The great news is that I’ve recruited Mary Beth Raven, one of the lead
UI gurus on the “Hannover” project, to co-present the session
at Admin2006.  Mary Beth will be doing a session at the DNUG/IBM
Lotus Technical Forum on “Hannover”
UI improvements… the Admin2006 session will contain a subset of that
presentation.  In both cases, attendees will get to see the latest
live Notes “Hannover” code, and talk directly with the woman
who is on a personal mission to make “Hannover” the best collaboration
client in the industry.

The Notes “Hannover” team has an incredible focus on user interface.
Hope you’ll be at these sessions to see, hear, and discuss the latest and
greatest in the plan for the next release of Notes.

Originally by Ed Brill from Ed Brill on April 6, 2006, 7:00am

The verdict?  Sometimes you can
have too much of a good thing.  It’s like eating raw cocoa powder.
 The 70%
version was much better.

A few weeks prior, one of my main purchases
coming out of the Nordic countries was several packages of local smoked
salmon.  One of my favorite bring-backs from Europe.

I’m going to Asia in two weeks, and
the last stop is Kuala Lumpur.  While I’m always on the lookout for
decorative Asiana, I know my last stop there will be the famous night market.

Originally by Ed Brill from Ed Brill on April 5, 2006, 1:17pm

Still, instant messaging is taking over.

Now
a generation of office workers who grew up with instant messaging has gained
control. They have made I.M. the new black, the latest trend in information
technology. Along the way, they have changed how the corporate world converses
and have built a series of new communication applications.

Hmm,
I thought Yellow was the new black…

The article includes coverage of Lotus
Sametime customers such as Intellicare:

“One of our
nurses answers the phone when you call your doctor in the middle of the
night, and 97 percent of our nurses work from home,” said Jeff Forbes,
chief information officer. “The nurse can fire off an I.M. to an expert
and get a response back without having to interrupt your call.”

In
conclusion, the Times says it, too:

[C]orporations are
building new applications on top of instant messaging, taking advantage
of the fact that private I.M. networks are insulated from the outside world.
The process is reminiscent of when corporate intranets were first built,
in the mid-1990’s. These private areas on the Web were created as applications
on top of the Web protocols.

All of which means the end could be
near for business voice mail, as more and more companies adopt instant
messaging.

I’m coming thisclose to changing my IBM voicemail
greeting to say “don’t bother leaving me a message here, I only check
it once a week.  Need me?  E-mail, IM, or call my mobile.”

Link: New
York Times: I.M. Generation Is Changing the Way Business Talks
>

Originally by Ed Brill from Ed Brill on April 5, 2006, 7:18am

I’m not going to argue that these technologies
are often used for personal reasons. They are. But so are phones, and e-mail,
and water coolers, and bathrooms. And they do come in handy. Instant messaging
is a far quicker way to communicate than e-mail. Personal Web e-mail accounts
are great backups for corporate server outages. And any company that’s
not looking hard at switching their entire telecommunications system over
to the IP network is already behind the game. Bandwidth concerns? Please.
Within 10 years every piece of business communication will be running through
the IP network.

Now what’s the technology direction for
bathrooms and water coolers?

On the other hand, perhaps the reason some of the companies mentioned have
locked up public communication services is that they have business-quality
products deployed or in plan, and are going to use enterprise connections
like those in the new Sametime 7.5 to manage the connectivity for their
enterprise.

Still, I think open and available is the way to go.  I really appreciate
that IBM acknowledges that some personal use of corporate resources is
bound to happen, and not to make us punch codes into the copier/FAX to
use it, not to block eddiebauer.com, and not to turn off ports for AOL/Skype
etc.

Link: eWeek
Biz Bytes: The Absurd Crackdown on Free Internet Services
> (Thanks, boss)

Originally by Ed Brill from Ed Brill on April 4, 2006, 12:50pm

—————————————————-
and if I want to continue by sharing something with Paul, I can:

—————————————————————————
and I can even give Paul edit/navigation control of the shared application.

Way cool!

Originally by Ed Brill from Ed Brill on April 4, 2006, 10:30am

Originally by Ed Brill from Ed Brill on April 3, 2006, 9:12am

• “Exchange administrators feel burdened
  by the daily and weekly tasks required to build and maintain a highly reliable
  Exchange solution. Better tools will reduce this burden.”
• “Key
  Trends and Observations
       Exchange Requires Constant Attention
       It’s Very Difficult to Diagnose Exchange Problems
       Monitoring the Environment Helps Alleviate Downtime
       Full Redundancy Is Not Built Into Exchange”

and
my favorite, “Why is technology for fully redundant systems still
not available?”  Sure it is — it’s called Lotus Notes/Domino.

