Natalie Gagliordi

Until 2021, Natalie Gagliordi was a senior writer for Red Ventures based in Louisville, Kentucky, covering business technology for ZDNET.

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Kansas City Star: The bottom line on blogging

Kansas City Star: The bottom line on blogging

The business section of today'sKansas City Star features an overview of the blogging world, with interviewsand quotes from bloggers at IBM (Brian Doyle and me), Microsoft, Sprint,Garmin, and many others."It's become an expectationthat if you have a business, you have a blog," said John Jantsch,a Kansas City marketing coach and active blogger for several years. "Consumersare looking to find a community around your service. They're looking tohave conversations with companies about the products they're using."...IBM encourages employees to blog andset up a "Blog Central" site on the company's intranet to spotlightthe work of IBM bloggers. The company also set up templates to help bloggersget started."We're a company of experts,"said Brian Doyle, a spokesman for IBM. "We're about encouraging thesepeople to interact, and that leads to breakthrough thinking and innovation."Lotsmore at Link: KansasCity Star: The bottom line on blogging>

March 14, 2006 by in IBM

Network World: VoiceCon: Cisco, IBM demonstrate telephony integration

Network World: VoiceCon: Cisco, IBM demonstrate telephony integration

More detail around Sametime 7.5 integration...Thetwo giants showed off at this week's VoiceCon conference in Orlando, Fla.,a customized plug-in for Sametime 7.5 that will integrate the platformwith Cisco's Unified CallManager and Unified Presence Server. The integrationis based around the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and SIP for InstantMessaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions (SIMPLE). Cisco made a similar announcement Mondaywith Microsoft to support CallManager on the Microsoft Live CommunicationsServer and Office Communicator client. The article incorrectlystates that Sametime 7.5 ships next year -- it's a mid-2006 deliverable.At any rate, here's an example of anISV building their product for both IBM and the other guys simultaneously-- I often hear that there is a perception that the other guys get everybodyfirst.  What's cool(er) about the Sametime integrationis the click-to-call stuff in e-meetings...it's not just about person-to-personchat/VoIP.  Link: NetworkWorld: VoiceCon: Cisco, IBM demonstrate telephony integration>

March 14, 2006 by in Cisco

Computer Sweden: IBM mer aggressivt mot Microsoft

Computer Sweden: IBM mer aggressivt mot Microsoft

In preparation for my day here at LotusphereComes to You - Stockholm, I was given a translation of a post-Lotuspherearticle in Computer Sweden.IBM säger sig vara trött påMicrosofts utspel riktade mot Lotus Software-gruppen. Det här märktes tydligtunder användarkonferensen Lotusphere, där tonen var mer aggressiv än tidigare. ... - Vi tänker inte ligga ner och bara ta emot längre, säger Ed Brill, somhar den otydliga titeln Business Unit Executive men som hanterar mycketav den mer inofficiella kommunikationen med utvecklare och användargrupper.Translated, that says:IBM says it'stired of Microsoft's actions aimed against the Lotus Software Group.  Thishas been clearly noticeable during the Lotusphere user conference, wherethe tone has been more aggressive than before. ..."We're not going to just lie down and take it anymore," saysBrill, who has the ambiguous title of Business Unit Executive yet handlesmuch of the more unofficial communication among developers and users.Ambiguous? Laughed out loud at that.  Myjob is pretty clear, just thetitle is a mouthful.The rest of the article discusses the competitive positioning done at Lotusphere,including the announcement of the LotusFUD responder blog, the "Hannover"announcement, and the next version of Lotus Sametime.Link: ComputerSweden: IBM mer aggressivt mot Microsoft>

March 14, 2006 by in IBM

Kapalienator.WEB: Convergence: Websphere & Domino

Kapalienator.WEB: Convergence: Websphere & Domino

I was asked recently whether there area lot of Domino customers taking advantage of the WebSphereApplication Server limited entitlementthat has been part of the Domino 6 and 7 license.  I had to say thathonestly, I don't know the answer -- I certainly remember the decision-makingthat lead up to this entitlement, but have never gone back and critiquedit."Kapalienator"wonders:I amwondering why Java doesn't capture the attention of majority of the notes/dominodevelopers. In openNTF there are very few projects that are based on Java(ofcourse, you could argue that there are fewer or nill in .NET/PHP/Ruby/whatevercategory). The same applies to the bloggers - few domino bloggers talkabout Java).The blogger goes on to suggest six differentways that the entitlement could be leveraged...combining Domino and WebSphereinto a powerhouse.  Are you doing anything along these lines?

