Ed Brill

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1. 1  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 7/14/2008 7:28:43 AM

   I'm eager to hear about the battery implications of EAS Push mail. If they are in fact using the EAS push protocol, as Bob Congdon stated on my blog, then battery life should be taking a big penalty.

1. 2  Henry Ferlauto http://www.geniusinside.com | 7/14/2008 8:27:28 AM

   Apple is going to start becoming like McDonalds in the 70's and 80's when the sign said how many millions and then later on billions were served.

   Apple sold 1,000,000 3G iPhone before the weekend was over. The original took 74 days to hit that number.

   { Link }

1. 3  Volker Weber http://vowe.net | 7/14/2008 8:35:14 AM

   Let's just remind ourselves of what the iPhone does with Exchange:

   - Push all emails, calendar entries and personal addresses to the device or back to the server

   - Respond to meeting invitations and place those meetings into the calendar

   - Lock and wipe the device from the server

   WHEN will Domino catch up to that?

1. 4  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 7/14/2008 8:45:39 AM

   @3 I acknowledged that we don't do those things in this post and others. My point in linking to Paul was that, unsurprisingly, there are issues with the envisioned nirvana of using the iPhone 2.0 with Exchange in its current incarnation. It was a lot easier to assume that it was all going to be great before the device actually shipped. Now it has, and oh, there are a few basic functions that just don't work. I'm not sure how the problem with deleting / filing makes the iNotes solution look inferior -- apparently even "push mail" needs a full-time connection to the server.

1. 5  Volker Weber http://vowe.et/about | 7/14/2008 9:17:44 AM

   Are your kidding? How the iNotes solution is inferior? Just for starters: Domino does not sync addresses and calendars to the iPhone AT ALL.

1. 6  Volker Weber http://vowe.et/about | 7/14/2008 9:18:55 AM

   Or just a little tiny thing: click on a mailto:-Link? What does the iPhone with iNotes do?

1. 7  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 7/14/2008 9:22:47 AM

   My point was, one of the criticisms of us going with the iNotes Ultralite approach was needing to be constantly connected. It sounds like that is true on the Exchange world as well.

   There are third parties which sync contacts and addresses to the iPhone from Domino today, including CompanionLink. { Link }

1. 8  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 7/14/2008 9:25:57 AM

   @4 - Spot on, Ed. If EAS support for the iPhone requires a continuous connection to the server, then iNotes is not at a disadvantage.

   But it would be great to get an authoritative answer about this.

1. 9  Bill http://www.billbuchan.com | 7/14/2008 10:06:24 AM

   Nice 'Music on hold' message. I guess as soon as you have something for us, you'll tell us. In fact, I suspect you'll yell at us, given the beating you've received on this very issue. ;-)

   I think what I'm saying (not for the first time) is the overall disappointment that in the *year* since iPhone came out, no progress has been made by IBM (or one of its partners) on iPhone integration. And this is despite the resurrection of the Mac client in the 8.5 stream.

   Even WMD (windows mobile devices, or Windows Mobile Destruction) devices are now supported via Traveller. Granted, it appears to piggyback some nokia code, but hey, its supported.

   I cant remember the last time people queued for DAYS to buy a Microsoft product.

   In the meantime, the 'notes doesn't support iphone' remains true, and a very visible problem. Especially to us partners who are trying to convince customers that Notes is very much a viable platform.

   ---* Bill

1. 10  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 7/14/2008 10:09:57 AM

   @9 which partners haven't made progress? Sybase, Visto, and CompanionLink are all shipping support of various kinds for Domino and iPhone. And again, we ARE shipping support, next month, for iPhone via iNotes Ultralite. The beta is there now, you can show it to anyone via Greenhouse.

   As I've explained many times, this isn't an area being ignored. If you have a better idea on specific things that can be done to change the situation, right now, feel free to let me know online or offline.

1. 11  Bill http://www.billbuchan.com | 7/14/2008 10:29:47 AM

   Lets see: CompanionLink { Link } - $140 + $10/month to sync a single users' contacts.

   Visto and Sybase: I couldnt find a specific Notes to iPhone product on their site. Granted I only gave it 5 minutes - a normal users attention span.

   We'll get 8.5 ultra-lite iNotes which works/will work well, on the iPhone. Fantastic. But it doesnt integrate the notes calendar with the iPhone calendar, your notes contacts with the iphone contacts, and doesnt work offline. Thats a really cool v1 product. But its not exactly setting the heather alight, is it?

   Would it be enormously difficult to put a new web view into the mail file template to show all contacts, calendar entries, to-do, etc, and then have a free iPhone app which then connects to the iNotes mailbox (username+password login) and syncs all this stuff on the iPhone itself ? Granted it'd be time-consuming, non-automatable, single threaded, etc.

   Ask the dev team, see if someone's done this already.

   But thats one solution just off the top of my head.

   And hey - you get 'Lotus Notes' into the appstore!

   Second solution - license activesync?

   I can feel your frustration on this topic. I can only imagine your as frustrated with this as we are.

   Give us a roadmap on this Ed, and we could at least tell the customers *something* is going to happen.

   ---* Bill

1. 12  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 7/14/2008 10:37:17 AM

   @11 can't really give you a roadmap until more work progresses with Apple.

1. 13  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 7/14/2008 10:48:06 AM

   @11 - "But it doesnt integrate the notes calendar with the iPhone calendar, your notes contacts with the iphone contacts, and doesnt work offline."

