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I just sat through Ed Brill’s session on the future direction of Notes. I’ve kept up with his blog and shared a few spirited (in a positive way) emails with him over the year – but it dawned on my today that I had never seen him speak at Lotusphere. I set out to change that and I’m glad I did. He did an excellent job presenting and is one of those rare speakers you enjoy listening to for a long period of time.

The session was really what I thought was missing out of the OGS. They covered details about where Notes/Domino is going; highlighted features in 8.5; talked about some specifics in the next release; etc. They also talked about IBM/Lotus’ overall vision and philosophy – which really helps explain a lot of what they’ve been doing lately. He talked about how they are working to sort of “pop up” in unusual places, like Macworld. Its a good plan because it gets Lotus in front of end-users with their message (which has been something I’ve said would be a great idea for years now). IBM/Lotus is very happy with their results so far (Ed cited a few articles from a variety of sources that covered product announcements in the last several months). That’s all really positive stuff and frame their mindset as they go to market.

But by far THE MOST EXCITING thing they SHOWED was an iPhone using ActiveSync to connect with a Domino server. The demo was almost lackluster because it worked so well. They opened mail, calendar and contacts – all of which were connected to a Domino source using ActiveSync. VERY impressive!

They said that they weren’t in a position to make an announcement, which means no ETA has been established. Still, it was increadibly exciting to see that its being worked on (and appears to look VERY close to usable!)

Tags: iphone

Update: I attended a session this afternoon which provided the components of the OGS which I thought were missing. The two together have prompted me to change my opinion here. I now have a better understanding of why the OGS was structured the way it was (although they probably could have lifted 5 minutes of content about the direction of Notes/Domino from the INV102 session). I suggest reading that entry first, and then coming back to this one with the understanding that I’ve eased up a bit on my original thoughts.  -KH 1.19.2008 @ 2:45PM EST

The Lotusphere 2009 Opening General Session just finished and, as much as I honestly hate to say this, I can sum it up with one word: disappointing.

Normally, I have 8-12 pages of notes after this session; I want to redo my schedule selection because I’m so excited about new announcements; and I’m just so completely excited and enthusiastic that I start to “get” why people wear those “I bleed yellow” t-shirts. This year? Not so much.

I think Lotus was really trying to shift the OGS from being a demo session “lite” (which we all actually like) and be something that tells the story about their product portfolio. They also talked very little about the direction of Notes/Domino. Infact, hardly anything was mentioned about the Domino server at all.

Some of the highlights:

• 12,236 new Notes customers since the launch of version 8 (impressive!)
• 2% more attendance at Lotusphere this year vs. last (take THAT recession!)
• “Bluehouse” is now “LotusLive Engage” – gone is the cool logo. Instead, it now has both a very Microsoft name and font logo.
• “Alloy” is the new name for Project Atlantic – a sort of joint venture between Notes and SAP
• LinkedIn appeared throughout various slides
• Sametime looks like its getting some BIG improvements! Zero footprint. Great telephony integration. Slick interface. Looks great – can’t wait to use it! My team and I actually decided we need further evaluate this and potentially revamp some of our Cisco strategy.
• “Stuff’ (connections, LotusLive, etc.) works on the iPhone (’cause it has a browser)
• BlackBerry, BlackBerry, BlackBerry, BlackBerry, BlackBerry. (Lotus wants you to say that four times every time you THINK about the iPhone. It was really quite frustrating – the amount of focus they put on the BB and lack of mention of anything helpful for the iPhone.)
• Quickr for Domino will get ECM integration in the next release
• WebSphere – this section compelled people to leave, yet again. I’m really surprised at how many people get up and leave when this starts.
• Integration – its clear that Lotus/IBM have spent A LOT of time getting all of their apps to work together well. Connections, Quickr, LotusLive Engage, Sametime – all of it works together well and will continue to do so in the future.

One other item that’s worth noting is the use of Twitter. The “#LS09″ flag allowed people to tweet realtime throughout the event. I can’t imagine being a presenter and getting instant feedback like that. When its good feedback, I’m sure it helps the energy build – when its not, its got to make things that much worse.

Overall, the feedback I’ve been hearing from people has been surprisingly split. IBM/Lotus employees and business partners seem to be saying that it was the best OGS in a long time. Nearly all of the other people I’ve talked to who are customers completely disagree. I’m hearing people complain about the lack of new announcements for the Notes Client, Domino and Administrator. I’m hearing positive things about Sametime, but a mixed interest in Connections and disappointment in improvements for Quickr. Even the Mac crowd seems to be subdued … most likely largely due to the fact that they now have a great Notes client (and can shut up about wanting one – myself included, btw) and the disappointment about NOT hearing an announcement about an iPhone PIM application (and the repetition of “BlackBerry” throughout the morning didn’t help.)

So there you have it — I’m anxious to hear what others thought as the week goes on. So far (yesterday and the one I’m in now), the sessions have been outstanding. I’d also offer that I had my hopes up for the OGS since the decision was made to announce 8.5 at MacWorld … I assumed Lotus had more surprises up their sleve for their own conference.

