Slightly delayed (had a busy Wed-Thu last week), but here’s another article covering IBM’s initiative to offer Linux-based software package, that runs on a back-end server and is accessible to customers on thin clients, pricing $59-$289 (depending on level of software and service).
Customers would also save on labor costs, because moving to a server-side system would cut maintenance needs, said Inna Kuznetsova, director of Linux strategy at IBM. The server-based setup could also reduce hardware costs by extending the life spans of desktop PCs.
First off I’m glad to hear Microsoft is doing what it can to help local businesses. These are tough times, and any executive needs to have some action plan in place to navigate the coming 3-9 months. Nevertheless, I hope customers, when evaluating IT spending, are looking more closely at the numbers, rather than the product logo. Here’s a slide that will help:
Lotus have an excellent, open standards, desktop solution that features: messaging, basic collaboration and document mgmt., instant messaging, office productivity editors, mobile access, application development, SQL and SAP integration, Eclipse based and Domino server – for $201-$338 for user, depending on your OS.
Earlier Nov. IBM released Symphony 1.2, which imporved the perfomance of the product, and also introduced a plugin library, specifically designed for Lotus Symphony. The next release of Symphony will be based on OO 3.0, that would allow for seamless operatibility for Office 2007 formats, and support Visual Basic macros. The latest release, 1.2, is also available for Mac OS (Beta), as well as Ubuntu Linux (Beta).
I’ve been using Lotus Symphony for several months now, and it does take some getting used to, but the features are quite the same, if you’re an average user, like me. If you’re a power user, you might miss some functionality, but there are ways to compensate for that.
The updated plugin library is a true asset, where the community shares its knowledge and expertise, with cool additions to the client. The one I liked the most is this cool one that allows you to export a presentation to a flash file (or .gif) – very nice !!
I’ve been usingLotus Symphony for several months now, both for daily use and also part of the development and translation efforts made around the product.
When talking to customers I always mentions numbers, as they provide a better indicator of a product’s success. In IBM’s case, even thou Lotus Notes 7 comes pre-installed on new machines (IBM image), there are over 80,000 employees running Lotus Notes 8.x, while our Domino servers are almost migrated fully to 8.0.1 (8.5 coming next year). There are also 140,000 Symphony users, either on Lotus Notes 8.x or the standalone software.
There’s more to Web 2.0 than RSS, blogs and the 1,150,000,000 people connected to the internet. Web 2.0 is allowing us to bridge the gap between innovative (and social) technologies and business needs, in a simple (and code-less) way. I can take a map from Google, picture from flickr and a blog rss, incorporate them all into a single view – thus creating a new and unique service. It’s called a mashup:
In web development, a mashup is a web application that combines data from more than one source into a single integrated tool; an example is the use of cartographic data from Google Maps to add location information to real-estate data, thereby creating a new and distinct web service that was not originally provided by either source. [wikipedia]
IBM has been working for some time on develpoing a tool that would allow easy creation of mashups – IBM Mashup Center, that is now available free via IBM Lotus Greenhouse.CRN reviewed three mashup solutions: Google Mashup Editor Beta, IBM Mashup Center and Adobe LiveCycle. Here’s what they had to say about IBM Mashup Center:
IBM Mashup Center provides an easy-to-use, GUI-based method to combining maps, RSS feeds, and corporate data like customer lists into browser-based widgets. Creating a mashup here is as simple as dragging and dropping RSS feeds, mapping information, CSV files or other data sets onto a work board… IBM is targeting non-technologists—this is both less code-intensive and more business-friendly than Google Mashup Editor.
and closing with
The IBM Mashup Center provides a slightly more attractive alternative because of the platform’s flexibility and easy-to-deploy approach.
Mashups are definitely something that need to be in every CIO/CTO scope – the possibilities are endless, and those require little technical skills. Mixing up has never been so easy. Stay tuned for my first mashup… coming soon.
This is my personal blog. The postings here do not represent the thoughts, intentions, plans or strategies of my past employers or of my clients. It is solely my opinion.