   If you read what Paul has to say, apparently, neither does Exchange. Which I think was the whole point of Ed linking to it

   "a free iPhone app which then connects to the iNotes mailbox (username+password login) and syncs all this stuff"

   Bill, seriously... I'd expect you to read product specs and technical reviews more readily than marketing slides. There's nothing in the API to allow a 3rd party software author to read/write to the calendar, to-dos, or mail. There simply aren't any calls in the SDK.

1. 14  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 7/14/2008 11:21:23 AM

   Some other observations on iPhone + Exchange at { Link }

1. 15  Flemming Riis  | 7/14/2008 11:34:19 AM

   i still dont get it , if Domino is so open and flexible why dont a business partner create a plugin.

   who cares if its push or not click to sync is more than enough for a majority of people around.

1. 16  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 7/14/2008 11:36:20 AM

   @15 I think the answer is in @13.

1. 17  Bill http://www.billbuchan.com | 7/14/2008 12:04:34 PM

   Nathan - since *when* have we allowed a lack of published API actually stop us ?

   ---* Bill

1. 18  Flemming Riis  | 7/14/2008 12:06:31 PM

   -@15 I think the answer is in @13.

   a stand alone app would be enough for mail for alot i know , prehaps the could use the new template instead.

1. 19  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 7/14/2008 12:22:01 PM

   @17 lack of a published API might not stop you, but the SDK license terms might be worth another look.

1. 20  tom http://www.codepress.net/b | 7/14/2008 12:44:08 PM

   My iPod Classic is over two years old and there's still no Lotus Notes support. Down with Lotus!

   Seriously... how many of those 1,000,000 people who bought iPhones this weekend expect to hook into their company's email system? Not everyone runs a Lotus Notes mail server out of their house.

   I have a feeling that by the time corporations start adding the iPhone as an acceptable device, Lotus will be ready.

1. 21  Bill http://www.billbuchan.com | 7/14/2008 12:59:06 PM

   Okay. @19, @18, @15, @13:

   (same link as before) { Link }

   This appears to be how they do it. And since this is one of Ed's recommended solutions (@10), I'll go along with that. That is, there must be some way they have of interacting with Contacts. *Pauses whist riffling through API*. Umm: ABPersonCreate ?

   So thats Contacts. Your right - calendar and to-do isnt in there. Yet.

   If you dont like that - just build the sync capability into the Mac client so it syncs with the Mac Calendar and contacts ?

   I mean - after a YEAR of waiting for something like this, it would be good to think that one of the 850+ developers at Lotus could come up with something, right ?

   So we need to wait for Apple for the roadmap.

   @15. Why doesnt a BP create a plug-in.

   Good question - I'd love to, but:

   - It'll probably get steamrollered by whatever IBM finally produce.

   - Its a nightmare to sell directly. Granted there's an IBM BP catalog, but after being in there for FOUR YEARS, we have had precisely zero hits from that.

   - Why should we fix a glaring hole in the product capability? Mac is after all one of the three publicly supported platforms for Lotus Notes clients...

   ---* Bill

1. 22  Rob McDonagh http://www.CaptainOblivious.com | 7/14/2008 1:17:59 PM

   Paul's a smart guy, and he clearly knows Exchange inside and out. He's also very interesting, and he comments here with an almost unheard of professionalism. So I don't want to give the impression that he's not worth reading, because that's just not true. But his review is a bit odd in a few ways.

   First, he's giving WMD a heck of a lot of credit, as though it is the ideal towards which all other mobile platforms should aspire. I suppose that's to be expected, even if I can't even remotely agree. But dissing Palm to THAT extreme? And completely ignoring Blackberry? More than a bit questionable. So I have to take his overall mobile expertise with a pretty sizable chunk of salt.

   I would be VERY interested to see a similar review from a Blackberry expert. Is there one out there?

   Second, his primary issues revolve around the need to do certain things with the iPhone that aren't available at all. These things tend to fall on the power user end of the scale, which is applicable since Apple claims (ha!) to have addressed "the enterprise" with this version (we know that's not true anyway, since there's no Notes support). But having read his concerns, I have to say that I'm not even remotely bothered by a single one of them. Am I the only person who still uses his computer for the majority of his content creation? I need to be able to read and respond on my Blackberry (soon to be iPhone), but I don't try to use it as a replacement for my laptop. If I did, I'm sure I'd be unhappy about a few of those issues (but only a few). But the way I use a mobile devide? Not bothered a bit.

1. 23  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 7/14/2008 1:20:59 PM

   If Tweets and support forums are to be believed, enabling EAS Push on a 3G iPhone results in 3 hours of battery life.

   BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

   @21 - Yeah, I knew about the address book stuff, Bill. I'm not really clear on why it would be valuable to do offline contact syncing when you can't use any messaging or C&S functions in the same context. I guess callerID and dialing from your contact list would be valuable.

1. 24  Bob Congdon http://www.bobcongdon.net/blog | 7/14/2008 1:54:14 PM

   @1: Just to be clear, I did *not* say that Apple is using push. I didn't know one way or the other. And EAS does *not* require a persistent connection. It's an option. Mobile devices can poll instead. The main advantage to direct push is immediate notification rather than relying on a polling cycle. From what I've read about the iPhone 2.0 firmware, Apple supports both push and polling.

