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Lotus Symphony does Hebrew as well

Published September 27, 2007 Uncategorized 4 Comments
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Since the announcement of Lotus Symphony in Lotus Collaboration Summit at NYC, I’ve been doing some research into the Hebrew support of the product. My main concern was whether there’s an inherit bi-directional support for complex text languages (such as Hebrew and Arabic), which basically allows for both Hebrew and English to appear in the same sentence/paragraph, while maintaining the original meaning. Bidi support is what gives us (in Israel) the ability to write in English and Hebrew, with the text right aligned, at the code level, not visual (align to right/center/left) icons. Every software product that is sold in Israel must support this requirement, otherwise it’s not suitable for Hebrew (or Arabic for that matter). Ed Brill even did a little research back in March this year, prior attending a Lotusphere Comes To You event in Israel.
BTW – Announced only last week, Lotus Symphony already reached its 100,000 downloads mark. Very impressive.

Hebrew enabled, thanks to China…
Now back to the Hebrew issue. Although Lotus Symphony is based on the Productivity Tools which are embedded in Lotus Notes 8 (which in turn are based on OpenOffice.org), my first impression from the Hebrew support was not good.
I opened all the tool bars, trying to find those 2 little icons, that determine the direction of a paragraph (see first screen shot) – couldn’t find any. I consulted with some colleagues, from the product management as well as from product development, and finally, the answer came from China (Jian Fang – thanks again!). A small checkbox needed to be checked in Lotus Symphony Preferences in order to enable the RTL icons (second screen shot). And there’s even the more advanced option to change the layout of Lotus Symphony – from right to left (third screen shot below).

Available in right aligned UI as well
Below you can see Lotus Symphony’s user interface aligned to the right (interface still in English, but mirrored to the right).

And here are some sample screenshots of Lotus Symphony Documents, Spreadsheet and Presentation (respectively), with files created in Office applications.
Lotus Symphony Documents:

Lotus Symphony Spreadsheet:

Lotus Symphony Presentation:
More Lotus Symphony pictures and screen shots are available at my Flickr account.

To finish this post – a very cool animated TV ad, that I got from a friend at work. The animation looks so real, but the big story is the concept – superb !
Fight for Kisses:

Web 2.0 for Executives – a dream or a nightmare?

Published September 26, 2007 Uncategorized Closed
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There was an interesting event earlier this week at The Recanati Alumni of Tel Aviv University, under the title of Web 2.0: Dream or Nightmare for Executives.
The panel included some heavyweights of the local IT arena, led by Meir Brand, CEO Google Israel, Guy Rolnik, co-Founder of TheMarker.com and Ranit Zexer, CTO, Matrix.
My friend Sagi Chemetz from BlinkIT moderated the panel.

The overall conclusion from the event is that most businesses are still facing difficulties in building a suitable web presence, and already are hammered by Web 2.0 services, that are coming mainly from the bottom up.

Although I was unable to attend, I totally agree with the above conclusion, and here’s why:
Many businesses I visit are still facing some very Web 1.0 problems, such as building up a proper website, maintaining an updated content, connecting employees/customers/partners to that content – all while reducing costs and increasing revenue of course. When I tell them IBM has Web 2.0 tools and services they can utilize today – it’s just too much.
They are in the 2nd or 3rd floor, while the IT arena is at 5th and even 6th floor. Most companies want to advance in little steps, and that’s understandable, but the current environment is changing, fast. Change in inevitable, and in order to survive in this competitive global market, you must stay ahead of the group.
You must initiate, not re-act. You have to embrace innovation (I know it’s such an ‘old’ buzz word, but I have to use it) if you want to stay in the race. You have to increase collaboration in your business, both inside and out, in order to leverage innovation.

Web 2.0 tools/technologies/services may be frightening to some, but they are actually catalysts for growth. Real time collaboration, such as Lotus Sametime, allows one to be more effective in ones work. It allows you to communicate faster, and get the answer you need now – not later.
Team work is also an important attribute, and a business must provide its employees with powerful tools for effective team collaboration. Lotus Quickr does just that, with an eye-catching user interface and the ability for every employee to create virtual places, in 3 steps.
These are only 2 examples, but there are plenty others.

I can understand executives who are taking a step back and shaking their head sideways upon hearing Web 2.0, effective collaboration or increased team work. But, at the same time, I try to explain the past, present and future of this industry – collaboration and social software already dominate the consumer side – it’s time to leverage these tools into the corporate world as well. Not next year – now, today, right now.

Photo under license from iStockphoto.com

Lotus Sametime in Action

Published September 23, 2007 Uncategorized Closed
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Only when you’re in a sales position you understand the meaning of the end of a quarter. It’s like everyone has another personality, that kicks in at the last 10 days of each Q. Time is always a luxury, offer to the customer was due yesterday, and everyone is on the phone/mobile/chat – closing deals.

At times like this I feel fortunate for having Lotus Sametime at my disposal. Instead of going on and on about the different attributes of the product, I’ll explain with a real life example.
Last week we learned that a customer had already started a project that involves a portal and a web content management system. Since the project was already underway, we needed to adopt ourselves to existing requirements, which meant asking for a special price. Within 12 hours (usually takes more than a day) of applying the offer, it was approved and ready to be delivered to the customer. In order to do so I had to ‘sametime’ (open a chat with) my manager in Spain, open another chat with my local manager and a final chat with my colleague in the UK, who gave the final approval. using Lotus Sametime I was able to reach all these people in an instant, since I saw their ‘Presence Awareness’ and location in my chat window. I knew that the person was available for a chat, at home or office – in 5 seconds. And with the chat history feature, both of us were right on track, with our past transcripts available as a reference.

