Posts tagged: lotuslive

Well this is a find!

Smarter Knowledge Sharing – Quantitative research into the perceived usefulness of Lotus Live as knowledge sharing system by Dutch healthcare professionals

Master Thesis
Strategic Management
Tilburg University
December 12, 2011

Student
Sjoerd Bouma (962256)
S.*****@uv*.nl

An organization’s ability to learn and share knowledge has emerged as a key factor influencing organizational performance (Argote, McEvily, & Reagans, 2003; Kane & Alavi, 2007). IBM can provide an integrated cloud solution,  Lotus Live, to support online knowledge sharing and learning. The measurement of information systems usefulness is critical  to understand the value and efficacy of information systems investments  (Delone & McLean, 2003). Therefore, IBM wants to study the usefulness of an integrated cloud solution for knowledge sharing. IBM is especially interested in the added value of Lotus Live in a knowledge-intensive environment (e.g. healthcare, research institutes, and universities). Especially in these type of organizations lifelong learning and knowledge sharing are crucial aspects of everyday’s work.

This study elaborates on knowledge sharing in healthcare. In general, when talking about knowledge sharing in healthcare it concerns collaboration between healthcare professionals (Chau & Hu, 2002a), and access to learning resources (Geueke & Stausberg, 2003). Lifelong learning and knowledge sharing are important concepts in today’s healthcare, and a requirement for all healthcare professionals (Barnard, Nash, & O’Brien, 2005;  Frankford, Patterson, & Konrad, 2000). However, knowledge sharing by face-to-face interaction on a regular basis can be costly and time consuming. Online communities of practice supported by internet technologies are among the few viable alternatives to live conversation and knowledge sharing (Hara & Hew, 2007). It  is therefore, very interesting to look at the usefulness of an online knowledge management system for knowledge sharing in healthcare. The central research question dealt with in this thesis will be:

To what extent is an online knowledge management system for knowledge sharing perceived useful in supporting knowledge sharing in a healthcare context?

Whilst most definitely an academic paper (it is the author’s master thesis), this should be useful reading for anyone with an interest in how cloud-based or on-premise social collaboration tools can be adopted for knowledge sharing purposes, whether in health-care or other similar verticals.  I’m still digesting the findings and recommendations contained in the paper, but can already recommend it – so much around Social technology is fluffy and vague in nature – an academic study can really cut through that to focus on the facts and realities.

Excellent work, Sjoerd.

Business2community.com reviews two of the web-conferencing heavyweights:

Beyond initial connectivity, LotusLive is the easier product to use and is less expensive. Our reviewer found the variety of features offered by LotusLive Meetings to be best in class compared to others reviewed, as well as among the easiest to use, and at a lower price point.

WebEx, on the other hand, was found to be a bit more complex and pricey. As our reviewer advised, WebEx is best for users with at least moderate levels of web conferencing experience, noting that “many users recommend that someone other than the moderator should actually run the presentation technically.”

More >

You wait for ages, then two come along at once! 😉

I really like this reference, this food products organisation (Newly Weds Foods) show significant travel cost reductions as a result of using IBM LotusLive and becoming a more Social Business.

Interesting reference video for the IBM LotusLive suite, featuring Russell’s Convenience Stores:

IBM is changing the ordering process for LotusLive Collaboration, Email, and Web meeting services, making it easier for you to order. IBM Online Collaboration will now be part of the new International Passport Advantage Agreement.

As of 18 July 2011, LotusLive orders entered through the IBM Passport Advantage System no longer require a signed Fixed Term Use Attachment. The new International Passport Advantage Agreement being rolled-out in July has been updated to include IBM’s SaaS terms; and therefore, customers no longer need to agree to separate IBM SaaS terms. Read the FAQ and presentation, under Sales Tools, regarding the LotusLive order process.

For more information regarding Passport Advantage, visit the Passport Advantage Web site (log-in required).

Interesting to see a new brand name or categorisation being used… ‘IBM Online Collaboration’.

The excellent LotusLive Meetings app has been available for the iPhone/iPod Touch for a year or so now, but has just been released for the iPad as well:

I’ve already used it for 4 or 5 meetings and it is now my preferred access point – continue to get work done on the laptop whilst conference calls are running on the iPad alongside.  Love it!