1. 25  Jeff Gilfelt http://www.jeffgilfelt.com/ | 7/14/2008 2:24:53 PM

   @21 "I mean - after a YEAR of waiting for something like this, it would be good to think that one of the 850+ developers at Lotus could come up with something, right ?"

   Blame the developers. Brilliant. A YEAR ago, web based development for Safari was the only delivery mechanism for 3rd party apps on the device. This is what is being delivered with iNotes. Do you honestly think IBM can just conjure up something that is not supported by the SDK or the app store license agreement? Somehow I don't think a solution that would require jailbroken phones is going to gain much traction in the enterprise.

1. 26  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 7/14/2008 2:27:20 PM

   @25 Bravo.

1. 27  Flemming Riis  | 7/14/2008 3:12:26 PM

   -First, he's giving WMD a heck of a lot of credit, as though it is the ideal towards which all other mobile platforms should aspire. I suppose that's to be expected, even if I can't even remotely agree. But dissing Palm to THAT extreme? And completely ignoring Blackberry? More than a bit questionable.

   he is comparing the experience with EAS on a native client vs the rest , BB dont really apply there.

1. 28  Lance Spellman  | 7/14/2008 3:18:56 PM

   I'm really happy to see that this first foray into Enterprise hasn't resulted in a slam dunk for the MS solution. While the damage is done on the Marketing front, there is room for recovery and even a win. I'm glad to see efforts are being made and I remain hopeful that something good will happen.

   In the meantime, let's hope the general press catches on to the idea that iPhone/Exchange is not the be-all-end-all.

   Certainly the issues this weekend with activation have got the press looking at the negatives now.

1. 29  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 7/14/2008 3:37:01 PM

   @24 - Sorry, Bob. You said as far as you knew, the iPhone was using EAS for sync. EAS requires a persistent connection FOR PUSH. I think I was clear that I was speaking specifically about push.

   And yes, Apple supports both polling and push. The fact that push was available was supposed to be one of the top reasons why EAS on the iPhone was exciting. And Apple made a lot of noise about how they weren't going to let it affect battery life -- which it seems now might have been complete BS.

1. 30  Rob McDonagh http://www.CaptainOblivious.com | 7/14/2008 3:49:10 PM

   @27 That's a fair point. And it's to be expected from Paul, given his focus. But he doesn't say that's what he's doing. He says he's evaluating the iPhone as an email device. And for ME, though apparently not everyone, a discussion of only WMD vs iPhone is very odd. I'm less interested in how well the iPhone implements EAS than I am in how well it performs as an enterprise email device, and that's why I want Blackberries included in this sort of discussion.

1. 31  Ben Poole http://benpoole.com | 7/14/2008 3:56:18 PM

   Well never mind all this and all that, I’d still like to see a full calendaring, scheduling and contacts API in *Lotus Notes* :-p

1. 32  Emilio Penedo  | 7/14/2008 4:05:52 PM

   In Mexico , TELCEL (50 million cellular users nationwide) launched iPhone last July the 11th, within 2 hours their stock was wiped out (128 phones per store). Customer are now in waiting lists for the July 23rd delivery (rain checks). Their advertising campaign states Enterprise Integration with MS Exchange, no mention of Lotus Notes and no mindshare for IBM.

   { Link }

   Translation:

   "iPhones in your Enterprise

   It's compatible with Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, iPhone(TM) has automatic updates, mail push, calendaring and contacts. It runs on corporate networks compatible with Cisco IPSec VPN and WPA. Now, the state of the art mobile device is the ideal telephone for your company."

   Telcel states that the battery talk time is:

   Up to 5 hours with 3G

   Up to 10 hours wih GSM

1. 33  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 7/14/2008 4:12:25 PM

   @32 I know that we missed a mindshare opportunity on this...been discussing on this blog for months.

   5 hours talk time <> battery life for push mail... lots of twitter tweets that the battery life with the Exchange set on push mail is very low.

1. 34  Bob Congdon http://www.bobcongdon.net/blog | 7/14/2008 4:15:53 PM

   @29: Okay. I just didn't want attribution as a source on something giving the appearance of "insider" information. I don't speak for Microsoft.

   @31: Yeah, that when we introduced the ability to create your own web services in Domino in R6, it was kinda surprising that there was no push to have Domino expose its own web services API for doing those sorts of operations.

1. 35  Paul Robichaux http://www.robichaux.net/blog | 7/14/2008 5:09:25 PM

   @4, @7, @8: EAS doesn't require a continuous connection to the server. See { Link } for a complete explanation of how EAS sync works (note that this doesn't include any info on the protocol itself, just sync)

   @13: the iPhone integration story for contacts is quite good. For calendar, I'd give it a "good to fair". The offline story, as I said, is poor.

   @22: horses for courses! IME the iPhone is very nearly a replacement for my laptop *for content consumption*, not creation. As such, being able to get good e-mail functionality (particularly for triage) is really important to me. Admittedly, I'm a power e-mail user.

   @28: I think it's important to point out that this is not a failure on MS' part. The flaws in the iPhone implementation are purely that: flaws in Apple's implementation of a client that uses Microsoft's protocol. If IBM offered a similar protocol to EAS, and Apple did a similarly poor implementation job, it wouldn't be IBM's fault, would it?

   @27: I don't regularly use a BlackBerry, so I didn't include it; that's not really my area of expertise. I included WinMo because that's what I'm most familiar with.

   @29: no, EAS *does not* require a persistent connection. It's designed to let the radio go dormant whenever no data is actively being passed over the channel.

