Ok, in the spirit of “good cop, bad cop”, I’ve done one positive Redbook post today, so here comes the chaser…
Try searching for “Quickr” or “Lotus Connections” on the Redbooks site… What do you get?
Yup, 0, zero, zip, nada, nil, null, nought…. Nothing found.
Despite the products being on sale since late June, so 5 months or so, there are no Redbooks, Redpapers, Residencies, Workshops or Technotes on the Redbooks site for two of IBM Lotus’s core offerings. In fact, worse than the fact that there are no dedicated resources relating to these products, none of the other resources on that site include any references to them either. So, that great Domino/Notes 8 Deployment Redbook that I flagged up a moment ago does not mention Quickr or Connections (i.e. no mentions of considerations to be given to upgrading Quickr/Domino servers, no thoughts about the Quickr or Activities sidebar plugins etc.).
IBM, I know that the discussion has already been had regarding the closure of the dedicated IBM Lotus Redbooks centre, and also that noone from IBM has commented on the 159 signatures on the petition, or even considered it necessary to actually make this decision formally known. However, Ed did say that “we’ve done some 2008 budget planning that would include Lotus-related Redbooks”. As we approach the end of of 2007, I would say that the hole left by the absence of Quickr or Connections redbooks is more noticeable than ever.