Ed Brill has already posted about two major news sites covering today’s 8.5 announcements, but here’s eWeek with a very interesting slant:
The new release also interoperates with Web calendar applications from Google, Yahoo, and other public Web calendars, allowing users to display their Lotus Notes work calendar and their personal Internet calendar on the same screen.
IBM noted in a statement that this “social” feature in Notes will let workers keep tabs on customer meetings, lunch with the boss, the parent-teacher conference, and their children’s athletic contests in one view.
Such a feature is as useful to corporate workers using Notes as it is an ominous reminder that the lines between work and play have blurred as they solider on in 2009.
IBM said “giving people a holistic view of their entire work world on one screen is a hint of things to come,” but this is already happening, according to research from the Pew Internet and American Life Project, who found in a recent study that:
Outside of formally scheduled activities, work and play are seamlessly integrated in most of these workers’ lives. This is a net-positive for people. They blend personal/professional duties wherever they happen to be when they are called upon to perform them — from their homes, the gym, the mall, a library, and possibly even their company’s communal meeting space, which may exist in a new virtual-reality format.
IBM, whose executives are mostly road warriors and aren’t strange to mixing business with pleasure, is simply getting its Notes users ready for this on Macs. IBM customers can expect to hear more about this notion, and perhaps some news surrounding this blending, at IBM’s Lotusphere in two weeks.
Seems like today’s tie up with Apple has really helped the Lotus buzz. Let’s hope the news outlets keep with the message during Lotusphere!
