Location : Orlando, FL
As a member of the Blogger Program at Lotusphere2009, I was invited to the Press and Analyst Briefing following the Social Software Keynote.
First, as a consumer of much of the Lotus news, it is nice to see how the messages are perceived in the marketplace. While there were plenty of new announcements this week, I especially enjoyed witnessing the press reactions. I am not familiar with all of the publications or the analysts in the room, but listening to a point of reference outside of the "Yellow Bubble" is, frankly, what we all should be doing. I may not agree with or understand the positions, but I think it makes me a better person.
The major focus in this Briefing was on Foundations and Sametime.
How do these things work? First there are introductions to the people on stage. That is followed by an overview of press releases, which were made available to everyone in the room. Finally, the featured guests have time to make a statement, which will highlight several key items in the press releases. Afterwards, they open to questions from the floor. In this particular briefing, there weren't too many people, maybe 30, tops.
Here are some questions and answers from the briefing, along with some of my comments.
Foundations: a nontraditional channel product. Foundations is meant for the small business partner to use to compete with Microsoft Small Business Server. By using these partners, IBM is able to open conversations with a part of the market that they haven't had much success reaching. Now, with Foundations 1.1, they will be able to address a larger question: "How can I run Windows specific software on this Linux-based server?" IBM keeps a specific dental software, that only runs on Windows. By having VMWare serve up Windows, IBM doesn't have to wait for the vendor to create a Linux version of the software. Frankly, this makes sense, as it makes it much easier to for the customer.
Question: Explain the Sametime client going forward. The answer is that IBM will continue to have two paths: a rich client and a zero footprint web client. However, it was one part of the question that drew a laugh from me. The analyst asked about Sametime Connect. "What is Connect?," she asked. "I hear it mentioned a lot in the Product Showcase." The answer: "We need to try to clean up our language so as not to confuse people."
Question: Will Cisco be getting new versions of Sametime? How do you deal with the conflict in the businesses?
Strategies have started to cross with Cisco and we have a lot of mutual customers. It's more effective if you focus on the customer. It will be challenging going forward, but IBM is committed to work with Cisco. Cisco has a license for a non-web conferencing client. Plug in to WebEx or MeetingPlace. Moving forward with Sametime 8.5, there will be overlap, but Cisco may not choose to deploy ST 8.5.
The IBM Executives make a point about building ecosystems. Specifically mentioned is RedHat and Symphony. It appears that IBM hopes that similar things occur with their other offerings, and you can see of this with Foundations 1.1 and Xerox.
Quite a few questions on IBM's bigger partners, like Nortel, and how the business will change as IBM and the partner move into each others' markets and customer bases.
Kevin question. Brand name Foundations Start. Start release for Microsoft Small Business. Name for a family of offerings. Start is the beginning of the name/family.Direct competitor with SBS. Business model is different. SBS partners make money when the server fails. Not so with Foundations. No remedial work. Integrating Foundations with telephony and other parts of the market that IBM wants to engage (like document management, which you see with the Xerox offering).
Presence awareness between ST and ST Advanced? Yes. Community tools engage each other. Fully compatible, complete presence awareness. In Connections, anywhere a name shows up, it is live. Presence awareness is available, chat, call, conference. Executing a strategy that extends beyond chat. Extends into Microsoft stack, PLM Systems. Make collaboration live. The follow-up question: What's involved in making that happen? Out of the box integration with Office, Outlook, and Sharepoint. Toolkit to make it "straightforward." Is this typically something an outside consultant would do? No, the business should be able to do this, but there are partners that can help.
Sell solutions to telcos. Will IBM be competing with itself, as the telcos can resell and rebrand the offerings? No. There are segments of the market that want to source out of the cloud. Others want service vendors. Many small business get services from the cloud. Evolve over time, there will be services that will be sourced from the cloud or internally. Lotus has architected the services to be provisioned from wherever they need it. Time and the market will determine the best offering and how it will be consumed. Not Lotus' intent to build out the partners and then leave them out of the equation.
Cloud services. Private cloud and public. LotusLive addresses a lot of this. Multi-tenant not in Sametime. Not the strategy to drive multi-tenant. But go to LotusLive for that.
A question about ActiveSynch and the overlap with Symbian, also about the timeframe for the release of this version of Traveler.
Lotus expects to do both as ActiveSynch isn't the greatest protocol. Lotus wants to have access to the widest variety of mobile phones. Expect it to be released before the end of 2009. Want it out as soon as they can, have it running on the iPhone. The example here was a university that wants to prove mobile mail to all of the students. By supporting a wide range of phones and protocols, Lotus can get an extremely high percentage of the population. If you look at the Verizon and Orange announcement (I'll post something later), Lotus has access to potentially 200 million users.
Will this new version of Traveler be synchronized with a Domino release? It appears that it will be released as a point upgrade in the existing Domino 8.5 code stream.
What is the Customer adoption of UC? When does mainstream adoption hit? The answer: Integration of telephony-at early stages. A lot of network issues with this, so there is a maturity that needs to happen. IBM wants to lower the barriers, but there is a slowing down of implementations in IP telephony. Not at all companies will embrace this. The focus on reduction of travel expanses seems to be pushing this forward.
Support for VMWare. What are the limitations of VMWare on Foundations? Small businesses can now run a wide range of applications on the Foundations 1.1 server. They go back to the dental software example. Then, explain that the restarting of Windows in the VM session occurs without having to reboot the Foundations server. This allows the ISV's to have their software run on Foundations, without porting it to Linux. And from the small business owner view, having their business partner remote in to the Foundations server and troubleshoot and restart Windows, saves the company money, time, and productivity.
