Lotusphere 2009 summary

In January of this year, in Orlando, Florida (USA), IBM held the 16th annual Lotusphere conference. More than 7,000 conference participants — system integrators and developers of solutions based on the Lotus Notes / Domino platform, software users, and journalists — discussed the implementation experience and prospects for expanding the IBM Lotus software portfolio. Among them were representatives from Russia.


')


Orlando is first and foremost a tourist center. It is located in the heart of Florida, the most "resort" of the US state, famous for good weather, natural wealth and well-developed recreation infrastructure. The highlight of the city are Walt Disney World amusement parks. However, they are used not only for fun, but also for work, in particular for holding exhibitions and conferences related to IT. Here, in a separate complex of the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin, according to tradition, there is a Lotusphere. According to IBM executives, this magnificent conference venue will remain unchanged, at least until 2015.



As Bob Picciano, the new head of Lotus Software, noted, this year’s Lotusphere motto “Resonance” reflects the role of IT in modern business. With the help of speakers of the resonator technology of collaboration, people get the opportunity to improve the quality of the results of their work. In other words, using software tools that allow you to create a virtual environment for holding meetings and sharing data, employees can make their activities much more efficient due to the properties of collective intelligence.

Scientists from the University of Science and Technology of New Jersey (New Jersey's Science & Technology University) define collective intelligence as the ability of a group of people to find solutions to problems that are more optimal than the best individual option in this group. Moreover, it has been scientifically proven that groups where participants meet virtually work as successfully as those whose members are all present in person. That is why IBM is actively pursuing research in this area and developing relevant product lines.

Gartner, which Gartner analysts refer to as “applicants” in the market for tools for creating social networks and Web 2.0 services, made a weighty bid for leadership. The company announced the release of LotusLive - a set of online tools for teamwork and social networking. This resource will become a single platform for hosting all Lotus Software services, including social networks, email, file sharing and web conferencing.



“By bringing LotusLive to the market, we are transferring twenty years of experience in creating team tools to the cloud,” said Bob Picciano.

LotusLive is expected to simplify and improve the way companies interact with each other, as well as with customers, partners, and service providers. These services are based on open standards, which makes it easy to integrate them with third-party web applications. But IBM didn’t stop at that and signed agreements with LinkedIn, salesforce.com and Skype to integrate the services they provide with LotusLive services.



Much has been said about the Lotus Notes client, who this year celebrates 20 years. Since August 2007, when the 8th version of the Lotus Notes / Domino bundle was announced, the company has more than 12 thousand customers - this is the best indicator of user base growth among all releases of this software. The current version of Lotus Notes 8.5 has support for Mac OS X, added application styles, the ability to work with calendar data in iCalendar format, and integration with social networking software Lotus Connections.



According to experts of the IBM Institute for Business Value, by 2011 the number of mobile Internet users will reach 1 billion. As expected, in the next decade, the way people interact with the Internet will change. In line with this prediction, IBM and Research In Motion (RIM) presented collaborative software and development tools designed to extend the functionality of the BlackBerry smartphone platform.



New features include: mobile access to standard-based ODF documents, spreadsheets and presentations of the office suite Lotus Symphony; Web 2.0-based Lotus Quickr solution for sharing business content (documents, photos and videos); Enhanced Lotus Connections software for accessing online communities, forums, and blogs.

In the next posts we plan to talk in more detail about these and other products based on the Lotus Notes / Domino platform. In the meantime, we offer a video presentation of Vasily Demin , a leading specialist in IBM Lotus solutions, about the results of the Lotusphere conference.



Used materials:
" Computer Review " № 3 (669), 2009
Lotusphere 2009 photos