(A couple of minor feedback points for those behind the app.  It would be better to have landscape-mode screenshots in the App Store, much more impressive.  Also, one universal app that does iPhone and iPad would work better for many folks as there is no need to download and manage two different apps.)

Signature Mortgage explain why they chose IBM LotusLive to speed their loan application process.

My comments:

• A great reference for both LotusLive and Silanis e-SignLive – this shows the benefits of IBM’s campaign to sign SaaS partners for the LotusLIve suite.
• $35,000 of additional revenue per month – that’s real ROI.
• I’m guessing that Signature Mortgage has less than 1,000 users, making it an SMB in IBM’s eyes.  Great to see a public reference for such an organisation.

Erik posted a list of the changes in the spring release of LotusLive earlier this week.  Here is a useful demo of the new and enhanced features:

As part of the Sping release, IBM has added integration with yet another third-party application, Teampoint.

Heres what Teampoint does:

TeamPoint makes the management of your policies and procedures easier than ever. TeamPoint tracks and manages the creation of your controlled documents, helping you remain compliant with employment law, health and safety regulations and standards such as ISO 9001.

TeamPoint also allows you to capture an employee’s acceptance of key policies and procedures and automatically provides a “Starter Pack” for new employees based on their location in your organization. Integrated with LotusLive collaboration tools, now you can share your documents through LotusLive while still controlling versions and access through TeamPoint.

This application works with LotusLive Engage and Connections and requires a subscription of TeamPoint.

This video explains this well:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzVGxS1Cw0w?rel=0&w=750&h=457]

Just launched:

MobileLive Android client for IBM’s LotusLive cloud collaboration services.

Rich client version of IBM’s LotusLive, the enterprise cloud based collaboration service. Gives you offline access to your Contacts, Activities, Communities, as well as Sametime instant messaging. Requires an existing LotusLive subscription or active trial account.

Developed by Madibasoft and costing $9.99, this looks a great addition to the ISV offerings around LotusLive.

Hopefully an iOS port will follow soon.

As of last Sunday we have a new release inside LotusLive Engage. A release that both Erik and Stuart have been testing as LotusLive Design Partners for a couple of weeks.

To make clear what has changed, we have used the functionality inside LotusLive Charts which creates different charts based on data/spreadsheet:

Communities

As you can see from the graphs, most of the big changes have taken place in Communities, where new functionality has been added from the on-premise version of IBM Connections.

Changes are
       –        Ability to add Sub-communities (one-level deep)
       –        Not only adding files but also adding folders to communities
       –        Adding (guest) users to communities from within the community (even with CSV input file)
       –        Forum, adding several forums discussions to one community, and move Topics from one Forum to a different discussion if the discussion should take place there.

In my opinion these changes help to make LotusLive Engage the most integrated Social Collaboration solution out there on a SaaS platform. And with the guest feature it is for free for most users also.

Change represented in TagCloud

Here’s the new view:

Administration

We also have seen good changes for the LotusLive company administrators:

       –        Ability for administrators to create and enable announcements on the home screen

       –        Addition of a new role “User Account Assistant”

       –        Directory Options have been extended so that the administrator has the possibility to make profile info of (individual) user visible or not.

Dashboard

Changes in the dashboard are primarily UI changes, meaning less clicks for the end user.  There is now a clear difference between LotusLive Apps and Integrated Apps from 3parties.

Files

Inside the file section we have seen mostly UI changes. Collections become Folders, and now you need less clicks to do the job (again this is from IBM Connections).  Beside UI changes we see that share folders/files externally has got more attention.

IM

The back-end has moved to Sametime 8.5. This is very good news given the extra features we have in Sametime 8.5.

Meeting

The full functionality inside LL Meetings has now become available inside LotusLive Engage Meetings. This means Audiocast and Record functionality has become available inside LotusLive Engage. Very good news ! This means you can record the whole presentation (including audio via conference call number) in a .wmv or .mov file

There is also an extra security option before you start a meeting, see description below:

Integrated Apps

A new integrated App has been introduced, Teampoint.

Performance

Just before this Spring release we also received significant increases in performance, see also the LotusLive Wiki for more information.

