Episode 51, recorded Thursday 12th May 2011, discussing the LotusLive Spring 2011 release, Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype and more…

Hosts

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

Guests

David DurazzanoDavid Durazzano is IBM Senior Product Manager for LotusLive Services.  David joined Lotus in 1994 as a technical support analyst, he then went on to co-founded a Lotus Business Partner consulting company and later started an on-line software/services company.  David rejoined IBM in 1999 where he has held several technical leadership roles on the Lotus Notes/Domino, Workplace & Greenhouse teams before shifting his focus in 2007 to contribute to the IBM on-line collaborative SaaS business LotusLive.

Topics

New release of LotusLive 

  • What’s in the new release?
  • Seems that many of the features of IBM Connections are being brought into Engage – is the eventual goal to have full feature parity? Blogs/Wikis etc?
  • New levels of privacy give Extranet-type functionality
  • Which LotusLive features are affected?
    • Communities – now have sub communities, files and folders, add guest users to community, improved forums
    • Admin – announcements, hiding user profiles,
    • Files – folders
    • Meetings – now match standalone meeting experience
    • Sametime – up to 8.5
  • Has LL Connections been upgraded in the same way? Whats the difference between Engage and Connections?
  • LL Meetings?
  • When is LL Symphony Meetings going to be included?

Microsoft buys Skype 

  • $8.5bn – is this a fair price?
  • What’s the plan?
  • Is it a consumer or a corporate play?
  • How does the Skype acquisition fit in with Phone 7 and Nokia?
  • Is the merger of consumer and corporate IT inevitable?

Tips

DarrenCompletely off topic – In 17 days I’ve lost 10 lbs thanks to “The 17 Day Diet”. It works. No doubt it’ll be added on with all the fish ‘n chips at UKLUG
DaveRedLaser – iOS and Android app for scanning barcodes and comparing prices
StuartAbout.me – free site to create personal profiles, linking to other social sites.  E.g about.me/stuartmcintyre