Ed Brill

Today is day seven in my new role, and I'm already behind. It will sound trite, but IBM is doing so much in the mobile enterprise space that my first week+ has been the proverbial "drinking from a firehose." New products to learn about, new team to meet, and new activities to jump right into. I'll h...

Up early as I am about to embark on what potentially could be my second round-the-world trip of the year, in equally short time. First stop, New York City. Then Copenhagen and the DanNotes event. Then, perhaps, Seoul. All great stuff and worth the trip. Two weeks ago, I hosted a webcast to unveil t...

Earlier today, the IBM Institute for Business value released a new study, "The Business of Social Business: What works and how it's done." This comprehensive study interviewed over 1,100 participants and executives from across several industries globally. The analysis discovered that there are three...

Last week I was in Boston, meeting with customers and partners as part of the annual invite-only Social Business Leadership Alliance. The event contents are covered by non-disclosure agreements, which gives us a chance to "let our hair down a bit" and discuss concepts and decisions ahead with the op...

An exciting day has arrived as "C4", IBM Connections 4, is now available! IBM Connections has been named the market leader in social software for three consecutive years. This new release extends IBM's technology lead by introducing key new capabilities: Activity Streams - a homepage full of u...

Monday morning's USA Today features a good market overview of social business platforms. It highlights Newly Weds Foods, who use IBM Connections:[T]he chefs who develop recipes at Chicago-based Newly Weds Foods, a wholesale food supplier to restaurants and institutions, use a similar social-...

It's time to come out of stealth mode on my summer project this year. I'm writing a book, specifically a book about social business and product management. If all goes well, the book will be published in the first quarter of 2013, though that somewhat depends on you. I have felt like I have a book...

This is a pretty cool view into the future from IBM Research, especially one that is relevant to the messaging marketplace:In five years, unsolicited advertisements may feel so personalized and relevant it may seem spam is dead. At the same time, spam filters will be so precise you’ll never be...

Hot off the presses this morning is IBM's 2011 Tech Trends report. More than 4000 IT professionals from all over the world -- 93 countries -- participated in the survey. The results cover a wide range of topics, including analytics, mobile, cloud, and social -- a buzzword bingo! In mobility, I was...

Really good article about IBM's approach to mobile devices and tablets. The Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend is fully in play, while respecting need for corporate governance and security. Android and iOS quickly emerging as the two mainstream platforms, though 30,000 IBMers (like me) are using Bla...

The headline is a little mis-leading, since Palmisano remains as Chairman, but Ginni Rometty moves up to CEO and President, as announced today by IBM. What I like about this article is this: Palmisano's tenure was an extremely successful one: After taking the tech giant's reins from Lou Gerstner in...

I spent the last couple of days in Wroclaw (pronounced vaguely like "Vrat-slaf"), Poland, with 60 IBM business partners from across central and eastern Europe. To demonstrate the importance of the forum, we brought another 25-ish IBMers (maybe it was more) for sessions, roundtables, and meetings wit...

Thursday, IBM will be announcing a new set of cloud offerings for the US Federal government, on our existing IBM Federal Community Cloud environment. A key to the new offerings is their operation in a US FISMA-compliant data center. The new offerings include IBM Connections, IBM Sametime, IBM Lotus...

I missed this during my travels last week, but how incredibly cool. The United States Postal Service last week issued a stamp in the "Pioneers of American Industrial Design" series featuring designer Eliot Noyes, who was responsible for the design of the original IBM Selectric typewriter in 1961....

A few weeks ago, Joyce Davis announced the extension of the IBM Champion Program to IBM Collaboration Solutions community, which means all of you. The program recognizes exceptional contributors to the technical community who work alongside IBM to build solutions for a smarter planet. Champions can...

In the weeks since Lotusphere 2011, there has been the natural community settling in and reflecting on what we discussed, future goals, vision, and opportunities. I've come to expect some of this to be negative once we all come down from the professional and emotional high in Orlando, and settle in...

Bleed yellow, lead blue... The IBM Power Systems team has put up a simple server consolidation comparison tool that shows how streamlining your server hardware can help save money and resources. Answer four questions and you'll get a report that tells you the opportunities to save through IBM Powe...

Great to see IBM's leadership in this space recognized.... "IBM has the largest community of employees actively involved in social media on earth." More:IBM claims to have the largest corporate network of employees using social media today, with more than 200,000 employees on LinkedIn, the same amo...

In a recent blog discussion, I happened to mention an IBM license construct called Application-Specific Licensing. A few people have emailed or pinged to ask what I was talking about, and I figured this was quickly becoming an FAQ. ASL is a way to bundle IBM software with an IBM Business Partner s...

As a student in college, it was my dream to work for IBM. Heck, maybe it was even earlier. Mom took us on a cruise when I was a teenager, and one of the men seated at our dining table told us he was an "IBM executive". He was of course fit, tanned, and living a good life, or maybe that is what my...

During November, publisher Packt is running a special on books with IBM-related subject matter... 20% off all Packt IBM print books 25% off if you purchase 3 or more books 30% off all Packt IBM ebooks This includes recent releases such as the Lotus Notes 8.5 User Guide and the Sametime 8 User's...

Blogger Jeff Sandgren recently caught up with IBM Vice President of Social Software Jeff Schick, and talked about IBM's adoption of social software and how it fits our culture:“When I started out,” Jeff explained, “you went to the same office most days, where you actually saw peopl...