Tags: Apple / Mac, iphone, lotusphere, ls09, mac, notes, ogs, quickr, sametime

After being pulled due to some bugs, the LS09 app is back on the iTunes app store. It’s a nice app for checking up on sessions, speakers and abstracts. A nice mobile companion to the quick guide in your badge kit.

Below are a few screen shots. It’s also worth noting that my battery life indicator would suggest that I’m using my iPhone a bit too much if I expect to get through the day. Must be the GPS tracking with BrightKite (“Netcot” if you want to follow).

Tags: iphone, lotusphere

A team from Lotus was on-site at the MacWorld conference this week with an exciting announcement: Lotus Notes 8.5 is available! I was expecting this to be the big announcement at Lotusphere but was excited to see it announced early. I think it goes a long way to show their commitment to the Mac platform … which is great!

There’s only one problem: with the exception of a few trade rags and Lotus blogs, NONE of the Mac-based sites & blogs I read up on were talking about it. That’s incredible unfortunate because its a big announcement and worth mentioning (especially since some of those Mac-based sites picked up stories about iNotes uber-lite when that was announced). However, I realize that *I* maintain one of these Mac-based blog sites, so I’m doing my part to help spread the word!

I’m sure I’ll have lots to comment on over the next several days, but for now, let’s talk about the installation of the Notes 8.5 client for the Mac. The first big piece of news is that there is a “full” and “basic” client available. I didn’t see that coming – what a nice surprise!

My install started with the unpackaging of the tar file, which took some time.

After an hour (thankfully I had a meeting in my office during that time where I could see the screen, but didn’t need to use my computer), the program decided that it didn’t actually want to do the install, so it backed out of the idea:

I decided to try again first thing this morning. To my surprise, it ran through this step VERY quickly (I’m now assuming that something didn’t shut down correctly yesterday when I stopped Notes 7.0.2 before the install). One helpful screen I noticed during the install was an information screen telling me where it would install the program and data files. I rarely need this information, but always have trouble finding it when I do.

Another surprising screen was the options for installing Sametime and the Composite Application Editor – which I’m anxious to check out.

I was also suprised to see some defaulting options for mail, calendar and contacts. I left these checked, but I’ll admit, I’m a bit nervous about NOT using iCal and Mac’s address book as the defaults.

The most entertaining portion of the install is the confirmation screens. As you can see, Lotus REALLY wants you to know that things are done. The first display…

… and then…

… and finally:

You’re done. I got it! 

The other “trick” that I noticed was a “starting up” screen when loading. This is something Windows users have seen for a while now and I wondered when it would make it to the Mac. Reminded me of the old story about a building with a slow elevator that was expensive to replace and caused everyone to complain while waiting impatiently. What did the building owner do? Install mirrors. People were so preoccupied looking at themselves, they assumed the elevators were faster. This screen is the software version of that concept:

Now that the software is loaded and running I can say its a BIG improvement over the 8.5 beta. The team has clearly spent a lot of time working and refining this product and deserve much credit for doing so. It gives me renewed hope in the idea that Lotus is taking Mac users seriously.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll blog more about new features, etc. But one I have to mention now is the dock icon with a count of unread mail messages. This is something Mail.App has had for some time and its GREAT to see Lotus adopt it!

Tags: 8.5, lotus, mac, notes

I don’t get very error messages on my Mac – which is great! Oddly enough, I’ve observed that when I do get error messages its usually caused by Adobe (there seems to be a new Adobe update or problem each time I open one of their products) and Microsoft. However, I’m still scratching my head on what this one was supposed to mean:

I guess I share something in common with “Microsoft Software Installation,” I don’t understand that either!

Tags: Apple / Mac, error messages, mac, microsoft

My frustrations with trying to get the iPhone to work well with my Lotus Notes based life are well documented here. But I will soy, things are getting better.

The update to Domino 8.0.2 on our core mail server (the one my file is on) meant that suddenly I gained delete functionality over my mail again (previously unavailable via my IMAP setup). However, the ball is now back in the iPhone’s corner as the iPhone has no “delete right now” option – thus I have to wait a minimum of one day before the message actually removes itself from my inbox.

I’ve also gotten into the habit of using DWA uberlite more often. I like the UI of this, but hate the fact that I have to be connected. Still, with a 3G network and WiFi all over the place – its not as bad as I imagined (or perhaps my standards have just lowered – either way, its working better).

Finally, the latest Mac OSX update (10.5.6) brought in some much needed improvements for MobileMe (their service which sync’s your address book, calendar, etc.). Each time I get a Notes calendar invite, I export it and drag the file into Apple’s iCal. Yes, its a pain, but it ensures my Notes and iCal (and thus iPhone) calendars are always synchronized. However, MobileMe replicates sporadically, at best. So I would often miss the replication window and forget to attend a meeting the following day, because it had yet to replicate.

