Episode 38, recorded Thursday 10th February 2011, looking back on Lotusphere 2011, possible Lotus re-branding, whether Social Business is well understood, the popularity of Lotus-focused books and more…

Hosts

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

Topics

Looking back at Lotusphere 2011 

• Overall reflections on the conference, how did it rate?
• Branding change (Lotus possibly being deprecated) – lots of posts on the topic:
  • Ed Brill – Lotusphere 2011: 100 percent IBM and loving it
  • Alan Lepofsky – Lotus Is Finally A Key Part Of IBM
  • Vowe – Are we feeling all excited yet?
  • Stuart – Lotus is dead. Long live IBM.
• Will this cause confusion in the marketplace? Customers feel Lotus is dead etc?
• Jon, as a IBM sales guy and former Websphere dude, does it matter?  How about from an IBM sales perspective, do you ‘lead blue’?
• How will you explain the messages of Lotusphere to your customer base and sales teams?

‘Social Business’- ‘Get Social. Do Business’as a theme 

• Did attendees/customers/press get this?  Is there a sense that IBM is leading the field (and the conversation) now?
  • Kathy Brown – Lotusphere 2011 – Anti-Social?
• What does this mean for traditional Lotus partners? Will this lead to a new tier of business partners that can lead the Social Business message?

Looking forward: 

• Did you get a sense for what’s coming in the ‘Next’versions of the product?  Is this Project Vulcan being realised?
• Will Activity Streams become ubiquitous?
• Is the future all web based? Will there be a place for desktop apps still? How about native mobile apps?
• What will LotusLive Symphony bring us?  Is it a big threat to Google Apps?  Was pricing discussed?
  • LotusLive Symphony first look
  • Will this be IBM moving into a Fremium model?
  • Will it be available on-premise?

Success of XPages book – Mastering XPages 

• Ed Brill – ‘Well, they sold out at Lotusphere.  First time ever, from what I heard.  More than any other IBM Press book at an IBM conference.  None of this surprises me, because learning XPages is the single most-important activity you can undertake if you want to be on top of the game in building Domino applications.’
• Still a real appetite for Lotus books and hard copy publications – Lotus Redbooks?

Social Business Jam 

• Have you partaken?

Domino Express Changes 

• All limitations besides customer size to be removed in 8.5.3

Tips