Back before my vacation, a few bloggers were talking about the abrasive, mixed message that IBM was sending to the market by having a web page from ibm.com Global Technology Services describing their Notes to Exchange migration offering. My stance at the time was that IBM, as a portfolio business t...

Not quite two weeks ago, IBM held a "mobility day" event for press and analysts in our Massachusetts Labs (Littleton). I blogged about Alistair Rennie's presentation from that day, but wasn't able to capture some of the other events and messages. It turns out there, was a lot of analysis written...

As mentioned, IBM today hosted a Mobile Strategy Day at the grand opening of the Massachusetts Software Labs in Littleton. Speakers included Steve Mills, Bob Picciano, Alistair Rennie, Al Zollar, Craig Hayman, and several other senior IBM executives. The attendees were analysts and press, and alon...

Wednesday morning (uh, in just a few hours), IBM is opening the doors on its new Massachusetts Labs. You can watch the grand opening live at 9 AM EDT here. Lots of VIPs at the event, including Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick. Following the ribbon cutting, IBM will host a mobile strategy even...

IBM Global Entrepreneur is a pretty cool program for potential IBM ISVs and is nicely tied into our cloud computing strategy:I.B.M. wants to enlist fledgling software companies in its Smarter Planet strategy, which seeks to apply cutting-edge technology to big challenges like improving the efficienc...

From my inbox:Edward, I have recently sent you a couple emails regarding [XYZ Company] assisting IBM in international sales. I was wondering if your competitors are gaining ground in lucrative international markets while IBM sits on the sidelines. Or have you put off growing your busines...

If you are in Chicago (or can be) next week Thursday, November 5, a couple of really cool events are open to you -- free! The first is the IBM Innovation Center's tenth anniversary: The IBM Innovation Center in Chicago is hosting this open house event to celebrate its 10th anniversary. It will incl...

Imagine your friend or colleague opening their morning email today and finding out that they are the "IT Superstar of the Year". Now, IBM.com can help you recognize that contribution! Go here to start the recognition (and be sure to watch the resultant video all the way to the end): Link: IBM...

IBM and Canonical ramp up the message around the client for Smart Work...Citing recent Gartner research that said migration to Windows 7 could cost businesses around $2,000 per user due to new PC requirements, IBM said its Client for Smart Work package is geared to help companies save up to 50 perce...

and one more video today... a new IBM cloud advertisement. Specific mentions of email and collaboration -- woot! This one is running during the US Open......

In the coming weeks, IBM's marketing team is going to be driving messages about collaboration in a couple of different ways. The Lotus Knows campaign kickoff continues, with some great video submissions that will end up on lotusknows.com. Meanwhile, IBM's Smarter Planet initiative has picked up fo...

I haven't blogged before about the Java applets expiration issue for Domino servers. Basically, as has been reported on many other Lotus community blogs, the security certificate for some Java applets expires on May 18, 2009. Anyway, as per this technote, you can download the fixes from IBM Fix Ce...

Today, IBM announced the Smarter Work initiative, as part of the overall Smarter Planet theme. The press release and website tell the story -- and yes, the point is, that it's a story, a theme, a marketing message:You probably work a lot smarter today than you did twenty years ago, or ten years ago...

IBM's developerWorks website launched a new service today called my DeveloperWorks. The site provides aggregation of ibm.com social media tools for you as customers or business partners to use (or those IBMers who are reading as well!). It's nice to see that the announcement got some street cred i...

This is a pretty interesting project...IBM has built a virtual reality version of the Chinese Forbidden City, complete with hundreds of rooms, tour guides, and interactive activities. On April 28 and 29, IBM's John Tolva will host a backstage tour of the project and how it was built using SOA an...

This one tweeted out of the bag last night, and while we are still staging a few pages here and there, it's at least live enough to talk about. The IBM.com team approached me a few weeks ago and asked if I would be interested in adding a more personal connection on the product pages of the various...

For this week and the next three, my good friend and colleague Colleen Hayes is part of the IBM Service Corps initiative. She is in the Philippines for her assignment, and is blogging on ibm.com for the duration. While I am extremely frustrated that the site requires you to register in order to co...

Home from one trip, ready for the next. Next Saturday, March 28, I'll be speaking at the 3rd Conference on Students Global Competitiveness at Bowling Green State University, Ohio. The topic of the conference is "Social Networking for Good". Other speakers are from Yahoo! and Rootwork.org. I'm...

Of course you can -- in less than ten minutes, in fact. IBM is currently conducting a survey of customers around your experience with IBM electronic support and areas where we can improve the experience. The input from this survey will help with the overall initiative, which includes elements to...

This is cool -- part of the expansion of responsibilities I have as an IBM executive is to help carry our message to broader audiences. Later this week, the IBM Chicago Innovation Center is hosting a networking event where I'll speak on the topic of "What can collaboration and social networking do...

A project I have started to get involved with since moving back into product management...As I explained back in May, the Smart Cube appliance is not just a box with an operating system, but a box that has a consistent way of installing and maintaining software on the box and accessing remote servic...

A new announcement from IBM, Canonical, and Virtual Bridges today, covered by eWeek:Appealing to cost-constrained shops worldwide, IBM claims the virtual desktop will yield a 90 percent savings of desk-side PC support and 75 percent savings on security and user administration, not to mention 50 perc...

More proof that the App Store is the killer app component of the iPhone...Scientists studying the mobile web are seeding Apple's iPhone Applications Store with research projects in a bid to see how users in the real world take to them. The projects include an experimental text-input system and an ap...