March 14, 2006 by in Enterprise Software

Event reporting

Event reporting

Wow, there are a lot of Lotusphere Comesto You event reports being blogged this week!  I haven't even writtenabout this morning's event in Oslo (waiting for some translated materialsfirst), but here are some other reports:ChrisMiller blogged from LCTY in Saint Louis. 66 people... some commentary by Chris, but he appears to have gottendistracted by the free lunch.Lauretteand Giuliocover the Sydney LCTY event.  Giulio wonders, "even though it'sall very impressive are we at the point now where technology is too farahead of the user base ? "  Laurette was impressed by the WorkplaceForms presentation (see, I told you :) and starts to grok Activity-centriccollaboration.  Both of them mention the desire to bring back LotusFusion....are my marketing colleagues down under reading?MattWhite covered the inaugural LNUG UK user group meeting,held the day after the London LCTY event.  Good job, Ben on puttingtogether a great agenda.Moretomorrow, after my last LCTY of this week -- Heisinki!

March 14, 2006 by in Tech Industry

Now running Sametime 7.5

Now running Sametime 7.5

This morning, I had the chance to installalpha 2 of Lotus Sametime 7.5.  The install was quick and easy, andnow I'm up and running on the new release.... Buddy list: Here we have the new buddy list UI.  A few things you notice rightaway -- Updated UI Easy access to setting my current statusA location setting -- displayed to otherSametime users -- which can then be used for place-based awareness as wellas location-specific services (what printers are available, conferencerooms, and what's on the cafeteria menu) A right click option to call, via VoIPservicesand here was my firstSametime 7.5 chat. (three separate images -- had to chop out some of thechat)    A few cool things to notice: Tons of information about the personI'm chatting with -- full name, title, their Sametime status, and a picturepulled from our corporate LDAP directory Alternating colors, and indented text,to indicate flow of the chat Single click action buttons to add userto buddy list, add others to the chat, capture part of my screen and sendit in the chat, call via VoIP, and send a file Full text editing capabilities for mychat, including fonts, colors, and emoticons...and an in-line spell checker.Oneof the most interesting things about the Sametime 7.5 client is that ithas a plug-in architecture.  IBMers are already building plug-insfor things like polling, application sharing, and more.  I'll be watchingthe plug-ins page to see what else comes along as we get closer to release.Lots of information about Sametime 7.5 is available now -- Link: LotusSametime -- The future is in sight>

March 14, 2006 by in Networking

IBM: It´s a great time to be an innovator

IBM: It´s a great time to be an innovator

IBM's2005 annual report is out, andwith it is a 40-page booklet called, "It'sa great time to be an innovator". There's a cool flashversion of this booklet availableonline.  Really nice stuff, very forward-thinking and forward-looking.One of the case studies profiled inthe booklet is howIBM is helping communities address road congestionthrough user tolls/charges.  I experienced this first-hand last weekin Stockholm. My hotel was located in the city center, but the Lotusphere Comesto You event was held at IBM's offices in Kista, outside the city.  Uponleaving the center of town, I noticed an electronic toll "gate"over the roadway, with the toll amount displayed electronically.  Accordingto the IBM case study, the toll amount changes based on time of day, andhas the ability to charge via electronic toll tag or OCR scan of a licenseplate.  Impressive stuff, and it has helpedreduce congestion by 25% in only one month's time.