In summary, this is a substantial upgrade of most of the features within LotusLive Engage.  Impressive.

This is terrific news for all those that want to be able to utilise their portfolios of Domino applications but also to embrace the economic and availability advantages of shifting to the cloud:

IBM Lotus Domino Utility Server for LotusLive, a new cloud-focused licensing model, simplifies the discussion and buying decision for deploying Lotus Domino collaborative applications in the cloud and moving end users to IBM’s best-in-class, cloud-based messaging for the enterprise, LotusLive Notes. Many organizations today want to manage infrastructure through streamlined, predictable costs with pervasive connectivity, high availability, and flexible deployment options.

Based on the same model as the Domino Utility Server, this new license allows you, as LotusLive Notes subscribers, to use the included Notes client for access to Notes/Domino applications. That means that instead of paying per-user software subscription to continue to use Notes/Domino applications, regardless of client/browser access method, you can now switch to a server-only based licensing model. Instead of paying for everyone in an organization to continue to use those applications, you can pay for anyone in the organization to use those applications. You are able to more easily evaluate and value your Domino applications in a separate context from the commodity and cost-focused decisions around messaging, and yet retain all the benefit of existing and future investment in building applications on Domino.

Many organizations have wanted to separate the mail and applications discussion. This new approach recognizes that trend and addresses it for businesses moving to the cloud.

I know that some partners (such as Connectria, Applicable and GBS) have had ‘App in the Cloud’ offerings for a while, but I think it is vital to the long-term future of the Domino development community (in-house developers, consultants and ISVs) that IBM supports this model through attractive and easy-to-apply licensing and hosting models.  This announcement seems to deliver on this:

The Domino Utility Server for LotusLive model is available in the IBM Cloud and Amazon models, in addition to on-premises deployments if you are moving or considering a move to the cloud. Special pricing is planned so you can trade up from Domino Enterprise Servers, in conjunction with deployments of LotusLive Notes (or LotusLive Notes and LotusLive Engage).

In addition to the full-featured, enterprise-ready email, calendaring, and contact management services, which are accessible via a web browser or Lotus Notes client, LotusLive Notes customers now have a clear path forward for moving collaborative Domino applications to the cloud, as well.

The Domino Utility Server for LotusLive licensing model:

• Supplies a simple path for customers moving to the cloud
• Lowers the barrier for customers wanting to move their Domino applications into a cloud model
• Includes access to both LotusLive Notes services and Domino applications – via a web browser or Notes client
• May be utilized with other “pay as you go” offerings through IBM Cloud, Amazon EC2, or business partners providing Domino application hosting services

My comments:

1. This is, of course, a first step toward delivery of support for Domino apps in the cloud.  I am sure that there will be hiccups and hurdles along the way, there always are when new licensing models are delivered.  However, I really do want to applaud Ed Brill and the team for getting this out there.
2. In the past, some elements of the Utility Server model have attracted criticism for being too expensive, particularly for smaller customers.  Given that the Lotuslive cloud-based offerings are so appropriate for SMBs and startups, I hope that the pricing is attractive this time.
3. I note that this offering is still Processor Value Unit-based.  I know that this is IBM SWG’s chosen method for pricing server-based offerings.  However, I have some concerns about its validity for cloud-solutions.
4. IBM is building an impressive portfolio of LotusLive solutions now, even when compared directly against competitors such as Google and Microsoft.  However, awareness and marketing of the Lotuslive portfolio still lags a very long way behind.  I’d love to see this rectified to give these great solutions the ‘air cover’ they deserve.

Announcement from IBM Japan, here’s the translated version:

Northeastern Pacific Ocean earthquake countermeasures provide free LotusLive
March 14, 2011

Japan IBM (Hashimoto Takashi President, NYSE: IBM) is to support the rebuilding of northeastern Pacific Ocean Earthquake, “Earthquake Preparedness Program LotusLive northeastern Pacific Ocean off the free offer” to announce. The activities in the affected areas, organizations need a means of sharing information and e-mail (local governments, nonprofit organizations and philanthropic activities and charity work) to a subject in order to support our activities, Web browser only LotusLive available from today to start offering free use of three months for mail-enabled collaboration and organization.