Since I get asked about extst.ibm.com, a lot...There are a number of ways for customers and partners to exchange instant messages with IBM employees. Chris goes on to document the three ways: direct Sametime connectivity, Extranet Sametime service, and public instant messaging networks. He also hi...

IBM has, in the last couple of years, hosted several successful "Jams", engaging the global community in interactive brainstorming and discussion on great ideas for the future. The 2008 InnovationJam is coming up next week, with four key theme areas: Built for Change--Adapting to Thrive (Coll...

Many of you have heard about Project "Liberate", IBM's consulting team that can help you save costs on Microsoft licensing. If you haven't, you should, because they have helped companies to save billions of dollars in IT budget expenditures, as well as make strategic decisions about user segmentati...

In yesterday's post, "IBM doesn't suck at Twitter", I turned the discussion from an observation about IBM on Twitter into something bigger, about IBM in the overall market. The question posited is, especially to the vast majority of edbrill.com readers, who affiliate with the Lotus software brand,...

I was surprised to see IBM make this list:I write this post to simply call attention to brands and companies that are totally missing the boat and not listening on twitter where millions of conversations are happening everyday. Do companies think about or even care what people are saying about them,...

So, over the last few weeks, a number of my colleagues who work on Lotus products for IBM have decided to move on to new opportunities. Some have been publicly visible, because of blogging, tweeting, or whatever. Some have been quiet and behind the scenes. Either way, I've been asked a lot about...

Since the meme is going around.... Wordle was created by IBM researcher Jonathan Feinberg Very cool! Link: Make your own Wordle...

IBM has launched a single section of ibm.com to focus on IBM's green initiatives. Case studies, green solutions, and IBM's own efforts are featured, along with "PowerUp", the "Official Game of Earth Day 2008". See details at: Link: ibm.com/green...

IBM is making a pretty cool announcement in the morning, around a new initiative for IBMers to get involved in interesting projects in development markets. Called the Corporate Services Corps, the initial group of 100 -- selected from over 5000 IBMers who applied -- will be headed to countries like...

One of the concerns I have heard from the Lotus community is that IBM isn't doing enough to introduce students to IBM technologies. While this article from the Washington Post is not about IBM efforts specific to Lotus, it does highlight some of the work IBM is doing to introduce university student...

Very cool -- the NFL Media Portal, a site for over 3,500 journalists to access for stats, information, and resources, is an IBM project: Behind this dynamic NFL Web presence is IBM's industry top-ranked collaboration portal technology for corporate Web sites providing a personalized experience that...

Matt Asay catches one of the more interesting parts of yesterday's IBM pre-earnings announcement:For all the doom and gloom in technology spending in the United States and Western Europe, IBM's results suggest that there's a world of opportunity in emerging markets. ... For net new growth, however,...

Mary Beth Raven is posting on behalf of IBM's Information Development content team:We are looking to work with customers LIKE YOU on a regular basis to learn more about how you use (um, OR NOT...) our technical information (product help, information centers, training materials, release notes, and...

Earlier this morning, OpenOffice.org, Sun, and IBM announced IBM's participation in OpenOffice.org:The OpenOffice.org community today announced that IBM will be joining the community to collaborate on the development of OpenOffice.org software. IBM will be making initial code contributions that it h...

My colleague Adam Ginsburg alerts me to a now-in-beta update to WebSphere Portal....New features introduced in this WebSphere Portal V6.1 Beta 1 release include: - Simpler download/install - New Web 2.0 support to dramatically improve performance of the browser based user experience - New Site...

Yesterday's Times explored IBM's attitude towards vacations....It's every worker's dream: take as much vacation time as you want, on short notice, and don't worry about your boss calling you on it. Cut out early, make it a long weekend, string two weeks together -- as you like. No need to call in si...

Remember when in 2005 Ed wrote about IBM creating a blogging policy for employees? Some people found it odd, while some people found it industry leading. Many companies model their blogging guideliness after ours. Well love them or hate them, IBM has now created a similar set of guidelines for...

Yesterday, IBM announced unfettered access to any intellectual property relevant to over 150 software interoperability standards...he move, which IBM believes is the largest of its kind, is also designed to spur industry innovation, while discouraging litigation. The software specifications and pro...

The Wall Street Journal today featured several articles about social computing, including an overview of IBM's use of Web 2.0 technologies:Not at IBM. Despite its century-old roots and button-down East Coast tradition, IBM has leapt to Web 2.0 -- the latest incarnation of the Internet, in which user...

Alan Lepofsky directed me to the IBM software evaluation downloads, specifically to the top ten list: Interesting that the server is more popular than the client. Can't figure that one out....

Have I said that the attitudes in this space in IBM are changing?In a wide ranging keynote speech at the company's PartnerWorld conference, IBM Chairman and CEO Sam Palmisano predicted that the small to medium business market will become IBM's largest customer segment within five years. IBM defines...

A 60 day trial download of WebSphere Portal Express is now available from IBM developerWorks...Download a free trial version of IBM® WebSphere® Portal Express V6.0, which offers collaboration, document management, Web content management, presence awareness, and instant messaging in a single, easy-to...

The IBM PartnerWorld team has announced the winners of the 2007 Beacon Awards... Congratulations to PSC Group on winning the award for "Best Lotus Software Solution", and to finalists Instant Technologies and VDoc. Update: John Head has more information about PSC's win on his blog....

A good overview of how the business, culture, and results at IBM are changing. Good Lotus mentions, too. Read up: IBM Annual Report 2006...