1. 36  Emilio Penedo  | 7/14/2008 6:10:26 PM

   @33 I know we have been disscusing it in your blog. I just wanted to put real numbers into the "mindshare" size we missed. 50 million people out of a population of 106 million, in Mexico alone !!!

   For me iPhone is not enterprise ready, yet (I wouldn't buy a phone where I can not replace the battery if it goes dead). But what troubles me is a marketing campaign that reaches 50 million cellular users (flyers are sent along the cellular phone invoices, plus TV adds, billboards, etc. ) with the message that MS Exchange is an Enterprise email solution, no mention of Lotus Notes as an enterprise solution.

1. 37  Peter Herrmann  | 7/14/2008 7:19:05 PM

   An IBM API and object model for PIM (contacts/email/cal/task/note) and access/sync (like Atom, WebDav, or SOAP) is required for this but more importantly for the future of the Notes/Domino platform. If it's not done then the platform will likely become a legacy as organisations move their data to platforms that they can integrate with.

   A PIM API (and access for sync) requires product development resources and then marketing to get the best return.

   For non-IBMers, the PIM world stopped here: link:{ Link } and that's not an API (yet).

   Will IBM make the investment in a PIM API? Where's the big picture roadmap?

1. 38  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 7/14/2008 7:28:10 PM

   @35 - One more time.... EAS *PUSH* requires a continuous connection. From your link...

   "Direct Push is a client initiated HTTP connection to the server where the device opens a connection to the Exchange Server and keeps it alive for a duration known as the heartbeat interval."

   The operative phrase would be "keeps it alive."

   Other requirements for connections are based YOUR OWN observations about the mail client throwing errors if you didn't have a connection at the time.

   "When the device radios are off, any attempt to move or delete messages results in an error dialog."

   I understand that this particular issue is Apple's fault. And that's why I'm laughing.

   Look, pushing email to a mobile device when you have OS-level access to the device isn't rocket science. The biggest problem is patents, not technology. EAS is obviously a comprehensive protocol that has a poor implementation on the iPhone. It's also obviously a protocol that has it's origin in PCs rather than mobile devices -- particularly when it comes to push.

   That's not a slight against Microsoft. The whole company has it's origin in PCs. But there is a reality to the idea that if you want to have push messaging to an iPhone -- or indeed any ActiveSync device -- you have to sacrifice battery life. That's in the documentation. And it's no fair waving your hands and saying "it's not a requirement!" because it IS a requirement for a feature that everybody seems to consider the be-all, end-all of mobile messaging. (For the record, I think push vs. polling is a pretty minor issue. But then, I'm not an executive in a billion dollar company.)

1. 39  Nick Halliwell http://www.comware.net | 7/14/2008 7:53:29 PM

   Hay Chaps let get this thing into perspective. The Apple iPhone is selling in very very small numbers. (yes 1,000,000) is a small number. To help you understand this. Nokia will sell many more phones in Thailand this year that Apple will sell in the whole world. Apple are a small player.

   As has clearly been pointed out, its not yet Enterprise ready. So instead of knocking IBM/Notes why don't you knockers knock Apple for taking so long to bring out a product that Palm and RIM have had around for a couple of years. Knock Apple for not have an open Platform. Knock Apple for not having a replaceable battery etc.

   I find it Amazing that Apple is now delivering products that appear to be not much better than MS products. Please have a read of this:

   { Link }

   I am using a Treo 750 with Notes Traveller, in fact its or corporate standard and it works well. The Treo running Win Mobile 6 is acceptable as an OS, yes not flashy like the Apple, but I don't want flashy I want something that works.

1. 40  Erik Brooks  | 7/14/2008 9:54:50 PM

   A mildly interesting tidbit for those here haven't seen the photos of the disassembled 3G yet: the battery is removable without a soldering iron.

   Not that it really impacts this discussion, since you still have to crack the case to do it. Rumors have the new battery at 1150 mAh too, whereas the original iPhone's had 1400mAh.

1. 41  Henry Ferlauto http://www.geniusinside.com | 7/14/2008 10:01:31 PM

   @39 - The number of devices Nokia sells is irrelevant. Why? Because Nokia has not been able to exploit Symbian as a platform. And most of Nokia's handset sales are on the lower end of the price and functionality spectrum.

   When it comes time for replacement, no application migration issues will be part of the decision making process.

   Like Palm and RIM, Apple has built a platform. It is in its infancy; but it will mature much faster simply because of their volume.

   Having a robust development platform with an active ISV community will increase the odds of a user of said platform that come time for an upgrade they will simply gravitate to the newest model because there is little headache. (i.e. A happy BlackBerry customer is highly likely to purchase another BlackBerry if the customer has invested in the applications for the platform.)

   The same thing happens in the Lotus Notes community. Those shops with more entrenched, productive applications are much more likely to stick with Notes than consider another platform.

   You are correct, 1,000,000 devices for just a handset is not a big deal. However 1,000,000 is very large number in the "SmartPhone" genre. And doing it three days is quite simply a remarkable feat.

   Apple will easily beat their goal of 10m handsets.

   Is the iPhone perfect? No, it has the flaws you pointed out and many more, but many people see the platform as a winner and are willing to take a chance as an early adopter.

   Give them another year or so and I'll be they have more active handsets than at least one of the major SmartPhone platforms (i.e. Palm OS, Windows Mobile, RIM), all of which have been around for many years. Also during that time you will see Apple address the issues of criticism.