“Earthquake Countermeasures program provides free LotusLive northeastern Pacific Ocean,” an overview of the following.

Recorded

Program:
Northeastern Pacific Ocean Earthquake Countermeasures Program provided free of charge LotusLive
Conditions and subject:
Organizations that require e-mail capabilities for information sharing and Disaster Relief Act applies in the region (local governments, nonprofit organizations and philanthropic activities and charity work)
Period:
Today, 31 July 2011 (application deadline until April 30 2011)
Application Procedures:
Below, please contact us by e-mail contact information.
Northeastern Pacific Ocean Earthquake Countermeasures Program provided free of charge receptionist LotusLive
　Email: sb*****@jp.com

* IBM LotusLive information, please see the following URL.
https: / / www.lotuslive.com/ja/

Well done, IBM.

Upcoming webcast from IBM and SugarCRM:

Driving Social Business from the Cloud with SugarCRM on IBM LotusLive

Date:	Mar 17, 2011
Time:	2:00 PM – 3:00 PM (Eastern Time)
Hosted By:	Allison Marentette (IBM LotusLive Social Business Cloud)
Presented By:	Jan Sysmans (Senior Director Product Marketing, SugarCRM), Brendan Crotty (Program Director, IBM LotusLive Social Business Cloud)

Join IBM and SugarCRM and learn how the SugarCRM integration with LotusLive drives social business and brings you “CRM Made Social”. Get first hand insight on how this integration will benefit your organization and see how you can get started with SugarCRM and LotusLive today. 

Agenda: 

* How LotusLive and SugarCRM enable Social Business in the cloud 
* LotusLive overview and demo 
* SugarCRM integration with LotusLive demo
* Review availability and timelines

All attendees to this webinar will get a special discount to attend Sugarcon, the annual SugarCRM user conference.

Register >

My comments:

1. I had a good chance to meet with SugarCRM Director of Communications, Martin Schneider, at the recent TFM&A show in London and discussed this LotusLive/SugarCRM integration with him.  It is clear that SugarCRM see LotusLive as a significant area of opportunity for them to move into the larger enterprises that IBM specialises in winning.
2. For IBM, Social CRM is going to be an area of significant growth over the next 3 or so years.  Gartner have released a report in the past week, saying that ‘Use of Social CRM for Customer Service Will Grow Rapidly Over the Next Two Years‘.  LotusLive already has links with SalesForce.com (though this is less impressive than the SugarCRM integration), and IBM has also purchased Unica who operate in a similar space.
3. Whilst less impressive in volume terms than the ‘Google Apps Marketplace‘ than Google have for their Google Apps service, IBM is slowly growing an impressive list of ISV solutions that integrate with LotusLive.  Microsoft is growing a similar list too – this is clearly a battleground as the cloud-based collaboration war heats up!

Oh the joys of travelling by train in the UK – this news came out about 90 minutes ago, and by the time I had the network connection to blog it, Ed is already there with all the details!

Here’s the announcement letter:

At a glance

IBM LotusLive Notes 1.3 enhancements:

• Option to purchase cloud-based services for BlackBerry mobile device users
• Support for additional platform — Android OS — for users of the optional Traveler for LotusLive Notes service
• Additional mail management controls
• Advances in user experience

Overview

IBM LotusLive Notes 1.3 is a full-featured, cloud-based email service. Subscribing to the LotusLive Notes service means that IBM sets up, operates, and maintains your organization’s Lotus Domino-based mailboxes via a LotusLive server farm operated within the cloud. LotusLive Notes offers users the benefits of the Lotus Domino mail server architecture and security without the mail server maintenance overhead.

With this update of LotusLive Notes, you get the addition of a fully hosted service offering for BlackBerry Enterprise Server, both with and without optional Mobile Data Services from Research In Motion (RIM).