Good case study covering WebSphere Portal, Quickplace, and an Exchange to Domino migration for 2000 users... "By relying on a complete platform from IBM, we've been able to eliminate our reliance on Microsoft Exchange," Vázquez explains. "As a result, ARPEL has reduced its software licensing costs b...

which, I think, means I should go to bed.... (BOF508 - Swan Hotel, Parrot room, 7 AM)...

Earlier this week, IBM and Yahoo! announced IBM OmniFind Yahoo! Edition, a no-charge entry-level easy-to-use enterprise search tool. The Yahoo! search blog says this:IBM OmniFind Yahoo! Edition which we believe will enable employees, partners or customers to find answers that they know are sitting...

I guess I should have anticipated this would happen eventually. Yesterday, I received an invite for a conference call with some other IBMers at 8 PM Eastern Standard Time. Taking calls late or early isn't uncommon in a worldwide sales role -- I occasionally speak with colleagues in Germany or Aust...

What a cool site! IBM has consolidated all of the videos, podcasts, and product demonstrations from across Software Group into one site. Click through on the banner, click "Select a topic" in the upper left, choose a topic, and go! Much easier way to navigate versus the individual product section...

I The new issue of IBM Research's Systems Journal features ten in-depth articles on innovations and trends in business collaboration. The authors are IBM's expert researchers, engineers, architects, and designers who have been focused on collaborative technologies for several years. If you've eve...

Next week, I'll be in Europe for a couple of days, including a pretty cool event being organized by e-office in Maarssen, Netherlands. I'm just starting to work on the first half of my presentation -- a 45-minute historical review of the history of Lotus Notes. Clearly, I'll be drawing on the "His...

I'm not commenting on the IBM earnings report itself (IBM policy) -- but an interesting quote inside a financial analyst's analysis...As we file this report from Shanghai, China, we can also add that Websphere, Tivoli and Lotus are becoming a defacto standard in web-based applications design, based...

Something really cool out of IBM research, called MASTOR. Looks like the babelfish in your ear is becoming reality on the battlefield...When used in Iraq, Mastor will act as an automated bi-directional, English-to-Iraqi Arabic translator capable of translating more than 50,000 English words and 100...

More coverage of the 7.0.2 announcement from this week...Don't expect IBM to create the next MySpace or YouTube. However, it looks like this corporate IT giant is starting to use some of the dazzle of Web 2.0 -- such as blogs, community and RSS. ... I interviewed Chris Heidelberger, the CEO of Nexa...

The new version of the product formerly known as IBM Workplace Designer is now available for beta download. Chris Reckling explains the name change:it didn't make sense any more to call it Workplace Designer, even though I liked that name, because now it supports deployment to WebSphere Portal and...

A little bit of a departure for a Redbook...some focus on business and architecture, not just the how-to. Apparently quite a popular download already...The goal of this IBM Redbook is to provide a technical planning reference for IT organizations large or small that are now considering a migration...

In what should help with all those articles about how trendy it is for corporates to be blogging, IBM now has an IBM Blogroll on ibm.com. IBMers that want to be included can register via w3. (Via Andy Piper)...

Based on feedback from the Lotus blogging community, the registration process that had been required in order to view the demo of the Lotus Notes access for SAP Solutions feature has been removed. I realize that workaround instructions had been published, but now for anyone hitting IBM's website di...

Speaking of podcasts, check out Alan's IBM Shortcuts podcast this week -- on the value of archiving e-mail and how to automate it....

IBM has agreed to acquire content-management software maker FileNet for about $1.6 billion in cash, the companies said Thursday. IBM said that it will integrate FileNet's products with its own content-management software developed in its Information Management division, which is led by general man...

Wild Bill is still a leader in the "funniest birthday greeting" contest, but Mac Guidera is in contention, too. Mac sent me an e-card, via the IBM intranet. The service even has a time-delay sending feature. Who knew?...

IBM has posted Shortcuts #2 on ibm.com. This week's tip is from Notes/Domino Program Director Penny Scharfman, with tips on using instant messaging and a discussion of IM confidentiality. As an aside, I don't know what technology we're using on the Shortcuts site, but what a refreshing change of...

A new podcast and interactive forum is now available at ibm.com/shortcuts, designed to share key knowledge between IBM technology experts and audiences worldwide. At four minutes long, each show delivers the latest technology tips, tools and tricks -- end-user oriented, presented in simple and qui...

Earlier today, IBM announced a new model for per-processor licensing called "processor value units". Processor Value Unit details are found on IBM.com's Passport Advantage website. In a nutshell, instead of licensing IBM software server products on a per-processor basis, they will be licensed base...

I was out at a customer briefing this morning with Tim Thatcher, the Director of Workplace and Portal products. He used a phrase in describing Notes that I hadn't ever heard before, but I really liked it. He said most Notes customers use Notes as a platform for "situational applications" -- qu...

My colleague Thomas Coustenoble alerted me to a French-language web TV site, all about IBM software (with a significant focus on Lotus). Je ne parle pas français, but if you do, get yourself over to www.softwaretv.com ...

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IBM has announced a series of more than 75 WebSphere Portal live events coming up in the next couple of months. The website makes the agenda slightly hard to find -- you have to click your city first, then click the agenda listing. At any rate, for deep dive detail on the upcoming WebSphere Po...

Ed's note: I offered Bob Balaban some guest blogging space here after the recent discussion on Notes "Hannover" and the place Java plays in that story. I often turn to Bob for insight from a developer/partner/consultant's point of view, especially since he's had a few years of outsider-looking...