1. 42  Bill http://www.billbuchan.com | 7/15/2008 4:01:41 AM

   @25 - I'm not blaming the developers for lack of API, and no - a jailbroken iPhone in the corporate is not feasible.

   I'd rather hoped that IBM/Lotus management (And Ed is the only public facing member willing to answer questions out in the open - Kudos to him for that) had seen how popular a smartphone the iPhone was - at 6-8m handsets out there already in a year, easily more than half of BlackBerry handsets *ever* delivered - and have something ready.

   Microsoft, after all, managed to persuade Apple that Exchange was the corporate mail system the iPhone should connect to. Why didn't IBM ?

   Remember - its not the low-level employees in our customer sites who are going to go out and spend their own hard cash on this device. Its the technology influencers, C-Level, etc.

   Here's hoping that Ed's right (and I'm wrong) and an on-line only, web-based, non-synchronized iNotes is enough to convince them that Notes is still a player in the corporate infrastructure.

   Even having something that said 'Lotus Notes' pop up in the AppStore would have shown some of the folks out there downloading apps that Notes was still a player.

   Because, for those customers out there who dont have an immediate connection with IBM, and dont do the blogs/usergroup stuff (and there's a lot of disconnected customers out here), there's little other evidence that Notes still exists.

   (The last serious advertising campaign was 'SuperHumanSoftware' for R5, back in 1999. The latest 'IBM Brand' ads just position the product as part of IBM, and the 'Clear the desk' ad was there to push Symphony and its integration with Notes 8)

   There's a whole new market defined itself in front of us - a market of people willing to download apps (10m apps in 3 days is incredible) - and a market of people willing to mobilise their experience. People willing to spend their own cash in the middle of a recession. This new platform is a hairs breadth away from puncturing our enterprise bubble. Its up to us:

   - Do we try and exploit this and grow with this new market ?

   - Or do we stand back, trying to push back the tide?

   I'm rather hoping that IBM go with the former. That there's still life in that old dog.

   ---* Bill

1. 43  Jeff Gilfelt http://www.jeffgilfelt.com/ | 7/15/2008 5:41:35 AM

   By my count there were exactly two apps that I would classify as being for enterprise/business use in the app store upon launch - an Oracle BI client and SalesForce Mobile. Does this mean competing vendors like SAP, Microsoft and IBM aren't taking the platform seriously or are not already actively developing solutions for it? Of course not.

   We are still in week one of this thing being "enterprise ready" - very early days. Rushing out a sandboxed native application badged 'Lotus Notes' for the app store launch just to create some customer awareness sounds like an incredibly bad idea to me.

1. 44  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 7/15/2008 8:14:11 AM

   @42 "Microsoft, after all, managed to persuade Apple that Exchange was the corporate mail system the iPhone should connect to. Why didn't IBM ?"

   Bill, can you please share your detailed knowledge of the conversations that took place between Microsoft and Apple as well as Apple and IBM on this matter. Thanks.

1. 45  Bill http://www.billbuchan.com | 7/15/2008 8:42:37 AM

   @44. Nice one Ed.

   Clearly, there's not going to be a resolution to this. I see we shall have to agree to disagree.

   Sigh.

   ---* Bill

1. 46  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 7/15/2008 8:56:27 AM

   Bill, I don't think we're disagreeing at all. I have made it crystal clear that I believe we should do more in terms of Domino + iPhone integration than just iNotes Ultralite. But I don't think we should ignore iNotes (see other blog post yesterday) as it is the first technical solution we could approach and one that could be done without any SDK/API type issues. Going beyond that is not simply a technical issue, and for whatever reason, your comments here seem to indicate continued disbelief on that. Yet when I (or Nathan or Jeff) refute your points with facts, you haven't responded. I'm not used to this with you, and of all people, the first guy who got me turned on to the Blackberry Pearl (!). Happy to take this offline but I am not happy to continue to beat my head against the wall.

1. 47  Volker Weber http://vowe.net/about | 7/15/2008 9:53:44 AM

   Providing address book and calendar sync to the iPhone should be possible for IBM. Not necessarily on a wireless connection, but certainly through the dock. Any plans to do that on Windows and the Mac?

1. 48  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 7/15/2008 11:27:58 AM

   @47 how should that be possible for IBM? See Nathan's comments @13.

1. 49  mark Hughes   | 7/15/2008 12:19:50 PM

   how about just the address book? An navtive app to sync the contacts might make a little money until a better solution is available

1. 50  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 7/15/2008 12:20:55 PM

   @47 & 48 - Address book, yes. Calendar, no.

1. 51  Volker Weber http://vowe.net/about | 7/15/2008 12:25:54 PM

   Ed, not with an iPhone app but with a PC and a Mac app.

1. 52  Brett H  | 7/15/2008 12:37:57 PM

   Does anyone still think that technical superiority actually matters any more? Impression is everything, mindshare is everything, being first is better than being best. When oh when will that lesson be learned Ed? It doesn't matter if the Microsoft solution is good or not. They got there first, with a solution that sounds no better than the Lotus one, BUT... they now have mindshare, and a headstart. Seems to be the way it often goes in this arena. The whole "Build the plane while in-flight" is SOP for Microsoft, it get the products out there, it get's noticed, it doesn't matter if it's not the best... as long as it's the best-selling.