Link: Ferris
Research: Exchange Reliability and Its Impact on Organizations
> (Subscriber access only; via Ferris
weblog)

Originally by Ed Brill from Ed Brill on April 3, 2006, 7:33am

As a result of the blog entry, meeting offers to utilize my Wednesday came
in from Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, France, Germany, and Switzerland.
 Some came from customers, some came from partners, and interestingly,
some came from IBMers.  I say “interestingly” because I
had also communicated this one-day availability through “normal channels”
to my Lotus colleagues, but I reached as many IBMers through the blog as
I did through the normal routine.  The “normal channel”
offers came from Spain, France, and Romania.  All in all, there’s
a lot going on with Notes in Europe — some new opportunities, some defense,
and some happy customers upgrading along.

So, to those I couldn’t get to this time — I’m going to be back in Europe
in six weeks for the DNUG/IBM
Lotus Technical Forum, my
fourth European trip so far this year.  I know a  number of customers
will be at the event itself, but I’m also going to try to work in an extra
day or two for other visits.  And if things can’t wait six weeks,
there are other top-notch IBMers available in-region to assist.  I
hope I’ve referred all of the availablogging requests to one of the regional
Notes business or technical leaders — if something was missed, please
let me know.

As for the rest of the trip, one more meeting fell through, but at that
point it was too late to use the time for anything other than a quick trip
into central Zürich (and, of course, some Notes/e-mail time).  Yesterday
afternoon’s customer meeting, booked months ago as part of this customer’s
“IT Week”, was intense and also a bit fun.  In no small
part this was due to my place on the customer’s agenda…the last of almost
a dozen vendor presentations throughout their week.  I had to make
a relatively quick escape when it was finished, though…the annual watch
show in Basel had all the hotels in northern Switzerland booked up for
the night.  I ended up flying back via Düsseldorf, aboard my favorite
Europe-Chicago flight, Lufthansa’s
PrivatAir all-business-class service.
This is my third occasion to use this awesome flight, and this week’s bonus
is an early arrival.  With Europe already on summer time, the eight-hour
difference means that a 9 AM departure lands in Chicago at 10:30 AM local
time.  

Next availablogging — well, I’m trying to stay home for a few weeks, but
then it’s off to Lotusphere Comes to You and other events in Manila (20
April), Singapore (21 April), and Kuala Lumpur (24-25 April).  It’s
been about two years since my last regional visit, so the local IBM teams
have me pretty booked up.  I believe there’s some effort to try to
do user group meetings as part of the LCTY events in Singapore and K-L,
so if you are interested in that, please let me know.

Originally by Ed Brill from Ed Brill on March 31, 2006, 5:29am

In the coming weeks, it will be interesting to watch how Steve and his
template are integrated into upcoming Notes/Domino work.  I’m sure
he has some bright ideas for the future.

There’s something else interesting about Steve joining the Notes/Domino
team.  Steve’s resume/CV is obvious to anyone looking at the proliferation
of Dominoblog sites.  Here we have quality work being leveraged throughout
the community (whether published on someone’s own site or somplace like
OpenNTF.org),
which leads to someone being hired on for future Notes work (and not just
by IBM!).  I know it’s not a new concept to say that one’s online
presence is part of their resume/CV, but for many people in the Notes/Domino
community, their work speaks for itself.  I recently offered to be
a reference for someone whose “professional” work I’ve never
seen, simply because their community work has been outstanding.

I wasn’t really involved in the process that lead to Steve’s good news,
but I am very pleased with the outcome.  The Notes/Domino development
team has hundreds of incredibly skilled and innovative professionals…and
now has one more.  Oh and Steve — keep blogging.  I think the
community will be quite interested to see how your new role plays out in
the months ahead.

Originally by Ed Brill from Ed Brill on April 3, 2006, 12:49pm

International
Business Machines Corp. said it will roll out an aggressive strategy today
to lure business customers away from rival Microsoft Corp., offering bounties
of up to $20,000 to sales partners who can persuade companies to make the
switch. …

The plan seeks to use IBM’s 100 [sic
- should be "hundreds of"] business partners who work with companies’
IT divisions as its de facto sales force. IBM will reward each business
partner $20 per individual e-mail account, up to $20,000, for every company
that stops using Microsoft’s Exchange server and Outlook e-mail system
and begins using IBM’s Linux-based Lotus Notes e-mail system and Domino
server system.

The gloves are off….

Link (free registration required): Washingtonpost.com:
IBM makes a play for Microsoft’s customers
>

(And watch for more coverage elsewhere
today)

Originally by Ed Brill from Ed Brill on March 30, 2006, 9:55am