The IBM System i5 team has put together some background information on why the combination of Lotus Domino and IBM System i5 is a better alternative than Exchange "12" for current Microsoft customers...With the increasing need for round-the-clock access, many companies are looking for improvemen...

More good news....IBM announced last week the awarding of a state-wide contract for e-mail and collaboration in the State of Texas...Initially 13 state agencies, representing 65,000 seats, signed a letter of intent to participate in this agreement and have been actively involved throughout the...

IBM's 2005 annual report is out, and with it is a 40-page booklet called, "It's a great time to be an innovator". There's a cool flash version of this booklet available online. Really nice stuff, very forward-thinking and forward-looking. One of the case studies profiled in the booklet i...

I was asked recently whether there are a lot of Domino customers taking advantage of the WebSphere Application Server limited entitlement that has been part of the Domino 6 and 7 license. I had to say that honestly, I don't know the answer -- I certainly remember the decision-making that lead...

Last night, I had the pleasure of being a guest speaker/lecturer at DePaul University. My colleague Heather McClain, who works in IBM's academic initiative area, introduced me to Professor Alan Burns last month. He teaches a class in Knowledge Management Systems, and asked me if I could vis...

As many of you know, my work environment is such that when I'm not travelling to customers or conferences, I work from my residence. This home office setup has been in place for over five years, through four different jobs within IBM Lotus. While I realize it doesn't work as a work style for...

Good interview with Chris Lamb covering what exactly SOA is, how WebSphere Portal does it, and why Domino customers should care.David: How does all of this relate to Domino and Notes. What's the tie in? Chris: Well, many of our customers have deployed hundreds or thousands of critical applic...

More coverage of IBM's press/analyst event this week .One IBM customer on hand to lend its support to the advancement of new social networking applications was investment bank Morgan Stanley, which said that it is testing tools meant to help its employees communicate more effectively while keepi...

Unfortunately I wasn't able to make it to a press event which IBM software held earlier this week, entitled "The future of social networks". David Weinberger did, though, and has a very detailed writeup:They're talking about 1) Social Nets Analytics, a "solution" [yech, I hate that term -- Wha...

The Home Depot, the World's largest home improvement retailer, operating more than 1900 stores across North America, [will] discuss how they are utilizing leading edge Intranet Technology to gain efficiencies throughout their enterprise with their adoption and incorporation of IBM's Websphere Po...

I was reminded early this morning of a pretty cool section of ibm.com. I commonly receive questions from customers and partners regarding the license terms for Lotus Notes/Domino. As it happens, there is an online IBM Software license agreements web application, of course built in Domino. Ev...

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IBM announced Wednesday that it has launched the latest version of its WebSphere portal software for customers using its mainframe and midrange server hardware. The launch marks the progression of IBM's newest portal tools, first introduced at the end of 2004, into its widely used zSeries an...

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BusinessWeek just recently published a ranking of the 100 best global brands. IBM clocks in at #3, just behind Coca-Cola and Microsoft. The IBM brand is valued at $53.4 billion dollars. More interesting, IBM's brand value represents 44% of IBM's market capitalization...double the brand val...

IBM announced the System z9 109 this morning -- up to 54-way processors, up to half a terrabyte of RAM. It seems that small countries could run their computing needs on this one box...sweet! What's even cooler is how IBM is embracing social software paradigms for this announcement. Bloggi...

Was it a dream? IBM announces acquisition of PureEdge Solutions. Good stuff. Coverage in CRN:Plans call for IBM to integrate PureEdge's e-forms functionality into IBM Workplace and Lotus products, IBM executives said. Interoperability between the higher-level PureEdge forms and the nati...

My colleague Michael O'Connell writes:It's nice to see some validation that IBM's emphasis on open standards is yielding compelling competitive advantages. A just-published developer productivity study, which the Branham Group independently verified and certified, concludes that IBM has a sig...

September 19-21, 2005, in Las Vegas....Whether you are just getting started with your Portal implementation, or are looking for the latest technical updates, directions and recommended practices, you will find it at this conference. Select from approximately 100 unique sessions designed to provi...

Ken Bisconti interviewed in this article about UNICCO's adoption of WebSphere Portal:"When some people first see a portal, they think, oh, I get it, a portal is just sort of a dashboard where you pull some stuff together, and manage the integration of some different Web sites or disparate Web co...

Really good insights from IBM Fellow Grady Booch on several topics, including blogging....InfoWorld: What is your take on blogging and where that's going? Booch: Ninety percent of everything is crap, so there are several million bloggers in this world and there's a lot of really interesting...

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This morning, IBM has unveiled a big internal initiative around blogging. While there are already hundreds of IBMers blogging, both on the internet as well as IBM's internal w3, today's announcement is designed to take that effort to the next level. From Christopher Barger's internal announcem...

Early next week IBM will introduce what could be the largest corporate blogging initiative so far, in a bid to encourage any of its 320,000 staff to become more active in online tech communities. The world's largest computer company has prepared a broad range of programs and online materials...

Firefox is already used by about 10 percent of IBM's staff, or about 30,000 people. Starting Friday, IBM workers can download the browser from internal servers and get support from the company's help desk staff. ... For IBM, the move is a significant step in lessening dependence on a product f...

A press release issued earlier today by Gartner on the Application Integration and Middleware software industry segment:IBM again had a commanding lead in the worldwide AIM industry with 37.2 percent market share in 2004 (see Table 1). IBM was the market leader in application servers, portals,...