1. 53  Brett H  | 7/15/2008 12:44:47 PM

   @myself (clarification) That seems to be the way of the world now, I certainly don't agree with it, but there it is. The only way to beat that kind of mentality is to go BIG go HUGE make your message so unavoidable so it challenges peoples preconceived ideas as to who "really" is the market leader in a certain segment and why.

   I'm sick of playing defense, even though I'm on the better team.

1. 54  Paul Robichaux http://www.robichaux.net/blog | 7/15/2008 12:47:35 PM

   @44: you're assuming that Microsoft approached Apple and not the other way around. That may well be a bad assumption.

1. 55  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 7/15/2008 1:03:42 PM

   @54 I am not assuming anything @44. I was pointing out that Mr. Buchan made that assumption @42.

1. 56  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 7/15/2008 1:11:56 PM

   @51 - It's not impossible. An iPod that's connected to a Windows PC has folders for Contacts and Calendars if it's drive is exposed to the OS. Calendar entries are .ics files and Contacts are .vcf files.

   So, yeah, some things could be done with wired sync for sure. The iTunes COM API doesn't seem to expose those folders directly, so you'd have to do it at an OS level, but the calendar federation stuff that's in 8.5 could probably pretty easily publish and consume .ics files from an iPod/iPhone calendar folder while it's plugged in.

   Here's how you can do it manually today while you're wired in. { Link }

1. 57  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 7/15/2008 1:29:57 PM

   @56 - The documentation is pretty unclear about the behavior of those .ics files, but my iPod Nano doesn't seem to like anything but a single file, even though the doc says that each event should be it's own export file

1. 58  Jeff Gilfelt http://www.jeffgilfelt.com/ | 7/15/2008 1:39:26 PM

   @56 - As far as I am aware, data transfer for iPhone via the dock connector is pretty much off limits outside of iTunes. How do you actually mount the file system on a non-jailbroken iPhone in the first place? My iPod Touch (in it's non-jailbroken state) behaves nothing like the old iPods in this respect.

1. 59  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 7/15/2008 1:52:43 PM

   @58 - I just tried it with my older iPod. I don't know about the iPhone.

1. 60  Rob McDonagh http://www.CaptainOblivious.com | 7/15/2008 2:16:32 PM

   @56 Is it even worth mentioning the way the linked article describes how to export ics files from Outlook and Outlook Express only? Nah, never mind. Move along, nothing to see here. *chuckle*

1. 61  tom http://www.codepress.net/b | 7/15/2008 2:33:18 PM

   @60

   Much to my chagrin... people (like my parents) use Outlook or Outlook Express at home. Not Lotus Notes. The iPod is a personal device just like my opinion of the iPhone (for now).

   Maybe it's Lotus' fault for never coming out with an adequate personal mail client. :-)

1. 62  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 7/15/2008 3:25:14 PM

   @60 & 61 - LOL. Well, I wouldn't exactly call it robust, but I just put this on my toolbar...

   @Command([FileExport]; "calendar"; "d:\\calendars\\" + @Text(@DocumentUniqueID) + ".ics")

   *shrug* It works. I can do vCard exports on my Contact list, too.

   I can't figure out what good having contacts and calendars on my iPod Nano does me, but I guess it's cool for bragging rights.

   The Nano seems cranking about displaying anything in the future, though. And repeating entries are pretty fragile.

   But, the net result is that Volker seems to be right (yeah, they're making snowmen in Hades) -- there's some stuff IBM could do today with a WIRED iPod/iPhone if they work like my two year old Nano does. I have a feeling people would make fun of a wired-only approach instead of being grateful for it, though.

1. 63  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 7/15/2008 3:39:18 PM

   @62 Nate, nothing new there -- Alan covered that on his blog a long time ago...iPod, iPhone, all works the same. { Link }

1. 64  Julian Woodward http://blog.woowar.com | 7/15/2008 3:40:21 PM

   @61 - I was with you all the way to the end, and then that smiley face confused me. What is the emoticon for bangs-head-against-wall-in-exasperation anyway?

1. 65  Jeff Gilfelt http://www.jeffgilfelt.com/ | 7/15/2008 4:00:30 PM

   Sorry, but how exactly does IBM or anyone else create software to sync with *iPhone* through the dock connector again?

   Connect an unmodified iPhone to your machine and try to access it's file system, programmaticly or otherwise. It doesn't work anything like your two year old Nano. I know you can do a few tricks with MacFUSE on OSX to get to the media partition, but the contacts and calendar - assuming they are even stored in the same format as the old iPod - are not accessible without jailbreaking the device.

1. 66  Alan Lepofsky http://www.alanlepofsky.net | 7/15/2008 4:13:21 PM

   Here is my old blog entry about manually exporting Notes Contacts to my iPod. It is not idea, but it works well.

1. 67  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 7/15/2008 4:14:21 PM

   @65 - Hence the caveat "if they work like my two year old Nano does."

   I haven't picked up my iPhone 3G yet, and my one colleague that has an iPhone in the office is at a customer today, so I couldn't try with the real thing.

   If you say that the file system is inaccessible, I'll have to take your word for it.

   By the way, I did try to find out whether the Apple Developer Kit publishes any info on how you can put your own Address Book or Calendar application into the iTunes interface. I couldn't find any, though I'll admit my search was rather cursory. If anyone has any knowledge of that, I'd certainly like to know.

1. 68  Volker Weber http://vowe.net/about | 7/15/2008 4:28:32 PM

   On the Mac one should probably look at the Sync Services. But things have changed there because iTunes and not iSync is the hub for the iPhone.