Technorati tag: lotusphere2009
First, as a consumer of much of the Lotus news, it is nice to see how the messages are perceived in the marketplace. While there were plenty of new announcements this week, I especially enjoyed witnessing the press reactions. I am not familiar with all of the publications or the analysts in the room, but listening to a point of reference outside of the "Yellow Bubble" is, frankly, what we all should be doing. I may not agree with or understand the positions, but I think it makes me a better person.
The major focus in this Briefing was on Foundations and Sametime.
How do these things work? First there are introductions to the people on stage. That is followed by an overview of press releases, which were made available to everyone in the room. Finally, the featured guests have time to make a statement, which will highlight several key items in the press releases. Afterwards, they open to questions from the floor. In this particular briefing, there weren't too many people, maybe 30, tops.
Here are some questions and answers from the briefing, along with some of my comments.
Foundations: a nontraditional channel product. Foundations is meant for the small business partner to use to compete with Microsoft Small Business Server. By using these partners, IBM is able to open conversations with a part of the market that they haven't had much success reaching. Now, with Foundations 1.1, they will be able to address a larger question: "How can I run Windows specific software on this Linux-based server?" IBM keeps a specific dental software, that only runs on Windows. By having VMWare serve up Windows, IBM doesn't have to wait for the vendor to create a Linux version of the software. Frankly, this makes sense, as it makes it much easier to for the customer.
Question: Explain the Sametime client going forward. The answer is that IBM will continue to have two paths: a rich client and a zero footprint web client. However, it was one part of the question that drew a laugh from me. The analyst asked about Sametime Connect. "What is Connect?," she asked. "I hear it mentioned a lot in the Product Showcase." The answer: "We need to try to clean up our language so as not to confuse people."
Question: Will Cisco be getting new versions of Sametime? How do you deal with the conflict in the businesses?
Strategies have started to cross with Cisco and we have a lot of mutual customers. It's more effective if you focus on the customer. It will be challenging going forward, but IBM is committed to work with Cisco. Cisco has a license for a non-web conferencing client. Plug in to WebEx or MeetingPlace. Moving forward with Sametime 8.5, there will be overlap, but Cisco may not choose to deploy ST 8.5.
The IBM Executives make a point about building ecosystems. Specifically mentioned is RedHat and Symphony. It appears that IBM hopes that similar things occur with their other offerings, and you can see of this with Foundations 1.1 and Xerox.
Quite a few questions on IBM's bigger partners, like Nortel, and how the business will change as IBM and the partner move into each others' markets and customer bases.
Kevin question. Brand name Foundations Start. Start release for Microsoft Small Business. Name for a family of offerings. Start is the beginning of the name/family.Direct competitor with SBS. Business model is different. SBS partners make money when the server fails. Not so with Foundations. No remedial work. Integrating Foundations with telephony and other parts of the market that IBM wants to engage (like document management, which you see with the Xerox offering).
Presence awareness between ST and ST Advanced? Yes. Community tools engage each other. Fully compatible, complete presence awareness. In Connections, anywhere a name shows up, it is live. Presence awareness is available, chat, call, conference. Executing a strategy that extends beyond chat. Extends into Microsoft stack, PLM Systems. Make collaboration live. The follow-up question: What's involved in making that happen? Out of the box integration with Office, Outlook, and Sharepoint. Toolkit to make it "straightforward." Is this typically something an outside consultant would do? No, the business should be able to do this, but there are partners that can help.
Sell solutions to telcos. Will IBM be competing with itself, as the telcos can resell and rebrand the offerings? No. There are segments of the market that want to source out of the cloud. Others want service vendors. Many small business get services from the cloud. Evolve over time, there will be services that will be sourced from the cloud or internally. Lotus has architected the services to be provisioned from wherever they need it. Time and the market will determine the best offering and how it will be consumed. Not Lotus' intent to build out the partners and then leave them out of the equation.
Cloud services. Private cloud and public. LotusLive addresses a lot of this. Multi-tenant not in Sametime. Not the strategy to drive multi-tenant. But go to LotusLive for that.
A question about ActiveSynch and the overlap with Symbian, also about the timeframe for the release of this version of Traveler.
Lotus expects to do both as ActiveSynch isn't the greatest protocol. Lotus wants to have access to the widest variety of mobile phones. Expect it to be released before the end of 2009. Want it out as soon as they can, have it running on the iPhone. The example here was a university that wants to prove mobile mail to all of the students. By supporting a wide range of phones and protocols, Lotus can get an extremely high percentage of the population. If you look at the Verizon and Orange announcement (I'll post something later), Lotus has access to potentially 200 million users.
Will this new version of Traveler be synchronized with a Domino release? It appears that it will be released as a point upgrade in the existing Domino 8.5 code stream.
What is the Customer adoption of UC? When does mainstream adoption hit? The answer: Integration of telephony-at early stages. A lot of network issues with this, so there is a maturity that needs to happen. IBM wants to lower the barriers, but there is a slowing down of implementations in IP telephony. Not at all companies will embrace this. The focus on reduction of travel expanses seems to be pushing this forward.
Support for VMWare. What are the limitations of VMWare on Foundations? Small businesses can now run a wide range of applications on the Foundations 1.1 server. They go back to the dental software example. Then, explain that the restarting of Windows in the VM session occurs without having to reboot the Foundations server. This allows the ISV's to have their software run on Foundations, without porting it to Linux. And from the small business owner view, having their business partner remote in to the Foundations server and troubleshoot and restart Windows, saves the company money, time, and productivity.
Technorati tag: lotusphere2009
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