Now imagine doing all that with emails… NOT.
If you’re working for a company that is branched across various locations (country or global), you need a tool that would enable you to collaborate in real time, within the safety of your network firewall. Lotus Sametime is your product of choice, with over 16 million corporate users worldwide, that care about security just like you. Watch more here:

Continuing on that issue, IBM Software Group will hold a 3 day Lotus Technical Workshop, also known as a PoT (Proof of Technology). The workshop will cover 3 products from Lotus portfolio: Lotus Quickr, Lotus Sametime and Lotus Connections, 1 per day.
We have a senior IT specialist coming from Madrid (he’s actually British, but works in Spain), to showcase Lotus professionals how to make their software work better, during face to face labs and (some) presentations. Participation is free, but requires registration (dvir at il dot ibm dot com). You can download a preliminary agenda here (pdf).

Symphony to my ears

Published September 18, 2007 Uncategorized Closed
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IBM announced today (Tue) a new desktop productivity software, Lotus Symphony, free of charge.
The new software, announced at Collaboration Summit in NYC this morning, includes a word processor, a spreadsheet and a presentation tool, and is available for download for all users: business, professional, academic and customers.

Lotus Symphony runs of both Windows and Linux machines, and support Open Document Format (ODF), Microsoft Office and exporting to Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF).
The software is build on Eclipse and Lotus Expeditor, and can also handle Lotus SmartSuite files.
Lotus Symphony is a stand-alone version of the Productivity Tools available in Lotus Notes 8 client, and provides the end-user with the flexibility to work on a productivity software of his/her choice, saving as ODF and exporting to PDF.

More coverage is available here:
IBM takes on Microsoft again, with Lotus Symphony (C/Net)
IBM giving aways social networking (ZDnet)
IBM releases IBM Lotus Symphony free software suite (CNN Money)
IBM Symphony pushes Microsoft buttons (InternetNews)
IBM launches free, online Office applications (PC Magazine)
IBM sets an alternative for Microsoft Office (TheMarker IT – Hebrew)
IBM Lotus Symphony – supports multilingual languages, including Hebrew (DailyMaily – Hebrew)

Lotus Symphony: ibm.com/lotus/symphony

Last day in Brussels

Published September 14, 2007 Uncategorized 2 Comments
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The last day in Brussels was very productive.
I managed to visit all 3 attractions I planned for, although I walked to the Mannaken Pis on Wednesday evening.. closer to my hotel than I thought.
The Royal Museum of Art and History is located a metro ride away, and coupled with 2 other museums, The Royal Army Museum and Autoworld Brussels. I only visited the first, but I think AutoWorld is definitely worth a visit, next time in Brussels – I’m a big car junky… and from the sneak peek I took they have a wide collection.
As for The Royal Army Museum – living in Israel makes one feels comfortable around military, firearms and army, so I think I’ll pass.. I get my share of army twice a year during my army reserve training.

It was a nice day in Brussels, 20C, more clouds than I’m used too, but no complaints. I spent about 3 hours in the Art and History museum, and particularly liked the non-European exhibition. You can see collections from the Americas, far east, Tibet and Nepal, China and Japan, the Oceanic cultures and more. Highly recommended.

After that I decided to visit the Belgian Center for Comic Strip Art, located at the center of the city. After several circles in the same block I found it, but had no time to enter, only to enjoy the freebies at the entrance. If you’re a comic fan, you’d appreciate this museum. Next time I’m in Brussels, will make some time for it..

I had some time on the plane (4 hours), so I decided to take my Google Reader content offline, and catch up on some reading. A very wise decision I might add. Carl Tyler wrote about this article, a very interesting piece published on InstantMessagingPlanet.com, titled “Is Sametime Losing Ground in the EIM Race?” Although the title sounds a bit intimidating, it makes a fair analysis of the corporate IM market, and the 2 major players: IBM Lotus Sametime and Microsoft Live Communication Server. When discussing the future landscape of this market, the article says both players are here to stay, without major changes in marketshare.
“I am not aware of any company which has ditched one platform in favor of the other. If you are already running Notes and Domino then you get Sametime for free, so choosing Sametime is really a no-brainer.” There are other good insights in the article, and you can access the full version here. Concluding the article, the author states what most of us already know: “Lotus does have one major factor in its favor: no-one ever gets sacked for buying IBM.“

Another interesting post was published at The Quickr Blog – Top 11 reasons for using Lotus Quickr. I particularly liked reasons 2-4:

  • No to proprietary tools – Support for multiple HW/SW environments, open standards
  • No Rip and Replace – No need to replace your workstations to upgrade to Microsoft Vista and Microsoft Office 2007
  • Batteries are included – All components (RDB, LDAP, etc.) are in the box – and can scale

Here’s the link to the full post.

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Mobile & Media Consultant. I help startup companies launch products to the consumer market. Reach out: dvir.reznik [at] gmail.com
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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.