5 billion, up 11 percent;
* Global Technology Services revenues up 17 percent; pre-tax income up 45 percent;
* Global Business Services revenues up 17 percent; pre-tax income up 23 percent;
* Software revenues up 14 percent; pre-tax income up 22 percent;
* 65 percent of revenues from outside the U.S.; E/ME/A revenues up 16 percent; Asia Pacific up 14 percent; U.S. up 6 percent;
* Services signings of $10.8 billion at constant currency; $12.6 billion at actual rates.

Read the press release and listen and see the presentation.   IBM stock quote information