I received a communication wishing me a Happy GIS Day; hoping today is productive for me and will help raise the profile of GIS and Geospatial technologies. It came from a Gavin at GIS specialist recruitment agency http://www.ashton-consulting.co.uk.
IBM (and through its proxy Lotus) has for the last twelve years been a leader in the ‘art’ of collaboration. Notes, Domino and Sametime and latterly Quickr and Connections are some of the most widely used collaboration tools in the market with the last two truly addressing the ‘2.0’ generation.
With Lotusphere 2008 one month away I thought I would consider where IBM and the industry is heading
Next week I will be blogging from IBM's annual Lotus software jamboree in Orlando. Traditionally the big announcements are made at the Monday morning plenary session but I am not sure that they will be able to top the news that emerged yesterday. Apple has been doing its thing this week with the usual set of 'must have' components. Yes I too would like a mobile PC that is so thin it is almost translucent. Amongst all this IBM and the boys from Cupertino have announced a product that could really put the feline in with the pigeons.
Continue reading "MacNotes - its not an iTune for bagpipes" »
This is my first Lotusphere 2008 blog and I have a captive blog source. As I travel from London to Orlando there are a number of delegates on the flight who I have asked to share with me their expectations of next weeks IBM event.
According to Antony Savvas recent article in CW, a group of surveyed users indicated ‘E-mail is the most desired service for mobile phone users’. Today at Lotusphere IBM announced immediate availability of business grade email for the iPhone.
Continue reading "Computer Weekly requests and Lotus delivers!" »
Lotusphere is not for the the faint-hearted, as I move into day two I have already been to four presentations, two one-to-ones and a couple of receptions. However I think I understand what is really important here today.
I went to the second ever Groove User Group meeting last evening. We were entertained by Microsoft at their plush offices in Victoria. The space, furnishings and location makes my IBM friends location on the Southbank look positively East German!
Continue reading "We have the group, now we just need the users" »
One of the big rumous prior to January's Lotusphere was the imminent arrival of some sort of Lotus Notes integration with the iPhone. When the annointed time came we were dissapointed with just a 'light' version of the web client being touted as the Apple solution.
Rumour had it that someone (high up) in Cupertino had thown their iToys out of the collaborative pram as the timing of the announcement did not suit them.
Continue reading "The Apple does not fall far from the corporate tree" »
I have known Ray (very slightly) for a long time now and I have watched his progress as the legendary progenitor of Lotus Notes moved from Iris to IBM and then from Groove to Microsoft (maybe he will get to rename it 'MicroRiff').
Continue reading "I can't help but watch the progress of Ray Ozzie" »
It is unlikely that you will know Cartercar, LaSalle, Nash and Haynes, they are all examples of car marques that although popular when they we first introduced - in time (some short, some long) died out.
Similarly Digital, MicroPro (Wordstar) and Dbase are just a few examples of shining stars that have collapsed and have only left memories held in small alleys of the internet and of course Wikipedia
Right now I imagine there are lots of HD-DVD advocates telling anyone who is willing to listen how much better a standard it is compared to Blu-ray. Hey guys you are obsolete and it was the PS3 that killed you.
Some of the above simply failed and we are only left with examples of the brand, sometimes the innovation they introduced is revered or sometimes we are left with just a name as they were gobbled up and then maybe re-gobbled up by some large faceless corporation that did not care too much about what they represented.
Continue reading "Your application platform is obsolete - you just have not been told" »
In the great scheme of things Lotusphere comes to you comes a distant second to Lotusphere in Orlando. For instance at 10:12 in the US we would be twelve minutes into the starting session not running twelve minutes late.Continue reading "Lotusphere comes to Wembley - liveish blog" »
As promised (threatened) I am picking up the live blog from Tuesday morning lengthy proceedings.Continue reading "Lotusphere comes to Manchester - liveish blog part 2" »
BBC, Plaxo and Twitter - sounds like the name of a new game show or kiddies TV political analysis series.Continue reading "Small things (BBC, Twitter and black is black)" »
I just prefer Plaxo. Hey I am a member of both!
LInkedin is described in Wikipedia as 'a business-oriented social networking site' whereas Plaxo is described as 'an online address book service'. Both interestingly (if not unsurprisingly) are based in Mountain View and more significantly both are at least part funded by venture capital specialists Sequoia Capital.
After recent blogs on Plaxo, Twitter and Facebook I thought I was duty bound to spend some time on Linkedin. To be honest the UI has improved greatly over the last few months but it still feels a little bit of a mess. I can't help wondering about these types of inline advert supported sites and their ongoing viability in a business world.
My contention is that instead of charging money for additional features, the revenue should be generated as an incentive for the delivery of an ad-free environment. The BBC is considering this model for outside of the UK access to its web content, free access with ads, clean access with subscription.
I don't want to alarm my Quickr, Sharepoint, Notes or Exchange readers but to more than paraphrase the Barak Obama mantra (sort of): SaaS is going to deliver 'Change we can believe in' .
Whether built around the Microsoft 'Mesh' vision, Google Enterprise Apps or IBMs SaaSpace, the technologies we all have traditionally had our arms around (both physically in the form of servers, and metaphysically in the form of platforms) is about to exit through the Corporate front door.