Brian Benz alerted me to CRN's coverage of IBM Partnerworld, which took place earlier this week. Specifically, (emphasis mine): IBM has quietly begun an overhaul of its online partner relationship management systems.... To make it easier for IBM Business Partners to find each other, IBM is co...

IBM has announced that iEnterprises is the winner of the "Best Lotus Software Solution" IBM PartnerWorld Beacon Award. Congratulations to them, as well as finalists Collaborative Learning Network and ThroughboxIT....

IBM's Dirk Nicol was interviewed for this article...This is the new locus of interaction that IBM Workplace is designed to address: It is designed to function not only as a collaboration platform, but as a collaborative application development platform in which new solutions from the entire rang...

Hah, Rob beat Bruce by 3.3%!!!I didn't believe it, based on my experience for a little over 2 years with WebSphere Portal Express. In 2003, it took me almost 100 hours to get that going. It was a monster. Then it was 30 hours, and finally with the latest shipping version I got it down to about ...

Bruce Elgort reports:Tonight I spent 30 minutes, yes only 30 minutes installing the IBM Workplace Services Express software that we received at Lotusphere. I setup the software on a PC with 2GB of RAM, a 2.8GHZ AMD 64 bit processor and a fast 80gb IDE hard drive. ... Oh and did I mention th...

An IBM Workplace Services Express story...Designed in August last year and going live in December, Wattyl has become one of the first companies in the world to implement IBM's Workplace Services Express collaboration platform, according to IBM. "We love Workplace's flexibility," Hough said. "...

A 29,000 user deployment of IBM Workplace...As part of a three-year rollout, SFSU will bring unified e-mail, calendaring, group collaboration, and Web conferencing to students, faculty, and staff. Students, faculty, and staff will get customized portals when they log in. For instance, faculty wi...

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[In case y'all thought I was stuck in a competitive groove....] Paul Robichaux, who writes a column for Exchange&Outlook update and blogs at Exchange Security, wrote about his experience attempting to buy IBM Workplace in order to evaluate it. He documents three problems with his exper...

I linked to it yesterday, but here it is again: IBM Workplace Services Express demo. Why post it again? Because two people have pinged me within the last two hours to say "the UI for WSE rocks!" (well, ok, that's paraphrased). That's not normally the first thing people notice about IBM soft...

Is the IBM WebSphere product family unnecessarily complex? If you listen to the competitors the answer is a resounding yes. But the reasons for this complexity and the impact on users are less clear. A common explanation is that the complexity means that IBM sells lots of consultancy to help imp...

Some links: IBM Workplace Services Express product home page IBM Workplace Services Express Flash demo CNET coverage:On Tuesday, IBM said that its Workplace Services Express offering, a package designed for quick installation at smaller organizations, will be available at the end of...

Earlier today, IBM made several announcements, including the introduction of IBM Workplace Services Express. The announcement also included the release of WebSphere Portal 5.1 and introduction of several Workplace solutions. Workplace Services Express is a major announcement. This new offer...

Well, now the analyst-report-shoe is on the other foot. Let's say upfront, This report was developed by Robert Frances Group, Inc. with IBM assistance and funding. This report may utilize information, including publicly available data, provided by various companies and sources, including IBM. T...

From Internetnews:In a press statement, IBM detailed three new Express offerings to help SMBs connect normally walled off, siloed processes and applications using collaboration tools that let employees share data and documents in real time, a hallmark of on-demand computing as the Armonk, N.Y. c...

IBM Response to Study "Comparing Microsoft .NET and IBM WebSphere/J2EE" I posted the public version of this document in the Lotus Partner Forum last week... now it looks like WebSphere Journal has picked it up...The latest Middleware Company study is flawed and does not accurately reflect the...

An upcoming roadshow in the US provides an update on IBM Workplace. Details are here on lotus.com Locations: Cambridge - November 3rd Philadelphia - November 3rd San Francisco - November 3rd Cincinnati - November 4th Indianapolis - November 9th Seattle - November 9th Calgary -...

Several of my colleagues have published one of the first books from the new IBM Press line: IBM WebSphere and Lotus: Implementing Collaborative Solutions. The book describes the designs and features of IBM/Lotus collaborative systems such as Web Conferencing, Instant Messaging, Lotus Workplace,...

An article about the industry focus across IBM Software Group. One example of how it has paid off:The city of Windsor, Ontario, used IBM's Cityscape Portal Solution-City Edition to build a community portal. IBM developed the package with its WebSphere Portal and Lotus Collaboration products suc...

An article from about a week ago, authored by Irene Greif of IBM Research. The article examines trends and technologies in future collaboration applications:Increased online communication can translate into problems for both knowledge workers (such as increased demands on employees' attention)...

An unprecedented examination of the IBM software success story. Steve Mills and all his direct reports are interviewed -- I can't remember the last time any publication was given that kind of access for one story. That alone should send a clear signal of how important the application developer...

I was at my mom's house earlier tonight, and found an old file from college job recruiting days. It included a lot of letters like this one:March 8, 1990 Dear Mr. Brill: Thank you for the time you spent interviewing with us. Our discussion of your interests, education and experience hel...

An interview with Thomas Schaeck, WebSphere Portal Architect:Q: What trends are you seeing in the enterprise portal development? A: The early portal products were pretty much focused on providing aggregated information and applications to users. We can now see a shift toward more advanced wo...