However, 10.5.6 fixes that. Within a minute (in most cases, less) my Mac has sent off every calendar update to my iPhone. A BIG improvement.

While none of these user experiences are ideal, the fact is that I’ve dealt with manu-matically getting my iPhone/Notes worlds to integrate for so long, that even the smallest of improvements feel like a big deal.

The gang in Apple’s iTunes group have been quietly changing the way they burn CDs for several versions now. Sometimes, you get the CD Text attached (the thing that makes your car stereo, if equipped, able to tell you what song is playing) and sometimes you don’t. Also, with the way they now do gap-less songs, you haven’t been able to control the pause time between tracks (although I still think there was one minor release that allowed you to do this – but when I went back to try it, iTunes had already updated).

I stuck in a CD today to burn a couple of tracks and noticed this handy dialog box appear right after I hit “Burn Disc” in my playlist:

Notice that I can now pick the gap time between songs (in this case, I’m using “none” because I’m burning a recorded speech that ended up split across multiple tracks) and I can choose to include the CD Text. Great new feature! Thanks, iTunes!

I’ve been a big fan of Parallels ever since I started using a Mac. The software allows you to run Windows inside your Mac operating system and each release of the software has a number of great improvements that help blend your Windows and Mac environments together quite nicely.

I’ve also used VMware to do this, but found that the team at Parallels are really focused on coming up with stuff I didn’t realize I needed until they wrapped it into their software – much more so than what VMware offered.

Their latest version (4) is no exception. The user interface has been much improved with all new controlls/icons that really look nice (albiet a bit VMware-esque).

In addition, they have a new control panel area that allows you to see a somewhat live thumbnail version of all of the virtual environments you’re running. This is a great example of something I would probably have passed on if I saw a feature request for it and were in charge of development – but now that I’ve seen it, I think its REALLY handy!

Finally, they have an all new set of “status” icons at the bottom of the screen with lights that appear below the icons showing you exactly what’s going on with your machine. Again, very handy!

Beyond the UI improvements are a number of new features, stability improvements, etc. If you use Parallels, I’d highly suggest doing this upgrade. One note: the first few times it loaded after the upgrade, it took quite some time for Windows to actually be usable. I threw more RAM at my VM instance and the problem went away completely. I’m not sure if that was conincidence or some background tasks – but I thought it was noteworthy.

Tags: mac, parallels, user_interface, vmware

Wednesday afternoon my Mac went to sleep, as it normally does when I’m not around. I disconnected it (with no drives pluggedin) and went to my local coffee shop to finish out several emails I needed to respond to. When I got there, my Mac refused to wake up. I did the usual fixes but nothing work – which resulted in my visit to the Apple store.

Since then (and since my Mac is @ the Apple store for the next several days), I’ve been using a Sony Vaio we had laying around the office. Its a nice, lightweight machine with a Centrino Duo processor and XP. But within minutes, I started to make a list of the things I miss from my Mac and things I forgot I liked about PCs.

Missing about my Mac…

• Placement and funciton of control/command type keys
• Not having to deal with a static “start” bar that consumes a lot of space (and I think “auto hide” makes it worse)
• Spaces – I never realized how much I used that until now
• Auto-scrolling speeds on the mouse (the Mac adapts to the speed at which you move the mouse – the PC is one-speed-for-all based on what you set it to be)
• CMD+SHIFT+F4 (brings up a screen capture utility)
• Quicktime being “there” already
• Smooth fonts
• Spacebar preview (in Finder)

I forgot PCs are nice because…

• Applications are easier to find (when you need to install them)
• “Windows” key functionality like “WIN+R” to bring up the “run” command. Quicksilver does that on a Mac but I don’t think it does it as well.
• Network drives are MUCH easier to deal with on a PC (why do I have to MOUNT a network drive on a Mac each time I want to use it!?)
• Full Lotus product support (Quickr connectors, Notes 8, etc. – they’re all here on Windows and work great)

Despite realizing that there are things I miss from the Windows/PC world, I’m still anxious to get my Mac back!

Tags: lotus, mac, pc, windows

Sir Paul Mooney proposed that perhaps it was time to rethink the Lotus Notes user interface. He provided suggestions and others have as well. I wanted to weigh in on the idea…

I actually think the chicklets are great. Infact, I’m not the only one who thinks its a good idea. There’s one other company that has a device which has been applauded as a phenomenal device that features a similar interface. This one has a square icon representing a unique application (just like Notes), the ability to move to different groups (or tabs, like in Notes) where more application icons can be stored and the ability to move the application icons themselves from one screen/tab to another (just like Notes). Perhaps you haven’t seen the device I’m talking about:

Now… if Notes wants to make their icons look more cool like the iPhone, I’m all for it. But I think its somewhat appropriate that Lotus Notes (which was originally partially based on UI concepts from Apple) has kept this interface despite attempts to make it more contemporary in R5, 6, 7 and now 8 … and Apple chose it for one of their products.

And in my book, when Apple has an interface idea – its probably a great one!

Tags: Apple / Mac, interface, iphone, lotus, notes, ui