27: ILUG and BES Express for Domino - definitely no boondoggle

Episode 27, recorded Friday 19th November 2010, discussing ILUG 2010, Blackberry Enterprise Server Express for Domino, the RIM Playbook, UKLUG 2011 and more…

Hosts

Stuart McIntyre (blog | twitter | company) & Darren Duke (blog | twitter | company)

Guests

Warren Elsmore (blog) has worked in the Lotus arena for 15 years and is a Senior Architecture Consultant with the Bluewave Group. Bluewave provide technical architecture consultancy and advice to a range of large and small customers across the globe. Warren has spoken at many Lotus events including Lotusphere, Collaboration University, the View Admin conference, ILUG and UKLUG. He also writes for Clippings and in any spare time he has left he runs the UK Lotus User Group!

Steve McDonagh (blog | twitter) was a Nurse then switched to IT, now an IT Manager for an American/Japanese multinational electronics company specialising in Collaborative Technologies. Steve has used IBM Midrange kit for 25 years from the System34 to the i5, and has been developing on Lotus Domino for 16 years. He assists in both the ILUG and UKLUG Organising Committees, and describes himself as a ‘professional eejit’!

Jennifer Stevenson (blog | twitter | company) has over 15 years experience with Enterprise Collaboration and has spent the last 6 years supporting and advocating the mobilization of collaborative applications and technologies. Jennifer is currently an Enterprise Product Manager with Research In Motion (BlackBerry), where she focuses on mobility and IBM’s Lotus portfolio of products as they pertain to BlackBerry. As an Enterprise Product Manager, she works to promote product evolution, awareness, interest and adaption ~ as such, Jennifer is a frequent speaker at industry and RIM-sponsored events and conferences worldwide.

Eileen Fitzgerald (blog | twitter | company) has been working in the Global Notes environment for over 15 years as a Global Notes Architect for multinational companies, Eileen then focused on Service Delivery, managing Notes services, infrastructures and functionalities according to ITIL Standards. Eileen is the co-organiser of ILUG and a speaker at Lotusphere. Eileen has various credentials in IT, Project Management and ITIL management for which she is a passionate advocate.

Topics

ILUG wrap-up

Overall reflections on the conference?
What were the highlights?
Attendance compared to previous years?
What value do vendors get from sponsoring or attending user groups?

Blackberry / RIM news

BES Express for Domino now available
- Has been available for Exchange for a while – what impact has it made on BES licence sales? Why did it take so long to get the Domino version out?
- How do organisations get it? (The easiest way is to visit www.blackberry.com/express and download it directly from the website)
- How is it taking off? Who is using it?
- How does it differ to the full version? (There is a comparison matrix posted @ http://us.blackberry.com/apps-software/business/server/express/Comparison_Chart.pdf)
- What do end users need on their devices to use this? (assume consumer BIS versus BES contract?)
- Will BES Express evolve along side BES Enterprise and BES Express for Exchange
Playbook
When will it be here?
Plans for Lotusphere 2011
- Will you be sponsoring the event this year?

UKLUG 2011 announced at ILUG

When, where, how?
Is there a UK night at Lotusphere this year?
- How do people get in?
- Are there any opportunities for sponsorship?

Gartner: 20% of all businesses will have replaced email by 2014

Do we think this is realistic?
Replace vs. Deprecate?

Tips

Darren	If you ever debug SMTP via telnet then a DOS prompt is not your friend. Instead use Putty the SSH/Telnet client. Simply put it into telnet mode and to port 25. Voila, you can now use a backspace in the SMTP session. They sky is now blue, angels are singing and you will swear less often in the office
Warren	Get involved! Whether at your local user group or at Lotusphere this year. And if you don’t have a local user group, why not start one?
Steve	Google have just changed their Google Docs interface for phones, and you can now edit !! Well on iPhone and Android 2.2. Here’s a Youtube video showing the functionality. Support Tim Clark’s Movember effort!
Jennifer	Take a moment to look at the different applications available in AppWorld, you’ll be surprised how many applications are available that have a complimentary application for the desktop that integrates with the LN client. Applications such as Tungle, Google Maps, LinkedIn, Twitter, all of these applications have widgets for the LN client and have a smooth interface and provide deep integration with the native BlackBerry applications such as email, calendar, phone, etc.
Eileen	ILUG presentations will be available from Monday on the ILUG site
Stuart	If you’re an IBMer, please please try and get to know the competitive products, particularly Google’s and Microsoft’s. Examples would be Google Docs or Skype – without using them, how can you really promote and compete with Symphony/LotuslIve or Sametime Unified Telephony?