A long time ago in a galaxy far away.... (yes I am reading too much SF on holiday) Ray Ozzie invented Notes, then he invented Groove and now (we believe) he may be re-inventing Microsoft.
Last week Ray and Steve Balmer shared a platform together in-front of an assemblage of Microsoft MVPs.10 years ago this would have been heresy, it would have been like Luke Skywalker being related to Darth Vader - whoops he was, my error, too much sun.
One of the key questions asked was 'wither Sharepoint and Groove?' Considering Groove was purchased more than three years ago now by MS it seems a bit slow to sort out both its tactical and strategic direction for the acquired software. Commentaries seem to point to Office 14 as the key point in the synergy of these two products so for now Groove will remain an excellent but narrow team enablement tool and Sharepoint will continue to have limited off-line capabilities.
I reckon once together they could be quite formidable.
If you talk the talk you have to walk the walk (or so they say). My eye was caught by this posting on the BBC technology page:
'Web 2.0 is set to be embraced by Enterprise 2.0 as businesses prepare to spend nearly $5 billion by 2013 on social networking tools.....The news comes as San Francisco plays host to the Web 2.0 conference on next generation of the web.'
and
"This is where we see the future of the web," said conference co-chair Jennifer Pahlka. "The companies making announcements here are building that future."
Today at Web 2.0 we have seen Microsoft's pre-emptive strike (or is that 'we can do that too' strike) at all of its competitors (read this posting for details) however its all been avialable to see in bits for some time, considering this has been so predictable its doubles or trebles my frustration with IBM.
Continue reading "Where are you IBM? (we now know where MS is!)" »
If you're considering a business application from the glut of collaborative technology coming into the mainstream, you need to adopt a "lowest common denominator for those people who are not quick to adopt new technologies.” Once you've established a baseline on how to determine to introduce these new tools there's a chance of success -- neglecting the laggards means the application will fail as people with experience have the most to give and contra wise, the most to loose.
The big buzz over the last few days has been the 'news' that Microsoft might be purchasing both the Yahoo search business and the Facebook everything business. MS have the cash however they need to radically improve their presence in the Web 2.0 environment and without doubt they have the management cohones to do both deals.I was an early convert to the digital pen, the device that stores what you are writing in your day-book and uploads it to your laptop, PC, etc., via a cradle or mobile phone. I've recently upgraded and am again convinced it's a real killer app. Not only does it give digital power to your handwriting and sketches/plans (the software trains itself to your writing style) but it allows you to share minutes, notes and actions you take away from meetings very quickly. Digital pen and paper technology is general cheaper than other mobile technology and is inconspicuous. If you write stuff down take the time to pilot/try one - it's a simple cheap step to real-time collaboration. However, if you work in an organisation where knowledge is power the idea won't catch on.
Twitter service levels over the last few weeks have been appalling, as I write Instant Messaging service is AWOL. The core service has been famously unreliable for months mostly due to runaway success combined with issues associated with scaling of the chosen platform, to the extent that this rather amusing web site have been created istwitterdown.com (which itself is fairly slow). Adam Gartenberg has just brought my attention to a great site for generating tag clouds. Wordle.net is just fun, simply paste some text or link to a del.icio.us user name and see what pops out. I thought I would put my CV/Resume through as did Adam and see what come out.
There are many tools around the web that validate and suggest improvements to web pages and blogs. The Register has just reported on a Salesforce.com 'attack' on the Notes installed base. If this was coming from SAP, Oracle or even Microsoft (again) then it might have some credence. But its the typical ' yeah, we'll just convert the applications' crapola. 'twhirl is a desktop twitter client, based on the Adobe AIR platform.
Some of twhirl's features:
I'm sorry to tell you
The company says this solves the problem'IBM reckons Microsoft has had it to easy in the Small to Mid Market sector. Back in January they bought Nitix, a small Canadian outfit, that have built a self propelling server (Lotus Foundations) around a customised Linux disti. The Nitix box does everything (and more) that the corresponding MS product does:That got your attention!
Ian just blogged about Microsoft, in one of the links, Steve Ballmer goes on to say that Microsoft intends to keep investing in search to become the market leader.
"In the coming years, we'll make progress against Google in search first by upping the ante in R&D through organic innovation and strategic acquisitions.... We'll introduce new approaches that move beyond a white page with 10 blue links...."
This could be a good thing. I have just completed an unscientific experiment about Google Search. None of the participants could ever remember ever finding anything relevant or useful on Page Two or thereafter. So how come those 10 Blue links Ballmer referred to are the only relevant ones, even though Google's mighty search engines might have found 1,5000,000 references to what you're looking for. If Microsoft can solve this riddle for me I'll give it a try.
My attention was brought to the Web 2.0 site Upcoming over the weekend by good old Scoble. This is a Yahoo site that is an excellent source of information on all sort of events from around the world. From London's Notting Hill Carnival to New Zealand's Webstock it all there. Well, er, no it isn't.Enterprise Mac market with the launch of the Lotus Notes 8.5 client which takes better advantage of the OSX environment.