There have been some very positive summaries of the Lotusphere news from those within the Lotus community and outside. I particularly enjoyed this one from the GLGroup:
At Lotusphere, IBM Lotus unveiled a substantial, long term strategy and investment to broaden the Lotus market in many areas. In addition to many enhancements to its traditional customer premise solutions, Lotus announced new software-as-a-service (SaaS) and appliance solutions targeted at SMBs and branch offices in larger companies. The vendor is also deepening mobile capabilities and partnerships, taking a leadership position in enabling full access to collaboration and social media from mobile devices. The net of these announcements is that Lotus intends to change the conversation about collaboration and social software, and market more aggressively against Microsoft.
The article goes into 5 key messages from Lotus (bolder marketing, strategy to broaden the Lotus market, momentum in the partner ecosystem, going mobile and changing the collaboration conversation) all of which are very well articulated. Finally, it sums up the state of Lotus in the following positive manner:
On its 20th anniversary, Lotus is opening a new chapter in its story, offering up some new and convincing alternatives to the status quo, and extending its reach into new markets. By making these strategic investments now, in a turbulent economy, Lotus has time to get the kinks worked out, and get ahead of the game for when things turn around.
Excellent article, and one I intend to quote from a lot!