Additional enhancements:

• Traveler for LotusLive Notes subscription supports Android operating system, expanding the mobile needs of virtually anyone.
• Additional Mail Manager controls are available as part of the web-based LotusLive Notes Administration experience (including automatic management of content older than “n” days and administrator-controlled User Exclude lists).
• Support for limiting the size of inbound file attachments for email messages (administrator controlled at the user or group level).
• User experience modifications in the area of calendaring and scheduling to further improve visual parity with the Notes client when working in LotusLive Notes via a standard web browser (including full support for alarm preferences plus font, background, and color updates).
• The ability to import contacts within LotusLive Notes web in any supported language.
• Support for purchasing subscriptions to the LotusLive Notes service.

And Ed adds some context:

This morning we released a service update to LotusLive Notes, as announced here. This is the third release of LotusLive Notes in six months, an impressive demonstration of IBM’s ability to deliver in the software as a service market. 

Today’s service update is notable mainly for the improvements to mobile access for LotusLive Notes. A new service, IBM LotusLive Notes Hosted Blackberry, offers a fixed-price, pay as you go full BES capability listing at US$10/user/month. LotusLive Notes Traveler has been extended and now offers Android device support on top of existing iOS and other devices. Some service improvements have been added from both the administration/management point of view and also some usability enhancements in LotusLive Notes web. 

We highlighted LotusLive Notes customers at Lotusphere including Panasonic and General Motors Component Holdings. Another wave of customers has been onboarding in the last few weeks. My team is busy planning the fourth release already, with plans for that and a fifth release still on tap for 2011. If you are looking for the best, most-integrated cloud collaboration solution, I encourage you to check out LotusLive Notes and LotusLive Engage and see what we’ve done — and will continue to do — to make the IBM collaboration stack stand up in a SaaS world with tons of value and at a cost-effective price.

As Ed says, this is further confirmation that IBM is serious about the LotusLive cloud portfolio and the delivery of additional value to subscribers.  I’m very impressed at the rate of delivery right now. Good stuff, IBM.

IBM is also announcing the widespread adoption of LotusLive with the following new clients benefiting from IBM’s Cloud initiatives including the Australian Bureau of Statistics, C&D Foods,Crawford & Company, FIDM/Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising, General Milling Corporation, General Motors Components Holdings and the Zoo and Aquarium Association of Australia.

Great to see a good number of new client wins (and therefore references being announced so publicly before Lotusphere.  Whilst last year’s announcement of Panasonic as a LotusLive win was a bigger story, multiple smaller organisations show that cloud-based collaboration in the form of LotusLIve is really winning marketshare.

The press release goes on to describe the organisations and solutions in more detail:

Accelerating Cloud Collaboration in Organizations Around the Globe
 
Organizations including C&D Foods, Crawford & Company, the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, General Motors Components Holdings LLC and General Milling Corporation have adopted IBM’s cloud based email offerings. 

General Motors Components Holdings LLC (GMCH) purchased LotusLive to provide employees with cloud based email, calendar and contact management services.  A wholly owned subsidiary of General Motors, GMCH was looking to improve collaboration among its employees in plants in New York, Michigan and Indiana that manufacture HVAC climate control systems, powertrain cooling systems, engine management systems, automotive electronics and related products.  Formerly part of the Delphi Corporation, GMCH needed to move all employees to GM compatible systems after the acquisition from Delphi.  GMCH wanted a cloud solution that would meet GM’s requirements for performance and reliability without the capital expenditure necessary to run email in-house.  They chose LotusLive Notes for the flexibility of the service and because of IBM’s enterprise experience.  GMCH has also purchased LotusLive Connections to facilitate social networking and collaboration between employees in the Cloud. 

C&D Foods, based in Longford, Ireland, is one of Europe’s leading high quality pet food manufacturers producing more than 150,000 tons of pet food annually. C&D Foods needed a quick and cost-effective way to move employees at their canning facility in the Netherlands off Microsoft Exchange. “We decided to move employees to the cloud with LotusLive iNotes. With its simple administration tools and user-friendly interface, LotusLive helped take pressure off our migration team.   We were able to move users quickly and easily without any interruption to our network or IT infrastructure.  With LotusLive, users can now access their e-mail, anytime, any place,” said Rosalyn Donnelly, IT Manager, C&D Foods. 