   Wired sync of calendar and address book would make a workable Notes/iPhone bundle. Mail can be done with IMAP. Addresses don't change that often, and a wired sync for calendar is way better than no sync at all.

   It would make a lot of people happy, and solve headaches where people need a solution now, and not some 12 months down the road.

1. 69  Volker Weber http://vowe.net/about | 7/15/2008 4:31:57 PM

   This is good reading: { Link }

1. 70  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 7/15/2008 7:38:19 PM

   So is this: { Link }

1. 71  Jon Walkup  | 7/15/2008 7:53:01 PM

   Hmm. So it would appear from Ed's postings that the position of IBM re: iPhone 3g is that it is better to dismiss it as a niche product, not suited for business, than to try to figure out where it might fit into the product strategy. As a 20+ year Mac user and 15+ year Notes user, this is all too familiar.

1. 72  Erik Brooks  | 7/15/2008 8:07:28 PM

   Battery life is the Achille's heel of the iPhone, and "Push" shoots that arrow home.

   But I'd be curious to know what a consumer survey turns up regarding the impression of Push = dead battery.

   Would the impact primarily be a tarnish on Microsoft's reputation? ("Push is useless, I don't know why MS included it.") Or more towards Apple? ("Man, the iPhone battery is just AWFUL.")

1. 73  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 7/15/2008 8:17:30 PM

   @71 Jon, if you have read any of my postings, you know that is bullshit. We announced iPhone support in January, before Microsoft did for what that's worth...just through a web UI instead of a push e-mail model. That DWA ultralite support is shipping next month (and is available now on greenhouse.lotus.com if you want to check it out). Several of our partners are shipping iPhone support in various fashions.

   But having said that, I think it's important to examine what the next steps are and do them right. There are technical and market inhibitors to doing so. Please read all my postings on this topic.

1. 74  Bruce Elgort http://linkjam.elguji.com | 7/15/2008 9:03:26 PM

   I have setup my iPhone with Exchange support and hopefully will either be writing or podcasting about it shortly. Let's just say "it works" and it's not so bad.

1. 75  Jon Walkup  | 7/15/2008 9:24:09 PM

   @73 well Ed, I think I've read all your postings on this point, and before this one they seemed fairly reasonable. I'm just not sure what your point is here. A simple question: does IBM believe that iPhone is a legitimate platform for development, or not? If so, please back up that assertion with some evidence other than INotes UltraLite. Any evidence, really. from any product. Portal, Connections, quickr, sametime, anything. If IBM isn't serious, then ok, how about you stop bringing it up? Does all of this virtual ink spilled on this subject actually help customers think that IBM is making progress on this issue?

1. 76  Jeff Gilfelt http://www.jeffgilfelt.com/ | 7/16/2008 4:03:33 AM

   @75 - How do you expect a 3rd party vendor to announce specific product development plans, features and release schedules for iPhone when it is Apple and Apple alone who get to say when and if an app gets distributed through the *their* distribution channel?

   In my case, I am still on the waiting list for the developer program, so at this point I cannot even run and debug my application on the hardware, let alone join the queue to have my code vetted and approved for the app store.

   For this and other reasons, web based development for Safari is still a viable and compelling alternative for delivering apps to the device. Google, SAP, sugarCRM, NetSuite and many others are using it. Is it ideal for email and calendar? No. But to dismiss the iNotes ultralite features as not being enough evidence that IBM is supporting the device is just plain ignorant.

1. 77  Volker Weber http://vowe.net/about | 7/16/2008 8:22:21 AM

   Ed, if you want to base your judgement on search.twitter.com then you may be in for a huge surprise. We do pretty good battery rundown tests, and our tests do not show a significant impact from EAS.

   From the top of my head I can think up some scenarios we can try, like poor Wifi coverage with lots of incoming emails, that may drain the battery. But our test units breezes through the day.

1. 78  Kevin Mort http://www.theglobalmind.com | 7/16/2008 8:48:44 AM

   In terms of devices sold I think we have to remember that Blackberry was intended as a business device. Only very recently has Blackberry been positioned as a device the average Joe could pick up and use.

   iPhone was positioned as a personal device in essence, and is now extending to the enterprise. It's the exact opposite of what Blackberry did.

   I am also curious of that 1mil devices sold, how many are net new buyers vs those replacing a 1st gen device?

1. 79  Paul Robichaux http://www.robichaux.net/blog | 7/16/2008 9:10:43 AM

   @67: the ABPerson framework is what you need to manipulate contacts. You can't see its documentation unless you're registered for Apple's developer portal.

1. 80  Jon Walkup  | 7/16/2008 9:24:24 AM

   @76.Hmm, I think you missed my point. I'm not saying that iNotes UltraLite is unimportant. What I am saying is that at this point, 18 months after the iPhone was announced, 12+ months after it was released, 6 months after iPhone 2.0 was announced, and now 1 week after it was released, there is still no shipping product from anywhere within Lotus that has been designed with the iPhone in mind. This, to me, in combination with Ed's "see, it really isn't a suitable device for business" attitude displayed in this post, signifies that IBM doesn't really see the iPhone as a strategic platform to develop for. Having been a Mac Notes user since the Notes 3 days, this is something I should not be surprised by, but it is disappointing.

