Social Business strategist, podcaster, blogger, founder of Social Connections and conference speaker
I’ve always passionately argued that the content from these global and regional conferences should be shared openly and widely – not just the decks themselves, but also audio and (preferably) video recordings. JiveWorld17 is a fantastic example of this being delivered.
If you’re primarily focused on IBM-based solutions, you may not be aware that I have a Jive-focused blog over at Jive.news.
This is particularly relevant this week as it is JiveWorld, Jive’s annual worldwide conference in Las Vegas. I’m blogging as much of the news as I can from the conference, including today’s posts on yesterday’s key announcements and Jive’s roadmap for 2017 and 2018. Do subscribe to the blog there if you want to receive my Jive posts in the future.
A fascinating article by Bill Higgins, the IBM Distinguished Engineer that lead a major project to revolutionise the company’s approach to product development.
This morning’s announcement letter from IBM really made yesterday’s Dilbert hugely appropriate!
(h/t to Gregg Eldred)
Now you can put your heart into it when you like something in Connections Cloud. The new heart icon has universally replaced the word “Like” or, in some places, the happy face icon.
Those that were at IBM Connect or on recent partner calls may have seen versions of this presentation from Jason Roy Gary of IBM. However, I am thrilled to find a video version recorded at last week’s FOSSASIA 2017 event held in Singapore.
They told us at Connect that IBM Connections 6.0 would be made available in Q1, and here’s the announcement that they’ll be sneaking it across the line on the 31st March…
IBM yesterday published a press release previewing the headline features of the upcoming new on-premises release of Connections, Connections 6. I take a look at some of the headline features, and then pick out one specific enhancement that will make a huge difference for community managers!
IBM Sametime is a robust communications offering designed to accelerate your social business by driving faster decisions, with more complete information powered by the business experts in your organization. The suite of tools in Sametime helps unlock the value in your underutilized communications systems by integrating them into a more intuitive system. Sametime tools and services can be accessed from within the applications and business processes that you use every day.
Support for Sametime V9.0.1 is extended to September 2021.
Support for the following associated entitlements is also extended to September 2021:
- IBM Sametime Complete
- IBM Sametime Conference
- IBM Sametime Communicate
It has been obvious for a while that the future for the IBM Sametime brand and product set is not overwhelmingly positive.
As I see it, there are several key drivers for this situation:
All that said, I think IBM is making a good decision to very clearly commit to supporting both Domino and Sametime for the next 4.5 years. This gives its customers a decent runway to plan for the future and to consider their options. Many customers have been using both platforms for a decade or more, and shifting away will not be straightforward.
The challenge for IBM is to develop alternative solutions, whether home-brewed (such as Watson Workspace) or in partnership with Cisco or other similar vendors, that are both forward-looking and also of a quality and scale that can support both medium-sized and enterprise customers.
I’ve been impressed with the Connections Pink announcement in terms of plans to build a dynamic new infrastructure based on modern open-source components and services, with a clear migration path from the old developed-at-IBM heavy duty frameworks. If IBM wants to stay active in the UC space and keep those customers, I fear it would need an effort of similar size and cost to replace Sametime (or at least the components and features that are still relevant today).
Worryingly, IBM is now 2-3 years behind the curve in the area of social and video communications platforms and so those new solutions are needed now, not in a year or two’s time…
I was expecting to hear more of their plans announced (or at least intimated) at the recent IBM Connect conference, but as far as I have seen communicated, nothing has been forthcoming beyond a cementing of the relationship with Cisco and maintaining a holding pattern in terms of detailing plans for the future of Sametime’s feature set. (This extended support announcement is at least helpful in giving reassurance that support will not be withdrawn sooner than 2021.)
If you’re an IBM Sametime customer (or partner), I’d love to hear from you… What are your plans for the future? Do you remain loyal to Sametime for the time being? Are you already in the process of migrating to other solutions? Do let me know via a comment or email!
TechCrunch yesterday reported on Slack’s plans to unveil an enterprise version of it’s service. But then it gets a little bit weird… IBM is named as a reference customer for the new solution.
IBM Connect 2017 takes place later this month in San Francisco, and the last-minute push to increase attendance is already underway. I’m a big fan of the new venue, and the shift from Florida to California, and so really hope that the event is a huge success.
One of the interesting aspects of the registration push has been the unveiling of some information that previously being kept relatively quiet – if not under NDA, certainly out of the limelight
Dropbox announced that they are rolling their Paper collaborative content creation platform out on a global basis today:
More than a doc, Dropbox Paper is a flexible workspace that brings people and ideas together.
Paper supports all phases of the creative process – from start to finish:
- A connected space to create and ideate together
- Teams find flow together in Paper, where everyone can contribute to growing better ideas in a beautiful, flexible workspace.
- Review and revise work in a single, shared space
- Working in Paper feels more connected and human with real-time conversations around the work, so it feels more alive, and there’s less switching between tools.