New IBM General Manager of Global Business Partners Donn Atkins Tuesday said that VARs should not expect any significant changes in the wake of IBM's sudden management shakeup. "Our partners should not expect to see any radical changes here," said Atkins in a conference call after being named...

San Francisco: October 4 - 8, 2004 Munich: November 29 - December 3, 2004 Not sure if I'll make either one -- the first two days of the SF event are the same as Lotus-focused Admin&Developer UK 2004, in London, which I've already agreed to speak at.......

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Many years ago, I can remember reading a fascinating article in Wired magazine about Cyberjaya, a project Malaysia was developing to build a high-tech city out of old farmland and forest. I hadn't given it a thought since that mid-1997 article was published, at least not until the taxi ride to...

One of the nice bits I picked up this morning was awareness of this new messaging-focused content site from TechWeb. Messaging Pipeline promises to be a useful bookmark, er, newsletter, er, are you guys going to add an RSS feed? Anyway, one of the stories present there now is David DeJean's...

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Vacation meant missing John Fontana's take on the IBM Workplace announcement...IBM last week made a brash move onto the desktop with the introduction of middleware designed to give corporations alternatives to Microsoft. It also provides the flexibility to run component-based software without sa...

"Analysts recognize that companies have had these proprietary application stacks that become unwieldy and unmanageable. So they started to get tiered architectures and integrate their business applications so they talk to each other, and that's empowering. But they've done that at the sacrifice...

Lest anyone accuse me of only blogging the stories that have taken a pro-Workplace stance...But whether IBM's plans will end Microsoft's dominance of the desktop anytime soon is unlikely, industry observers say. Considering that there are already desktop suite alternatives, such as OpenOffice, a...

New on the IBM Workplace "landing page", my take on the competitive landscape for IBM Workplace."We've created an entire platform that has all of our collaboration capabilities available as components," says Brill. "For organizations that adopt the platform, deployment becomes a simple matter of...

Several "day two" stories are appearing, with more analysis and perspective. Technology News, IBM Debuts New Workplace Middleware:There was some industry speculation that the new strategy and software from IBM -- which includes new Lotus Workplace software for collaboration, messaging and docu...

It was tough to make heads or tails out of IBM's big software strategy announcement on MondayA three sentence blog-style entry which then tries to explain the IBM announcement and MS's position relative to it. I'll leave it up to you to decide if it was "tough" or not. Link: Microsoft Watch:...

I don't write the quotes, I just point 'em out....Michael D. Osterman, president and founder of Osterman Research in Black Diamond, Wash., said that for him, the two most striking aspects of Workplace 2.0 are its increased flexibility and its potential to lower the total cost of ownership (TCO)....

I only have about five minutes before boarding my flight to Boston, so this is really quick. Had a great launch event in Chicago this morning. Weather tried to ruin us -- keynote speaker Ken Bisconti couldn't make it in from New York last night, so he and demo manager George Brichacek caught a...

Worth identifying this one specifically, as it's the first one I've seen resulting from the press conference in NY:IBM's Workplace Client Technology, first discussed in January at IBM's Lotusphere show and due out this quarter, is an Eclipse-based platform that places on client devices a WebSphe...

eWeek, IBM Unveils Server-Based Software Model:IBM on Monday unveiled a new server-based software model designed to lessen enterprises' reliance on desktop applications such as Microsoft Office, while easing application management and making platform choice irrelevant. The new model supports...

This website makes no guarantees as to the accuracy of pre-announcement coverage ;). I'll be happy to provide not-for-publication answers/comments later in the day.... Reuters: IBM said on Monday it will launch software for running applications over far-flung networks and devices, its latest...

International Business Machines has raised the stakes in its battle with Microsoft by developing a software technology that would allow large corporations to bypass Microsoft operating systems and applications on PCs or handheld computers. ... Companies adopting the IBM software would be able t...

An update to WebSphere Portal Application Intergrator shipped last week....The update adds more than a dozen new portlets, most of them for SAP AG's Manager Self-Service product, an IBM spokeswoman said. It is also easier to use than the previous version, and lets users add instant messaging and...

CRN weighs in on anticipated IBM software news ...The underlying infrastructure that IBM is expected to outline remains Java-centric, with WebSphere Application and Portal Server as well as SyncML-based, bidirectional synchronization and replication designed to move data efficiently between serv...

I like this story a lot. It covers a WebSphere Portal (Express, presumably) deployment to a very small business -- a medical office. And by using it, they've documented increased "patient load" (I assume this would be "customers" in other industries) and revenue. The cost: $14,000. Not too sh...

Well, admittedly, it's no Lotusphere, but next week is the IBM Content Management and WebSphere Portal conference here in Chicago. I'll be at the conference for most of the day on Monday and Tuesday. On Tuesday morning, I'll be presenting a version of my Boss Loves Microsoft: Where does that...

CRN: How do you manage the challenge of going into vertical-market segments? It makes sense at first, but if you peel it back, you have maybe five major product groups, and each of the five has 20 products, and now each will get vertical spins. It's very complex. Mills: The divisions are not s...

From ibm.com/investor: IBM Software business grew 11% overall Lotus revenue was up 15% for the quarter Notes/Domino grew 12% for the quarter, "reflecting continued demand for our Notes-based collaborative software" Lotus Workplace added approximately 150 new customers, for a total of 320 We...

(Adopts Casey Kasem voice): And the awards just keep on comin'.... Sometimes, the hardest task that a software company can face is to improve an already strong and market-leading product. With WebSphere Portal 5.0, IBM has met this challenge, vastly improving its enterprise portal application wh...