   As far as the app store, there is no reason that Lotus could not, by now, have released versions of Connections and Quickr that are designed for the iPhone's browser. There is a client for AIM now that the store is open. Why not one for SameTime chat? What about support as Volker and others have mentioned, for sync to Mac address book or iCal from a desktop, things that would at least give us a method to get calendar entries and contacts from Notes to iPhone via a dock connection? How about synching directly to .mac/MobileMe? Correct me if I am wrong, please, but I have seen no evidence of efforts from IBM in any of these areas.

1. 81  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 7/16/2008 9:34:04 AM

   @77 - Would you publish those tests?

   @79 - I am, of course, registered, and have a copy of the SDK on my local drive. There's an Address Book framework that's specific to OS X that is extensively documented. However, something like "how do I get my own client to be visible to iTunes as a sync client" is opaque at the moment.

1. 82  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 7/16/2008 9:49:14 AM

   "versions of Connections and Quickr that are designed for the iPhone's browser."

   Not that I disagree with having these things, but I'm trying to imagine what someone would do with an iPhone-targeted Quickr interface.

   Didn't Castledine do some iPhone-targeted mods to the blog template prior to 'sphere last year? I know Declan was pushing hard to do that on Blogsphere, and those two usually end up being pretty close on feature sets.

1. 83  Paul Robichaux http://www.robichaux.net/blog | 7/16/2008 11:19:46 AM

   @79: you can't register your own sync clients that I know of (which is one reason I'm *really* interested in seeing how OmniGroup does it for OmniFocus). However, a hypothetical Notes app could either grab contacts OTA from the server and add them to the device address book (which would result in them getting synced to the desktop) or put them in the local Mac Address Book, either using OS X APIs or Sync Services.

   @82: I chose not to try writing an OCS client because if it can't work in the background, there's little use for it. I haven't tested AIM because I'm not an AIM guy, but if it can background I might reconsider.

1. 84  Volker Weber http://vowe.net/about | 7/16/2008 11:55:03 AM

   AIM does not background, they are only faking it. You can see it going offline from a desktop client and coming back online when it is pulled to the foreground by the user. The interface leads the user to believe AIM has always been online but that is not the case.

1. 85  Volker Weber http://vowe.net/about | 7/16/2008 12:03:13 PM

   Nathan, I am not the author for the iPhone review, but I spoke to the lab. Don't know what shows up in the lab. Battery rundown tests have shown that it's better than other 3G phones, but worse than the original iPhone, but that's not surprising.

   EAS can be influenced by many parameters. Look how the heartbeat gets set depending on routers and mobile gateways. As I said, I could dream some scenarios which strain the battery, but one cannot assume that it generally runs down the battery fast.

   My personal benchmark is if the device survives a full day, not only a working day. If it does, you can recharge while you sleep. Other people expect a device to go for a week without recharge. The only smartphones that do that are "green battery" BlackBerrys.

1. 86  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 7/16/2008 12:11:12 PM

   @80 I believe you are misinterpreting my tone in this posting. I am saying that this is week one of Apple's iPhone for business. Expecting all ISVs to be fully on board seems unreasonable to me. On the Lotus side, we would like to be further along, but I've made it clear in other blog entries that this is not solely our decision. As has been commented many times here, the SDK/APIs do not provide sufficient interfaces to build some of the apps you suggest...on either side of the aisle, apparently.

1. 87  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 7/16/2008 12:27:44 PM

   @85 "one cannot assume that it generally runs down the battery fast."

   I've been looking for hard data since the day the thing came out. At the moment, I've only heard anecdotes, and all of those are 2nd hand.

   If Apple did keep battery life strong, then excellent. If they didn't, then all the noise they made about it was a smokescreen. I would love to know which it is.

   And if battery life goes down the tubes when you enable a feature, then I think it's pretty justified to say that feature may as well not exist. I think that's true of any software platform -- if the user experience of a feature is painful, then the feature may as well not be there. That's a rule that applies to Apple just as well as it applies to IBM and Microsoft (who both get derided about such things at every opportunity.)

1. 88  John Head http://www.johndavidhead.com | 7/17/2008 11:36:57 AM

   @85 Well, I know 5 people who are using an iPhone 3G since last Friday, and all 5 say it barely lasts them half a day when using it as a phone and Exchange email. one of those 5 have already returned it and another is getting close. Here is what I care about:

   approx 2 hours of talk time each day

   push email and calendar

   mutliple chat clients (on my bb, that would be bb messenger, bb enterprise messenger, and IM+) always on

   SMS

   some basic web browsing

   If the device can not survive that, it is not worth it. My pearl does that well. I have not had anyone tell me they get the same experience on the iPhone 3G with 3G always turned on. I would love to hear from someone. Oh, and on a side note, I expect the Bold to have the same problem with 3G ...

1. 89  Michael Blask http://www.solvito.de | 8/14/2008 4:34:25 AM

   There is a way to sync contacts and calender. Simple get a BlackBerry, sync it via BlackBerry Enterprise Server against Notes - then connect it to your Mac (sorry, you need it) - sync the handheld via PocketMac Tool to your local calender and address book and last not least via iTunes to your iPhone. Easy way, huh? Maybe a little shortcut would be nice. :-)

   Serious: Somebody should talk to the MobileMe Guys @ Apple. (Thx @80) They promise to be able to sync anything - so whats the point?

   iNotes can never be the end of the road. If people want their mail on iPhone, they turn on pop3 or imap on Domino - works very fine to me! Thats much better to use as iNotes. And - btw. - Mails do look much better as on BlackBerry devices by now!