Dvir Reznik | The (old) Blog

Archive Page 84

Lotus Notes and Domino 8 available now !

Published August 16, 2007 Uncategorized Closed
Tags: domino 8, ibm, launch, lotus, notes 8, software

On Tuesday August 14th, IBM announced the general availability of Lotus Notes and Domino 8, previously known as Hannover. The sales talk that started that launch was one of the popular slaes talks in Lotus history, as IBMers and Business Partners dialed-in to the e-meetings to hear and see the new features.

I’ve been using Notes 8 Beta 3 for almost 3 months now, on 3 different laptops. In the very few days I had to use Notes 7 (standard on IBM machines), it was as if I went back in time. The new user interface is remarkable. It’s a big leap compared to version 7, and gives the user much more freedom and customization.
Notes 8 is built on the open Eclipse platform, which gives developers the option to extend Lotus platform with plug-ins and extensions. Also worth mentioning the integrated support of RSS Feeds, as well as an embedded Lotus Sametime, IBM’s leading real time collaboration solution.
Ed Brill (who hosted the sales talk on Tuesday) talks extensively on Notes & Domino 8 release in his blog, and you’re most welcome to read.

You can also watch this 10min video on YouTube, of IBM’s Ron Sebastian, Executive Architect for Lotus, showcasing Lotus Notes and Domino 8. (can’t see? click the link)

I commented last month about some of the difficulties we have in Israel, not only from the competition aspect, but also from the language aspect. For those not familiar with developing software for other languages, we’re not talking merely on changing some characters.

Hebrew is written from right to left, so the entire software UI’s needs to be mirrored. So the usual menus you have from the top left (File, View, Edit, etc) should be in Hebrew from the top right. And that’s not easy.

We (IBM SWG) have been doing a wonderful job these past years, working hard to supply as many international languages as possible (Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Spanish, German, ect), at launch date (like with Quickr and Sametime), but unfortunately, for Hebrew, we’ll have to wait until January 2008. But look at the bright side – we’ll have 4 months to build the buzz, showcase the product and its advanced features. If you want to purchase the English version, you can do that right now.

Meanwhile, read some more insights on Lotus Notes and Domino 8… or attend a birthday party for Notes/Domino 8… or read this Bloomberg article on Notes/Domino 8.

FYI – more comments from Carl Tyler on Lotus Sametime 7.5.1 integration with Office.

Open Collaboration Client with Novell SUSE’s Linux

Published August 12, 2007 Uncategorized Closed
Tags: collaboration, ibm, linux, lotus, open

IBM opened LinuxWorld in San Francisco with an announcement of an integrated open collaboration client for Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop.

The open collaboration client includes IBM Lotus Notes, IBM Lotus Sametime and the IBM productivity tools. In addition, IBM Lotus Connections, IBM Lotus Quickr and IBM WebSphere Portal can easily be added bringing social networking, team collaboration and portal capabilities to SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop. In addition, the server components required to support the open collaboration client are also available as one click install solutions and include IBM Lotus Domino and Lotus Sametime servers powered by SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 from Novell.

“Effective desktop management is a challenge for organizations today,” said Roger Levy, senior vice president and general manager of Open Platform Solutions for Novell. “Novell is collaborating with IBM on the open collaboration client bundle powered by SUSE Linux Enterprise to help customers meet that challenge and benefit from improved collaboration, increased end-user productivity, strengthened security, and reduced total cost of ownership.”

InfoWorld: IBM, Novell strengthen desktop, server ties
IBM: http://www.ibm.com/lotus/opencollabclientwithnovell

My new laptop

Published August 11, 2007 Uncategorized 1 Comment
Tags: thinkpad israel x60

3 days ago it came to the world, not screaming and pushing like others, but we knew it arrived.
Weighting only 1.5 KG (3.5 pounds) and 2 cm (0.8 inch) thick – we loved him from day 1. I just couldn’t stop holding it, carrying it with me where ever I go, and it didn’t cry for over 4.5 hours…
Impressive !!

I think it’s safe to say now that I’m not talking about a new ‘real’ baby (although I wouldn’t object to having one…), but to my brand new laptop – ThinkPad X60.
My old machine, ThinkPad T41 did just fine, but it was time to upgrade, no offense, to a newer, better model. And in the technology field – smaller is better.
Other than the size, which impressed me, ‘casue until I held it I didn’t know it was so small and light, the battery time is amazing. With the extended 8 Cell battery I can work for over 4.5 hours (in high system performance), without worrying for recharging. It’s simply amazing. A true laptop.