Crawford & Company, based in Atlanta, Georgia, is the world’s largest independent provider of claims management solutions to the risk management and insurance industry, as well as self-insured entities. “With a global network of more than 700 locations in 63 countries, we needed a cost effective, reliable email service,” said Beverly Trice, Catastrophe Services, Crawford & Company.  “We chose LotusLive iNotes so field adjusters could have access to their email whenever, wherever.  More over, it’s important that the email have a consistent email domain in a secure environment so the adjusters feel confident to share information with clients and communicate internally with colleagues.” 

The Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising (FIDM), a private college in California specializing in the fashion design, interior design and entertainment industries, adopted LotusLive iNotes to provide 7,500 students with low-cost, reliable Webmail that they can access anywhere on or off campus. 
FIDM’s goal was to offer its students with email accounts that provide a consistent domain so the administration and faculty could communicate with the student body more effectively.  In FIDM’s eLearning program, where most of the interaction between students and teachers happens electronically, LotusLive provides a consistent and reliable user experience for the entire class which facilitates more effective communication.   FIDM also wanted to ensure that its students had a professional email account to use when applying for internships or jobs.  Prior to moving to LotusLive iNotes, students used their free, personal email accounts and the administration did not always have the correct email address for every student on campus. LotusLive helps the students and faculty stay in touch with each other more efficiently. 

General Milling Corporation (GMC) is one of the largest integrated food companies in the Philippines with offices and plants located throughout the country.  In business for 50 years, the company was looking for a reliable and cost-effective collaboration platform as a foundation for growth as they aim to become one of the top food producers in Philippines.    The company adopted LotusLive’s complete collaboration suite to provide its employees with cloud-based e-mail and advanced collaboration tools.  Moving e-mail to the cloud with LotusLive Notes allows the company to expand IT resources while still having access to business-class messaging and the latest technologies from IBM.  GMC also purchased LotusLive Engage for web conferencing and other collaboration capabilities such as file sharing, instant messaging and activity management, to promote greater collaboration among its widely dispersed workforce and its partners and vendors.
 
Organizations including the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the Zoo and Aquarium Association of Australia have adopted LotusLive Engage to drive increased collaboration across geographically distributed teams. 

For example, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) adopted LotusLive across its 3,200 person organization for increased project collaboration with other international statistical agencies.  The ABS are members of several international networks developing standards and applications for statistical processing.  By adopting LotusLive Engage, the international project teams have been able to quickly share skills and intellectual property and assets, design and co-develop statistical standards and applications — all within a secure, cost-effective environment that LotusLive provides. 

The Zoo and Aquarium Association of Australia integrates more than 90 zoos and aquariums across Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific in a network for wildlife conservation, environmental education and wildlife research.  Its main activity is the Australasian Species Management Program (ASMP) which has a mission “to plan and manage animal collections cooperatively, in ways that promote sustainability and contribute to species conservation.”  The Association has adopted LotusLive Engage as its collaboration platform to support more than a 100 species programs that involve teams implementing best practice policy across the region. The Association has found the platform to be secure and easy to use and a good way of disseminating current information and collecting feedback. 

IBM has regaularly explained the legal and procedural  issues around publicly announcing customer wins, so to get so many out in this case is great news.

I look forward to hearing more about the solutions at Lotusphere 2011 (#ls11).

Now, it’s entirely possibly that I just didn’t spot this before, but LotusLive.com (the product/services site rather than the applications themselves) has had a nifty makeover leading up to Lotusphere (#ls11):

With elements of social media integration, links to podcasts and videos, list of applications available, mobile apps and more, this is a really impressive site now.  

Hey, even Collaboration Matters gets a mention!

I would love to see LotusLive.com become a model for other Lotus product microsites – imagine a LotusNotes.com, LotusConnections.com etc. that has as much useful content, links to third party apps and multimedia included.  IBM, you own the domains, let’s do it!

The Lotusphere (#ls11) news blitz has started 😉

First up, LotusLIve announces new partnerships:

By adding business partner integrations, LotusLive delivers more cloud-based options to simplify and improve everyday business activities. IBM LotusLive offers integrated applications from business partners that are designed to help companies of all sizes, in every industry, work more efficiently and effectively.    

Today, IBM is announcing two new partnerships with SugarCRM and Ariba, delivering integrated applications that deliver Cloud collaboration within CRM and commerce applications.  