- Manage and organize work in Paper
- Paper is accessible and always up to date to keep teams organized and informed around the work without additional task-management tools.
I’m excited to give Dropbox Paper another try (it’s been available in beta form for a year or so)… It’s a very simple way to collaboratively create content, and yet is hiding some very complex abilities. I’ll be testing it more over the next few days.
One minor concern – Paper definitely reminds me of Google Wave in a lot of ways! I’m hoping that Dropbox have a better idea of the potential use cases and customer base than Google did with Wave…
Unfortunately I’ve just missed the actual anniversary, but I thought it worth celebrating that this week marks a decade since the announcement (on 22nd January 2007) of two products that have had an immense impact on my working life, Lotus IBM Connections and Lotus Quickr.
I really enjoyed this quote from Amy Holt, Vice President of Marketing at Red Thread…
Australian enterprise software vendor Atlassian have just published some impressive results for the last quarter…
I’ve long been a huge fan of Louis Richardson’s presentation and story-telling style, and therefore it’s no surprise that delivers the most persuasive explanation of how collaboration and communication networks can be infused with cognitive/AI abilities to stimulate learning, mentoring and personal development
IBM has released a series of videos featuring Inhi Cho Suh, inviting us all to IBM Connect 2017. Will you be attending IBM Connect this year?
On the next WTF Tech podcast episode (to be published this week), Darren, Jesse and I spent a fair amount of time discussing Virtual Reality and our personal experiences with using the new technologies. One of the apps available for the Vive system via HTC’s VivePort solution marketplace is IBM’s Watson-based IBM Speech Sandbox.
From the official press release:
Diluted earnings per share from continuing operations were $12.39, down 9 percent compared to the 2015 period. Net income from continuing operations for the twelve months ended December 31, 2016 was $11.9 billion compared with $13.4 billion in the year-ago period, a decrease of 11 percent.
Or, as the register put it, Big Blue’s blues diffuse: IBM’s sales drain now more like a sad trickle:
IBM is touting growth in its cloud and cognitive business units as the enterprise giant wraps up a year of double-digit revenue declines.
Big Blue said that for its fourth quarter of 2016, ended December 31, revenues were nearly flat over the same period last year and net income was up slightly.
There’s no doubt that IBM is still struggling to grow the newer Cognitive and Cloud businesses (up 1.4% and 33% respectively year-on-year in Q4) fast enough to replace the still declining hardware systems and Global Business Services (down 12.1% and 4.1% respectively). Given that there have now been 19 straight quarters of declining revenue, there’s huge and ever-growing pressure on Ginni Rommety and the rest of the leadership team to post a growth quarter early in 2017.
When UBS analyst Steve Milunovich asked Schroeter to put IBM’s turnaround in baseball terms—what inning is IBM in, he asked—Schroeter responded that he didn’t know. Schroeter reiterated the importance of IBM’s strategic imperatives and explained that the company would continue to invest in them.
“I don’t think the transformation of IBM ever ends, quite frankly,” Schroeter said.
On a personal note, I was hoping to compare and contrast IBM’s collaboration solutions revenue with Jive’s upcoming Q4 and 2016 results, but they are now part of the huge Cognitive (Watson) business unit which makes that all but impossible to do.
The new BackPack II transforms our R1 deluxe tabletop radio and MR1 wireless speakers into completely portable products. It frees these miniature marvels from the mains power socket and into the bathroom or onto the decking and the great outdoors. Placing batteries inside takes valuable speaker capacity which can result in unrefined sound, but BackPack II allows R1 and MR1 to retain their rich mains powered performance, but with complete portability.
A total evolution of the original, BackPack II attaches seamlessly to R1 and MR1 and once fitted can be left permanently in place as it charges automatically whenever the music systems are connected to a mains power supply. A full charge will deliver up to twelve hours of mains free listening depending on volume.
Whilst the material design of the Backpack II may not be terribly elegant, the use case it solves is a common one (wanting to use a wireless speaker or radio system a distance from a power supply, but still within range of a wifi signal – for example, in the garden or by a pool). The device can be used with mains power day-to-day, and then disconnected and used on battery power when required.
I’d love to see Sonos or a third party offer a similar solution for the Play:1.
(There have been several discussions on the topic on the Sonos community forums, with rumours that Sonos worked on a battery solution for a couple of years but shut it down. One can hope!)
Excellent saving on the baby Sonos, the play:1.
IBM yesterday announced the launch of Project Toscana as IBM Watson Workspace at the World of Watson event. Here’s the replay.
Timelapse of 20 years of Apple.com. From the launch of the site in 1996 (Powerbooks and Mac OS 8) through to the iPhone 7 of today.
IBM Bluemix is integrating SoftLayer products and services into its vast catalog of infrastructure, platform, and application services. I take a look at what the impact might be?
Jive Software bring’s its ‘Power of Connection’ event world tour to London on 1st November, featuring some excellent UK-based customer speakers. Will you attend?