March 14, 2006 by in IBM

Word of the day: Orthogonal

Word of the day: Orthogonal

or·thog·o·nal:Adj.[from mathematics] Mutually independent; well separated; sometimes, irrelevantto. Used in a generalization of its mathematical meaning to describe setsof primitives or capabilities that, like a vector basis in geometry, spanthe entire `capability space' of the system and are in some sense non-overlappingor mutually independent. For example, in architectures such as the PDP-11or VAX where all or nearly all registers can be used interchangeably inany role with respect to any instruction, the register set is said to beorthogonal.Ah, the PDP-11 or VAX, such memories of room-sizedcomputers with monstorous gigabyte hard drives.  Anyway.I used the word "orthogonal" today to describe the "innovationpack" planned for Lotus Notes and Domino in mid-2006.  This isthe set of capabilites including a blog template, RSS feeds, and Noteson a USB key that were announced at Lotusphere.  They're "orthogonal"because they are not a 7.1 or 7.5 release...in fact, no core code is disturbedat all.  This is critical to those organizations who have testingrequirements in order to deploy a "new" piece of software.  The"innovation pack" is separate from the core Notes/Domino codestream.  Apparently, the "orthogonal"nature of this deliverable taught several people in the room a new SATword.Other notes from today's Lotusphere Comes to You in Chicago:- About 120 customers and partners attended.  Speakers included KevinCavanaugh, Rob Ingram, David Marshak (demonstrating Sametime 7.5 live!),and Joe Linehan. - In my session on Notes/Domino directions, all of the attendees were onND6.x or 7.  A number of Linux and iSeries customers represented,as well as some pSeries and Solaris.  Oh yeah, there were Windowsusers, too. - Today was my first visit to the IBM offices at 71 S. Wacker, Chicago. This is the address that has been on my business card since August,but until today, I had never been there.  Nice place, very sleek. The A/V equipment is first rate (except the wireless microphone setup). But now I can no longer point out that as a telecommuter, I've neverbeen to my own office.  Though I still didn't go looking for wheremy snail mail is stored.

March 7, 2006 by in Innovation

Microsoft: "Presenting intelligent opportunities" based on flawed, irrelevant website polls

Microsoft: "Presenting intelligent opportunities" based on flawed, irrelevant website polls

Via TomDuff, this one is irritating enoughthat I lost sleep over it.Microsoft has announced a new roadshowfor partners: "TS2-- Competitive Tools and Resources Event Series". Why am I pissed?  Because the seminar copy says this:Today'sorganizations that own Lotus Domino or Novell Netware have reached a "forkin the road" in the future of their collaboration platform. Accordingto the Radicati Group, "Only 21% of the Lotus Domino customers surveyedare planning to deploy IBM Workplace." Now it appearsthat I've not previously commented on this survey on the blog, though Idid cover it in my "BossLoves Microsoft: Where does that leave Lotus?"presentation.  Several bloggers, including ChristopherByrne, dissected it at the timeit was announced, in May, 2005.  What's wrong with it?- Only 32 respondents.  Notes/Dominohas an installed customer base of over 61,000 organizations.  32/61,000= Not exactly a representative sample.- Survey participants were chosen fromvisitors to the analyst's website.  Not exactly a random sample.- Anyone could fill out the survey --there appears to have been no validation of who participated.- Old.  The survey was conducteda year ago.  Things move fast in IT.- "IBM Workplace" is a brandand product family, and it includes Lotus Notes!  So the thought isflawed at the outset.So Microsoft is really citing resultsof a website poll, not a rigorous market study.  And even though thispoll was so thoroughly debunked ten months ago, and the analyst firm citedhas seen questions over methodology in the past, Microsoft continues tocite the poll without blinking.  How ethical is that?It does show how good Microsoft is atstaying "on message".  I've always been impressed by this. Once they have a factoid, it just gets repeated and repeated andrepeated.  Nobody questions it, they just use it.Antony and the rest of us are workingon a few things for the Lotus"Fighting FUD" blog. I'll add this to the list.

March 7, 2006 by in Microsoft

Network World: Best blogs for buyers

Network World: Best blogs for buyers

Wow. Yesterday's Network World is their 2006Best Products issue.  Aninteresting feature is a "Best blogs" article, highlighting bloggersfrom Microsoft, Oracle, and IBM.  A two-part surprise for me: 1) thatmy blog has been selected, and 2) finding out about it via Jackand vowe(Note to Network World: Most of the links in this article are broken,so no referrers) Links have been fixed....What really pleases me about this article is that there is recognitionof the wealth of IBMers blogging.  I've got 25 IBMers on my blogrollhere... and that's just a fraction of the overall number writing today.The diversity of IBM bloggers matches that of the company -- some are purelypersonal, some are deeply technical, and some cover the gamut.  Sincepublishing IBM'sblogging guidelines in Mayof '05, the number of IBMers blogging has increased significantly -- whichmight be the opposite effect of what you would expect with formal guidelinesin place.  What's happened instead is that the guidelines have stronglyindicated that IBMers are encouraged to blog -- and that it has tremendouslypositive results to do so. Updated with link (duh!): NetworkWorld: Best blogs for buyers>

March 7, 2006 by in Networking