SugarCRM, a leading provider of open source CRM software, is integrating LotusLive into its customer relationship management application. The combined offering will help sales more effectively collaborate with prospects and customers during lead generation, lead-to-cash and issue resolution processes.  For example, a sales agent can now instantly launch a LotusLive online meeting with key prospects right from the Sugar application, and quickly and easily share important files and information with a few simple clicks.    

This capability provides a more streamlined experience for the prospect, creates greater visibility into account activity, and increases CRM user productivity, which can shorten sales cycles and increase revenue for sales organizations. The new service is expected to be available during the first half of 2011.  

With today’s news, Ariba is integrating LotusLive into its Ariba Discovery service. Ariba Discovery is a free, easy-to-use service that provides access to more than 325,000 sellers in more than 400 business categories. Ariba Discovery for LotusLive lets buyers and sellers more easily collaborate through online meetings, and through web conferences, online chats, and sharing documents, resulting in improved communications and faster decision making. The service is expected to be available during the first half of 2011.

I see the addition of SugarCRM to the LotusLive portfolio as being a significant one – with many small businesses and startups, CRM is the first step towards a centralised collaboration and management solution, and so having a number of options in LotusLive to solve this business need is important.  If the CRM solution is cloud-based, then it makes sense to take the messaging and collaboration environment in that direction too.

Here’s a video demonstrating the SugarCRM/LotusLive integration:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy2QHptKMw8?rel=0&w=750&h=451]

The LotusLive page for SugarCRM tells us that the new solution works with LotusLive Engage and requires a subscription to SugarCRM.  This makes sense, but it would be great if you could just buy a LotusLive subscription with the SugarCRM component included as an option.

I look forward to finding out more at Lotusphere.

[Collaboration Matters is a LotusLive partner based in the UK – if you require more information or wish to purchase a LotusLive subscription, please contact us.]

A 10-page overview of the LotusLive services portfolio for business leaders:

IBM LotusLive is a portfolio of online services that deliver scalable, security-rich email, web conferencing, and collaboration solutions, enabling you to interact with your employees and business network without in-house IT resource requirements. It is a cost-effective way to communicate better with your employees and business network. With LotusLive you benefit from essential and effective collaboration tools in a securely designed environment that helps simplify and improve your daily business interactions with customers, partners, and colleagues.

This IBM Redguide publication highlights the IBM LotusLive services, including details about the business need and business value of these services. It provides a scenario showing how these services can apply to your business and presents a high-level discussion of the LotusLive cloud-based architecture.

A useful guide to pass to those interested in moving to the cloud in general or the Lotuslive solutions in particular.

An aside:
I’m not quite sure why IBM is now using the ITSO Redbooks team to produce/host whitepapers and sales materials (particularly for Lotus products that have been painfully devoid of IBM Redbooks for the past 3 years or so) – seems a strange decision given the history there.

My co-author on this blog, Erik Vos, spotted today that there is now an option in the LotusLive company administration panel to add a trial subscription to LotusLive Notes.

From your organisation administration screen:

Select Email/Add Trial:

Then tick “LotusLive Notes Trial” and confirm – this will update your subscriptions:

At this stage, a new option “Lotus Notes” will be available in the left-hand pane, select this:

This will take you to the new panes for managing a LotusLive Notes subscription:

Working through these panels, allows the LotusLive administrator to set a number of details for the organisation’s LotusLive Notes environment.  First up, sub-domain name:

Then, organisation name:

Then server base name:

Finally, confirm the details configured:

This has then set up the LotusLive Notes trial account.  One can also configure the Instant Messaging and Timezone options:

Next up, go into the User Accounts panel for LotusLive, and for each trial user, either add LotusLive Notes to an existing user account, or else create a new one:

This process is very very straightforward, and only take a few minutes to complete.  

If you’re considering LotusLive Notes to replace or extend your existing on-premise Notes/Domino infrastructure, then give this trial a go.  If you don’t currently have a LotusLive account, register for a LotusLive Notes trial via the web site.

We wonder if Ray Ozzie ever thought that he would someday be looking from Microsoft’s executive suite to see IBM release his Lotus Notes creation into the cloud.