The ThinkPad X60 was the first to include Intel’s Core Duo processor (T2400), at 1.8GHz with a 1GB RAM and 80GB HDD. There’s all the usual connectivity (a/b/g, BT) but also Fire-Wire (IEEE 1394) and SD Slot. Cool. And it was also CNET’s Editors’ Choice in 2006.

How’s the keyboard you ask? Well, I use an example. During the first 2 days I hit “+” button instead of the “backspace” one couple of times, but it passed away. The ThinkPad legendary keyboard is so intuitive and well-organized, that there’s really no comparison with others. Every button, even the tiny right CTRL button, falls right into place, and you rarely miss.

I’ve written before about Lotus Notes 8 Beta and the toll it takes on your system, but the X60 (as well as my T41 with 1GB, btw) is doing just fine. Working smoothly, not hick-ups, screens moving fast enough – just what I’d expect. I’m also running Lotus Sametime 7.5.1, as well as Adobe Photoshop CS – no worries. The new T2400 processor barely break sweat.

Suddenly writing is much more pleasurable…

Power 2 the People

Published August 10, 2007 Uncategorized Closed
Tags: community, israel, quickr, sametime, software

I’ve been talking a lot this past month – customers, analysts, business partners, friends and family – on how important it is to empower people. Why it is so important to provide people with the right tools so they in turn can perform more effectively. Some of the people I meet acknowledge the fact that the world will rely on real time collaboration in the near future, and that we have to act on empowering people, while others are less reluctant to think so.
It’s hard to belong to the 1st group. It’s not something the IT/CIO can take for granted, being dependent on real time collaboration, which automatically brings public IM softwares to mind, with security issues. And making that step, that giant leap, is hard.

IBM Software Group in Israel will hold a SWG Community Day, on Wed. Sep. 5th, at Cinema City, just outside of Tel Aviv. The community day will be a joined one for all 5 SWG brands – Lotus, Rational, Information Mgmt., WebSphere and Tivoli. The Lotus brand community will focus on how businesses of all sizes can harness the power of their employees, and improve their productivity, performance and eventually – happiness.

Power 2 the People is the chosen theme, and we will present a fraction of Lotus software that enables you to do just that – give Power to your people, your most valuable asset. We will focus on 3 products, 2 of them were announced a month ago: Lotus Quickr, Lotus Connections and the veteran Lotus Sametime.

The main attraction in Lotus brand day will be the hands-on session – the audience will have the opportunity to experience, first hand, the mentioned 3 products. All you need is to register and bring your own laptop.

The registration site isn’t ready yet, so I can’t post the link, but will update you asap.
If you have any request for the community day, a unique software you wish to see, product demo, particular subject you’re interested – feel free to post a comment. I’ll do my best to accommodate, but no promises…

See you there.

33% are IM-ing in secret… WHY?!

Published August 7, 2007 Uncategorized Closed
Tags: gartner, instant messaging, lotus, sametime, security, wsj

Read an interesting article recently, that was published late July in The Wall Street Journal, entitled Instant Messaging Invades the Office. The author, Carola Mamberto provides her insights on how instant messaging is entering the corporate world, backing it up with real life examples. She mentions in the article that roughly one of every 3 people (33%) of US employees are using instant messaging at work (which is good, provided it’s a secured enterprise solution), although many without the employer’s knowledge (2006 survey). On top of that, many employers are reluctant to endorse IM, fearing security breaches.

Hello?! reluctant? IBM has been using Lotus Sametime for almost a decade now, with 335,000 users worldwide, 4,000,000 unique chats per day while saving some costs. Not to mention the increase in employees’ productivity! IBM Lotus Sametime, now in version 7.5.1 has over 16 million corporate users, with 27 of Fortune 50 companies as customers. I think the Fortune 50 companies have very strict security restrictions, and Lotus Sametime gave the answer.

Even Gartner has concluded that instant messaging will be “de-facto tool for voice, video and text chat” in 5 years. What are businesses waiting for? to be the last company in the industry to adopt instant messaging solution?

Instant messaging is much more than the buddy list – it’s a platform for unified communications and collaboration (UC2), enabling for text, voice and video.
IBM Lotus Sametime gives you just that.