Ed Brill

A good case study on Catholic Charities Minneapolis/St. Paul and their use of Domino + Quickplace on IBM System i for 700 users plus an extranet...For example, IBM helped Catholic Charities develop card technology to assist thousands of homeless reclaim their identity. Known as the Community Card pr...

So last week's posting about an Exchange migration certainly stirred up a lot of commentary.... and it went in a lot of different directions. One of the more common thoughts was that Notes needs to be able to demonstrate more "out of the box" value....things you can do with Notes not just in abstra...

Congratulations are in order for Chris Reckling on his promotion to Manager, Product Design, Lotus software. In announcing his new role, Chris has posted an interesting rear view of his years in product management...ah, memory lane. Chris has always been one of the most customer-focused product pe...

eWeek is celebrating their 25th anniversary by highlighting the top 25 products that defined personal computing over that 25 years. Lotus has two products on that list -- 1-2-3 and Lotus Notes. Great acknowledgement of the role Notes has played -- and plays -- in defining collaboration and knowled...

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...

The number of Americans who work during their vacations has nearly doubled in the last decade, with the laptop computer replacing the cellular phone as the most useful tool for working on holiday. Some 43 percent of office workers said they work on vacation, compared with 23 percent in a survey tak...

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...

This one came my way on Friday, giving me a couple of days to get the story from the IBM side. Can't really discuss that here, but we can discuss the article itself....Accountancy group PKF Australia has started migrating its 800 or so users from IBM's Lotus Notes collaboration platform to rival Mi...

Jeff starts on the FAQ for Notes Hannover, including what is increasingly becoming the worst-kept secret at IBM...Currently, there is no official number assigned to Hannover or Domino Next because any numbering and naming has to clear lengthy legal hurdles. But, between you and me, the number is li...

Reading Chicago Tribune coverage almost makes me homesick.... LOLWhen IBM introduced a version of Lotus Notes that runs on the desktop computers using the Linux operating system this month, it was a sign of confidence that open-source software is gaining market traction. Lotus Notes, the popular co...

Well someone jumped the gun around here, again, but since it's officially available on Monday, there's not much harm in congratulating Chris Whisonant on being the first blogger to write about Notes on Linux. I especially laughed at how he filled out his usual "Now playing" field: Now Playing: "Hal...

I'm headed out on a few days' vacation. The struggle for the last ten days has been deciding whether I need to bring the laptop or not. In the end, the laptop is coming with me. Why? The line between work and personal continues to blur. IBMers joke half-kiddingly about "working vacations". Wh...

Please welcome Lotus Notes Chief Architect Jeff Eisen to the blogosphere. Hurrah! I've been after Jeff to do this for months, for several reasons. One, there's nobody better to talk about "Hannover" in the blog world. Jeff has already engaged in discussions on several blog sites with good insigh...

First leaked in 2000, Microsoft still can't decide what the story is around moving Exchange to SQL Server. It's on, it's off, it's committed, it's not. And for sure, it's a point where Microsoft's spokespeople are particularly defensive:"As we plan the next version of Exchange [currently code-...

I was in the city the other day (translation = Chicago) for a customer meeting. While distracted by the quest to see low-numbered taxicabs (referenced in Sunday's entry), I couldn't help but notice an advertisement atop one of the taxis for a website called www.seektheguru.com. It sort of register...

InfoWorld's Oliver Rist takes a look at how Microsoft's delays ultimately impact the customer..mentioning Vista, Expressions, Visual Studio, and Exchange:The problem is that Redmond is dictating a 64-bit-only future for pretty much all of its back-server products once Longhorn sees daylight. I'm fin...

Charles recently started blogging, and one of his first entries explains his passion around Domino:As my applications became more complex I started hitting walls. Debugging Lotus Connectors was difficult and frustrating, and the documentation was atrocious. New features in Domino, such as policies a...

A comment made by Domino agent guru Julie Kadashevich in the Lotus Partner Forum prompted me to take another look at her Lotusphere 2006 presentation. What's the news? Wow, I had no idea -- what Julie is saying is that the Out-of-the-Office process in "Hannover" will provide instant response to...

Two more articles about the Lotus Notes for Linux announcement that are making the rounds, both by InfoWorld's Neil McAllister: Infoworld, Lotus Notes on Linux: Time to bite?:We're seeing the begininng of a concerted effort on the part of companies like IBM and Novell to challenge Windows for a pie...

David Vasta announces:On August 22, we will hold a special event in Denver. All day you will be able to receive hands-on education on some of the newest Lotus products. After the Open Labs session, please plan to attend the User Group meeting featuring Ed Brill.My first visit to Denver in 20 years.....

An updated beta of Sametime 7.5 has now been posted...UI has even more cleanup, and everything just feels a lot smoother than earlier betas. Check it out.... (Thanks, Stu)...

The Chicago Tribune was a better wakeup this morning than my usual Diet Coke...in covering yesterday's G-8 talks, they actually published the exact quote of where the leader of this country used the word "shit". OMG! But since the traditional media can't possibly be relaxed about everyday langua...

Former colleague/boss and occasional poker night host Scott Prather has entered the blogosphere, and his first two posts are going to get people talking... Too fast of a moving target, on the topic of the Notes 7.0.2 "Nomad" feature:I still question the usefulness of the entire client since the do...

So I haven't been writing about personal stuff much lately, but even a hot summer weekend doesn't get much better than this one was. Some of the highlights: Being able to walk (well, Megan rode her bike) down the street to hear the Midwest Young Artists perform an outdoor summer concert on the hi...