I’d say he’d be a bit shocked given how he left Notes & Domino when he moved on…

The article goes on to conclude with this summary:

Overall, the LotusLive Notes release does not feel that dramatic. It’s only with its context in history does the true meaning of its next progression begin to illuminate and we see how connected IBM and Microsoft are to developments in collaboration and the cloud.

More >

Nemertes Research Announces 2010 PilotHouse Awards  

IT Decision-Makers Rate Their Technology Providers

New York, NY – Sept. 14, 2010 Nemertes Research recognized 18 Information Technology providers that received top ratings from IT leaders and provided details behind the scores at today’s 2010 PilotHouse Awards Webinar.

More than 2,000 IT executives rated their providers and shared details on what they like most and least about them, as part of Nemertes’ 2010 Communications & Computing Benchmark. The participants rated their providers on a 1-to-5 scale on value, technology, and customer service in 13 technology areas.

“In several emerging and highly competitive technology markets, these awards demonstrate which providers excel in technology leadership, solid customer service, and compelling value,” says Robin Gareiss, Nemertes executive vice president and senior founding partner. “Businesses rely on these ratings as they make vendor-selection decisions because it gives them insight about the experiences of existing customers.”

Nemertes Research 2010 PilotHouse Awards

 * Cloud Computing
       o Top Provider (Market Challengers): IBM (4.20)

With the second highest score across all of the awards available, IBM won the Cloud Computing category outright.

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Rick Whiting reports on CRN.com:

IBM this week will offer for the first time an on-demand version of its Lotus Notes messaging and collaboration application.

The move is one of several additions IBM is making to its LotusLive cloud collaboration services. The company is also debuting a low-cost bundle of LotusLive applications and adding new community features based on Lotus Connections.

LotusLive Notes, priced at $5 per user per month, is based on the same messaging software that has been IBM Lotus’ flagship product for years. Until now the software was not available as an on-demand service because IBM had to develop multi-tenant capabilities into the Notes Domino platform, said Sean Poulley, IBM vice president of cloud computing, in an interview.

LotusLive Notes, available starting Oct. 5, provides e-mail, shared calendar, instant messaging and contact database services.

The move to a ‘on-demand’ model is more than just multi-tenant Notes in the cloud, now with this latest update, IBM can offer this solution for single-user organisations and for those that need a hybrid model – the mix of on-premise and cloud-based Notes & Domino services.  This puts LotusLive Notes ahead of the alternatives from both Google and Microsoft – as IBM’s Ed Brill states (referring to Microsoft):

But it seems strange that a company that can’t even update their Exchange Online offering to a year-old version of the Exchange server and are instead stuck on the November, 2006 version, haven’t announced a next version of Exchange or Outlook, and are struggling with adoption and reliability for both their premises and cloud offerings might want to choose another competitive vector.

Now we just need IBM to allow the use of credit cards for purchase of this service on a simple flat-rate basis, and we’d have every base covered!

Taken from the new LotusLive page ‘Integrated Apps Demo: Vondle Live‘:

See how Vondle Live lets you view and annotate nearly any document type within LotusLive – without ever having to download it. No software necessary.

flowplayer(“player”, “http://lotusliveblog.com/video/flowplayer-3.2.5.swf”, {
clip: {
autoPlay: false,
autoBuffering: true
},
plugins: { // load one or more plugins
controls: { // load the controls plugin
url: ‘http://lotusliveblog.com/video/flowplayer.controls-3.2.3.swf’, // always: where to find the Flash object
playlist: true, // now the custom options of the Flash object
backgroundColor: ‘#000000’,
tooltips: { // this plugin object exposes a ‘tooltips’ object
buttons: true,
fullscreen: ‘Enter Fullscreen mode’
}
}
},

onFinish: function() { // set an event handler in the configuration
alert(“Click Player to start video again”);
}
});

The Vondle Live viewer is new to me, but I had the opportunity to meet with the folks from Bricsys at Lotusphere 2010 and they made a really good case for the use of their technology in a cloud-based collaboration environment – removing the need to have native viewers on the user’s desktop for viewing and printing of documents (e.g. in LotusLive Files). I’m very pleased to see that yet another cool collaboration service has made it into LotusLive.  Nice work, folks.