The last time I attended a BOF session at Lotusphere was two years ago (a blog session). They’re really not my “thing” because by that time of the day, I have slight information overload and there’s always some event I want to get to for the evening. Last night’s BOF was no exception, however I felt that as a blogging member of both the Apple and Notes communities, I needed to at least appear.
There was a nearly packed room of Notes & Apple enthusiasts. It was clear that the room represented a “need” for iPhone support and that the majority of the room had installed and been VERY pleased with Notes 8.5. The usual questions came up: “when will Designer be available,” “when will Admin be available” and “when will true iPhone support happen?” (Answers: “Someday – its Eclipse now,” “probably never (use the web admin tools)” and “soon!” respectively).
I walked away from the session both late for a business partner event – and also impressed. Lotus/IBM have really done what they said they’d do in the last several months: delivered releases across OS’s at the same time; shown up in surprising places to do marketing that really attracts attention; not treat Mac users as second class – rather as early adopters of a growing trend.
One final note – one of the attendees asked the room how stable they felt 8.5 on the Mac was. Response was (I thought) positive. Personally, I was quick to raise my hand to vote that it was “very solid.”
Later that evening, I went to check emails and was greeted with the following error messages. I actually found this funny (and attribute it to other stuff that has crashed – and my reluctance to reboot for the last few days). I also was pleased to see this crash process take place vs. the eclipse error that falls off my screen which was in the beta. Again … another improvement. Although this is one I hope to not see often. 
What people here are saying…