Federal Computer Week is reporting on a US Department of Defense contract for collaboration services...The Defense Information Systems Agency awarded the first of two Net-Centric Enterprise Services (NCES) collaboration services contracts to IBM in a $17 million deal that calls for the company to pr...

InternetNews writes about the upcoming Exchange 2007 release and it's 64-bit architecture. This quote from Gartner's John Enck is what got my attention:"The average server lifecycle is between three to five years, anyway," he said. "By the time you go from one [software] release to the next...

There's been some blogosphere discussion in the last week about the best way to help bloggers survive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. A couple of bloggers have proposed the concept of a Distributed Guarantee of Service (DGoS), and even started a project around DGoS over at SourceForge...

A number of customers have been given access to Notes/Domino 7.0.2 beta 1, including Declan Lynch. In the first of several updates, he looks at the "Nomad" feature for carrying a mobile user's Notes install on a USB memory stick:Nomad really does do as it was designed to do. A truly portable insta...

Stu Downes has written an excellent article about the upcoming blogging feature in Domino 7.0.2, and the role Domino could play in enterprise blogging. He answers questions: Who will use it? How will IT departments manage blogs? Is Domino the right platform?Good article, check it out. To answer o...

When I got into marketing years ago, my then-manager and still Loti Jeanette Barlow was fond of saying "simplify and amplify". I'm not sure we're always keeping that in mind, but sometimes it works. The Notes on Linux announcement earlier this week was a great example. "IBM is releasing Notes on...

Remember how cool the launch ad for Notes/Domino 7 was? Well, the IBM software advertising magicians have done it again, now with Sametime 7.5... (If you sign into Flickr, you can view this in different sizes) Some details over on Adam Gartenberg's blog as well. Blast off!...

John Head is 32 today, I think he finally started shaving... Happy birthday, John!...

Product manager David Marshak discusses the extensibility model for IBM Lotus Sametime 7.5...In addition to the existing SameTime client toolkits (C++, Java), IBM is adding another Java toolkit that allows developers to take their Eclipse plug-ins and access the other services that exist within Same...

Kansas City hey hey hey hey... The first technical training event focused exclusively on Lotus Sametime and Lotus Quickplace was announced yesterday. Collaboration University will feature expert IBM and industry speakers, covering deep technical information on these two products. This is defin...

Well that felt pretty good....yesterday's announcement of Lotus Notes for Linux seems to have created quite a buzz, both externally and inside IBM. The blog got slashdotted again, though one of the links posted was to Notes "Hannover" screenshots as opposed to the 7.0.x work...ah well. That actual...

Well the news was embargoed until two minutes ago (EDT), and CRN already has posted their story, so seeing as how I've been doing some of the press interviews on this, I might as well write about it.... On Monday, IBM is officially announcing Lotus Notes for Linux. A Notes 7 client running on a L...

While clearly evaluating beta software, Bartercard has some basic challenges with the notion of there being value in planning an upgrade to Office 2007. According to CIO Jason Van:Van was critical of Office 2007, which he said did not have a major feature that is attractive to the company. "I don'...

Well, not me personally...but for those consultants, business partners, systems integrators, and groupies who are... welcome to Lotus's home town! My colleagues and I would like to invite you to a special hometown-crowd reception on Tuesday night. I wish I could be there -- to talk shop, to exp...

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My friends in marketing have published a 4-page brochure covering the new Notes/Domino features coming in 7.0.2... Downloadable from ibm.com here Beta of 7.0.2 started earlier this week. About 400 beta customers participating. I know some of you have asked me specifically about beta in the...

Another Loti enters the blog world...Adam is the offerings manager (what most other companies call a "brand manager") for Lotus realtime solutions, e.g. Lotus Sametime. Visit his PSC-hosted blog at www.adamgartenberg..com Welcome, Adam!...

My friend and colleague Tim Clark has been brainstorming some lab ideas for, well, this big conference that takes place in Florida every January...If there was a conference where you could take part in some hands on labs of a software nature, what would you want to see it look like. Not what co...

Merriam-Webster announced one hundred new words just added to the dictionary...Respectful of the trademark, Merriam-Webster lowercases the entry but maintains the capitalization while explaining that the verb means "to use the Google search engine" to retrieve online information. "We're definin...

InfoWorld's Ephraim Schwartz talked recently with IBM's David Marshak....I wanted to know what's next: How will IM's collaborative capabilities be extended once the enterprise adopts it? Marshak envisions what he calls the "extension model," which will allow companies to broaden the IM para...

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Sorry for a bit of radio silence...four-day weekend for some of us state-side as we celebrate, in my daughter's words, "it's America's birthday ... we get to eat cupcakes!" Anyway, one of the geek things I've gotten around to this weekend is looking at Google Trends. Several of you have se...

Earlier today, Dell Inc. Japan announced several Notes/Domino-related service offerings. My colleague Terasaki-san sent the release (in Japanese), along with a machine translation provided by Excite. The translation indicates that Dell-J's new offerings are: "Domino to Domino migration serv...

Stan Rogers : Gobsmacked...

As a follow-up to Wednesday's Notes "Hannover" usability blog about locking the Notes client, Mary Beth Raven wrote:here's what we've decided: 1. We want to give you configurable function keys but can't fit it in with all the other things for Hannover. So we're taking note for a future relea...