Recently in News Category

I like my iPhone 3GS, it mostly does what I want a phone to do - yes the battery life sucks and until the new OS was released, syncing with my Exchange calendar was so problematic that I rigidly kept to UK time when travelling overseas (all very confusing).

The BBC is trailing an article on the take up of cloud computing with a more than passing reference to our Office 2010 launch next week.

I think the closing quote from Gartner is the most interesting:

"All business computing will be more web-enabled," predicts Mr Dreyfuss at Gartner. "For some [companies] it will reach the point where it will be totally web centric."

We are now entering the age of the 'hybrid business computing' model, but then again maybe we are already leaving it.

 

With (as I write this) a little over 24 hours until the UK General Election results start coming through, I have been caused to wonder about a number of things;

 

a) Will the pundits and pollsters be accurate? - I just can't make up my mind - I am sort of excited to see how close or how far they are from reality

 

b) If they are close then the politcal wrangling will be of a level not seen before in the the UK, I suspect the 'net will go into melt down

 

c) If they are wide of the mark we will have endless analysis of either why they are so innacuate or why the British public is so fickle

 

d) If polls are close and we do end up with a 'hung' / 'balanced' / 'dysfunctional' (delete as applicable) parliament then he tffect will br that the drive towards some form of PR becomes unstoppable.

 

And if (d) comes true it will be like living in Belgium - without the beer and chips

Is this an Internet election?

I am not sure ... yes there is a huge amount of blogging, social networking and tweeting from all corners of the political diaspora but it was a good old fashioned television event that has truly galvanised the politically aware public.

I must admit reading and posting tweets is most enjoyable - but in the sort of way that it feels a bit like evesdropping on other peoples conversations or gossiping in the office kitchen.

The more advanced website are making good use of Web 2.0 technoigy (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/default.stm ) for a great example but will this affect the 'X's on the ballot - well lets see what happens on May 7th.

Of course the real thing may be something like this:

 

Its has been a long time since I last blogged regularly but I now have my blogging mojo back together. I am still with Microsoft although in a slightly differing capacity than this time last year when I was wearing a Groovy Visio mantle in Europe, now I wearing a Projected Visio cape in the same area (yes the pun sucks).

As I type blog posts are being deposited hither and thither regarding the RTM last Friday of Microsoft Office 2010, SharePoint 2010, Project 2010, Visio 2010 (hey did we copyright that 2010 thing, no, dang should have).

For those of multiple 100's of thousands of you who have down loaded the public beta you will already know this is an order of magnitude improvement in our client and collaborative server offerings, those of you who have not tried it out yet, get hold of the trial download as soon as they come out, you will (I hope) be pleasantly surprised.

I have not had as much fun since Notes/Domino 4.6 was released back in the days when it mattered.

Over the next few days I am going to post a couple of blogs on the key new / rediscovered capabilities of my adopted software children plus some thoughts on my peripatetic coverage (subject to Volcanic eruptions) of the countries that I have some responsibility for.

Oh and RTM for the uninitiated - Released To Manufacturing

Visio, It's a drawing Jim, but not as we know it

Location:Bushey,United Kingdom

I spent some time with Gareth this week pondering on what makes a good business in the recession. Unfortunately and not unexpectedly we did not achieve any startling clarity from our musings.

Gareth (having done lots of research) has confirmed that many businesses are simply 'on hold', they know that there is lots of stuff to be done, but right now no one is willing to commit to any sort of investment 'just in case'.

In case of what? In case we never come out of recession? - well even the most pessimistic of economists will agree that whether we are going through a 'U', 'L' or 'W' recession, at some point in the future there will be an upturn (which could be small, medium or large).

It is clear that most businesses will want to build revenue /profitability as it regrows on their current cost base, i.e. not employing more headcount before it becomes absolutely necessary. However in order to do this, efficiency, preparedness and scalability need to be invested in. On top of these foundations for growth, new rules and regulations are going to make compliance, governance and business continuity much more important that they have ever been to-date.

So 'doing nothing' is not really an option for businesses with a medium to long term view of the world. Doing nothing is a false economy which will lead short term-ist businesses to lose share, lose competitively or lose out altogether due to some man made or natural disaster (swine flu?) that could have been prepared for.

Only time will tell who were the wise and who were the fools - I know I would rather do business with the wise.

Just been a bit preoccupied - however the political shambles that our country has descended into has help me find my blogging mojo. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PO5Gh3QGFI

I had to watch Lotusphere from afar this year and try to read the runes coming from the partner Blogosphere. Although there were many 'announcements' they seemed to be mostly re-spinning of information that had been fairly clearly signposted the previous year at Lotusphere 2008.

It is not that there was no new stuff, but what was fresh was either being delivered in Websphere or recently purchased platforms.. It seems that although IBM is clearly signposting its support for core Notes / Domino for the foreseeable future, innovation will come and be delivered from different directions.

Quickr (nee Quickplace), Sametime are both drifting away from their origins which may be technically better but does make IT planning a bit of a chore when you have multiple administrative interfaces over many more server types (virtualised or physical) to cope with.. 

IBM and Microsoft are watching the progress (or lack of it) of Google into the Enterprise, and as result of this activity I ran across this quote from CIO.com that I found quite shocking:

"Google Apps was definitely bought as an additional tool set, but Lotus Notes will be disappearing as a result of this," Beale said. "It will take a while because we have a range of applications running on Domino but Notes as a mail platform will be phased out, I suspect. "

Of course I have an axe to grind but I think IBM partners need to take a close look at the Google axe before they become victims.

I cannot help wonder as the Domino Server platform goes through yet another round of optimisation and looses the dumped products (Domino.Doc and others) maybe it is like the Curious Case of Benjamin Button and grows younger through the years and ends its eventual life as the Notes Server.

Those of you who drank the cool-aid in Orlando might after a months reflection let me know if I am right or wrong. I am on vacation right now and I fancy a bit of banter over the coming week.

This entry is timed to post as I take-off!

It is good to see the gathering of the clans once more, even though I am no longer a part of it. 

We have all said it, Bless you, Gezondheid, a votre santé, etc when someone sneezes but according to recent research:'A simple sneeze may be a tell-tale sign of sexual arousal for a select few, research suggests''