My colleague Monsieur Joel Demay has announced the creation of WebSphere Portal Notepad, a blog focused on, obviously, WebSphere Portal. Joel set it up, but has designed the blog to be a group effort, with "postings from many key contributors in the portal space." Check it out!...

eWeek has announced their Excellence Awards finalists. The winners will be published in the April 5, 2004 issue of the magazine. In the "Portals & Knowledge Management" category, IBM WebSphere Portal 5.0 is a finalist, up against Microsoft's "Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 with Wind...

As part of my training class this week, we attended a presentation last night from Ted Childs, who is IBM Vice President, Global Workforce Diversity. He spoke to our class for three and a half hours without a break -- and nobody moved. It was a fascinating look at how IBM has changed, but bee...

This review was published in Infoworld in October, 2003, and I linked to it (mainly without comment) at that time. Interestingly, it took a competitor's e-mail to draw my attention back to it. In early February, Infoworld reviewed Plumtree's portal. Plumtree then issued a press release to co...

Discussion of a new movement to enhance SMTP with something called SPF (sender policy format). Also discusses other research efforts around spam... IBM Research is currently developing a spam filter that has been nearly 100 percent effective at catching spam, Wegman said. The filter takes into a...

This is actually a pretty important article -- it covers in a fair bit of detail the major changes that have recently taken place in the IBM Software Group's market execution. Especially good for business partners to get background on how to shape their businesses going forward. Q&A, this...

Infoworld has published a very good review of the portal market, and how it has evolved away from the late '90s view of portal as super-aggregator to something more useful for managing business interactions and processes....And how does the world's largest software company fit into the portal pi...

e-Pro reports that WebSphere Application Server v6 early release (i.e. beta) code is now available on IBM Developerworks. Link: e-Pro Magazine: Developers, get your copy of WebSphere Application Server V6 now Link: IBM Developerworks: WebSphere Application Server Technology for Developers V6 ...

In open defiance of an established cliche, IBM Research is thinking inside the box -- the e-mail in-box, that is. And the results may one day be a breath of fresh air for every over-stuffed and unorganized e-mail client in corporate America. IBM's Collaborative User Experience (CUE) team is tw...

The On Demand Innovation Center had previously existed as a WebSphere demonstration center, but has now expanded to include IBM's other software technology such as Lotus Workplace as part of the company's "On Demand" strategy, said Robert Sutor, director of WebSphere infrastructure software.Shor...

In the next major release of the Rational tools suite, due next year, IBM will link the Rational tools with its WebSphere application server, which is used to run Java applications, and with its Tivoli systems management product, said Mike Devlin, general manager of IBM's Rational division. T...

This article has been out for a few weeks, but it just crossed my desk today. Some fascinating work going on in IBM labs, and it's so rare we hear about it all.That's right, folks, IBM has finally come up with a product that can spot the difference between rutabaga and arugula. IBM's chief frui...

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A blurb on new features in WebSphere Portal 5.0.2, including new file import/export capabilities, an application integrator tool, and some Lotus Workplace Web Content Management. Also some "momentum" numbers around additional portlets and ISVs building for WebSphere Portal. Link: eWeek: IBM...

From May 23 to 31, 2004, how would you like to join a boat full of geeks in learning about Web Services, on a journey between New York and the Eastern Caribbean? The mental image of a bunch of y'all on the sun deck, well.......someone must be interested, right? Produced by IBM/Developerworks,...

Dated November 6, 2003. I don't know much about this, but it sounds interesting...US information technology giant IBM and Chinese software firm Kingsoft yesterday formed an alliance to develop office software for different operating systems, which will become a huge help for the latter to chall...

Ah, it's finally in print...I.B.M. is trying it itself. About 15,000 workers use Linux desktops, mostly software developers and researchers. By the end of the first quarter of next year, I.B.M. plans to increase the number of Linux desktops to 30,000 as sales, marketing and administrative worker...

IBM announced Wednesday a host of new content management products, including new software for small to medium-size businesses and Linux shops as well as new content management integration offerings and records management product enhancements. ...Other new products include a DB2 Content Manager...

What a brouhaha! I never said this. Here's what actually happened: On Oct 17, at a conference in Berlin for VC's, CEO's and entrepreneurs, I was on a panel on the subject of Linux and Open Source. The other panelists were the CEO's of MySQL, SuSE, and Trolltech. A number of conference a...

Nice hands-on review of WebSphere Portal 5: Although WebSphere Portal competes in a crowded market, its performance, enterprise focus, usability enhancements, and open standards make it a strong challenger to more established products. More ...

Revenues from Software increased 11 percent (5 percent at constant currency) to $3.5 billion compared with the prior year's third quarter. Middleware brands, which include WebSphere and DB2 product families as well as Rational, Tivoli and Lotus products, experienced revenue growth of 14 percent...

I know this is not a major technology innovation, but it's just another one of those cool things that technology can do. My home office phone is a plain old telephone service line, no fancy options, just a second number coming into the house. Last week, I filled out a form on the IBM intranet p...

I'm posting this mainly so all of those people who googled here last week on "attal leaving IBM" will have something to hit: Score one for Gateway. The struggling hardware company this week snatched away longtime IBM executive Jocelyne Attal to head its nascent SMB efforts. From Varbusiness....

Sifting through the weekend e-mail... a note announces the upcoming dates for the IBM e-Business on Demand: Competitive Technical Briefings. A version of this roadshow has been around for a couple of years, but I've only been involved with it in the last few months. The content is really soli...

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