Tag Archives: domino

Lotus Notes becomes social with Lotus Notes Social Edition

Posted on by Vaughan Rivett

That’s right, Lotus Notes has gone through a makeover and the next release will be shipping with a social media look and feel.  The software will present users with an active activity stream which will alert them to what is happening within their business.  Alerts will be feed in from other applications and also the activity of people.

Email is quickly becoming a thing of the past.  People want to get away from using email and prefer the likes of Facebook to communicate openly with friends.  IBM has taken note of these user trends and have applied it to the way we do business.

In this video, Ed Brill talks about the growth of the Lotus Notes and Domino platforms.  He also talks about new features which will be available in Lotus Notes Social Edition which should be released soon.

Click on this link to watch the video

The success of Lotus Domino/Notes 8.5.3

Posted on by Vaughan Rivett

This afternoon I  sat through a session by Ed Brill at IBM’s Lotusphere.  During this session Ed covered many of the significant achievements IBM has had with the delivery of new features and releases of IBM Lotus Notes and Domino Server.

During this presentation Ed asked how many people have upgraded to the latest version of Domino server (8.5.3).  In a large room, over two thirds of the audience raised their hands.  As this was released only two months ago, Ed was blown away and rather surprised.  Just to confirm that this was the case, and that he wasn’t dreaming, he asked the same question a couple more times throughout the presentation.

This is something that is almost unheard of in the industry.  Most vendors would expect such adoption of  a new release to take up to a couple of years.

Lotus Notes / Domino Tour of Duty (New Zealand)

Posted on by Vaughan Rivett

Over the last couple of days, I have been reflecting on my tour of New Zealand, last week, as I visited a number of Lotus Notes/Domino customers throughout the country.  Myself,  four others from IBM and a number of IBM Business Partners vistied Hamilton, Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch as we checked in on various customers.

There were a number of themes that came through, but here are the top three:

  • Lotus Notes/Domino customers who are in two minds about the future of the product and their commitment to it, are impressed by the roadmap for the next few years.  I came out of a number of meetings where the customers had little understanding of the power of the platform, but were eager to explore what they could be doing both now and in the future.
  • People are wanting more from a collaboration platform.  This opened the door to great conversations about Social Business and stratigies which include both IBM Connections and IBM Lotus Domino Server.
  • The “cloud” is big here in New Zealand.  The Christchurch earthquake has impacted this nation and as such, people are considering their options for greater resilience.

For many years, I have been an advocate for Lotus Notes and Domino here in New Zealand.  I am now in a position, where I think we are on the verge of something great.

Simple diagram highlights the cost of moving from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Exchange

Posted on by Vaughan Rivett

I am always interested in talking to people who have made up their mind to migrate from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Exchange. It would appear that the cost of such a change is never fully considered or understood until well into the project. Below is a simple diagram which shows that most migrations mean more servers.

This is only an example of part of the cost.  For instance, more servers also require more support services etc.  Despite all that Microsoft may say to sell their software, even if they give it away, usually, the total cost of ownership is still a lot higher.