DominoKeys.com

We just updated to the latest version of Quickr and WOW is it an improvement. It is noticably faster and its clear that a lot of it has been cleaned up. There’s also a bit more Ajax goodness floating throughout it. Longstoryshort: a strong upgrade for the product.

I’d still LOVE to have the ability to have folders in my personal Quickr place and Mac support. Oh, Mac support… that would be GRAND!

Which brings me to this question: anyone else having problems adding their personal place via Quickr connectors? It looks like you can only add team places, not personal places (which were previously an option to add).

Anyone else found this? Just me? Work arounds?

Meanwhile… this is promising: Pandabear @ Snapps. Its beta so there’s still plenty that I’m sure they’re working on. I’d like to see something different for uploading files (dragging files onto a Panda is fun, but not as business-like as I need it to be) and more functionality added throughout. But its a great concept… especially for those of us who work in a world of multiple OS’s.

Kevin Misc. Info, Notes and a MAC adobe air, lotus, panda, quickr

I spent some time (OK, a lot of time) in the usability lab at LS09. One of the things I got to see was Sametime 8.5, running on an iPhone.

This isn’t inteded to be a full blown application – just a web version. The UI is really shapping up nicely. Its very intuitive and they’ve come up with a few handy tricks to make it even easier to use. There’s just one problem: its a website. The second you close your iPhone you no longer will get messages.

Now… the intended use isn’t to be a mobile Sametime client that goes with you (which I would use the heck out of, if I had it), rather a way to access IM services while mobile. That’s still handy.

I haven’t spent a lot of time with other IM apps for the iPhone – mainly because none of them support Sametime and that’s really the only IM software I use anymore; so I’m not sure how those applications handle getting messages when you’re phone is “closed.” I know that a lot of the opportunity to provide a good way of handling this lies on Apple. By their own admission, there needs to be a way to deliver IM alerts to you as simply and efficiently (saving battery life, etc.) as text messages happen on the device today. I honestly don’t know how well other apps are doing that today – but can certainly understand that it would be a HUGE incumbrance to Lotus’ deployment of a true Sametime client app on the iPhone as well.

But they’re smart guys and gals – they’ll figure it out.

Kevin Apple / Mac, Notes and a MAC iphone, ls09, sametime

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!)

Kevin Apple / Mac, Notes and a MAC 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.

Kevin Apple / Mac, News, Notes and a MAC Apple / Mac, iphone, lotusphere, ls09, mac, notes, ogs, quickr, sametime

I have mixed feelings about continuing to post anything about the Notes 8.5 release for the Mac. The fact is that I was one of the many people at Lotusphere 2008 who frantically downloaded the beta release when it was announcd. However, I only kept it installed on my machine a total of 5 weeks because … well, it was beta, slow and buggy and I needed to get stuff done. (I’m not condemming the beta version at all – the fact is that it wasn’t a production version, and that’s what I needed at the time.)

My mixed feelings are due to the fact that I’m stumbling on a lot of things that are interesting and wondering “Was that in the beta? Was that supposed to be there? Was this a problem in the beta? Is this by design?” Regardless, I said I’d post some updates, so that’s what I will do.

First off, I LOVE the way you can check up on your quota in your mail file. There’s an indicator at the top of your email navigation (which seems like it should be clickable, but isn’t) and the ability to access a quick pop-up via a menu to give you some more detailed information. For the record, my mail file is MUCH larger than I’d like it to be. Time to delete.

One of the things I rely on (for now) is the ability to export every calendar entry to an .ics file, which I drag into iCal, thus syncing a number of Mac calendars in my life, including my iPhone. Yes, its not the most glamorous way of doing this, but it works and I’ve been too busy to try alternate methods. There are two problems with doing this in 8.5: 1) I can’t select multiples via the gutter and 2) there are two options for the export type, both of which appear to be similar. I’ve tried both types and they appear to do the same thing.

Finally, I’ve seen a few cases where there is a phantom tip bubble. I haven’t figured out a rhyme or reason to it, but occassionally one appears and doesn’t disappear. In this case, a calendar reminder stayed up over my inbox, workspace and a few applications. Minimizing, then bringing up the window again usually takes care of it.

I still have a lot of positive things to say about this release and I’m thrilled that the Mac version doesn’t appear to be an after-thought on this release. This is all helping build up even more excitement for Lotusphere!

Kevin Notes and a MAC 8.5, lotusphere, mac, notes, quota

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!

Kevin Apple / Mac, Notes and a MAC 8.5, lotus, mac, notes

This Thanksgiving I, as I’m sure many of you did, thought a lot about all the things I have to be thankful for. Family, friends, a roof over my head and food on the table. Of course, there were some more specific things that made the list including a few new iPhone apps and having my brother explain to me how to really use FinalCut Pro.

But it got me thinking: what will I be thankful for next year (as it relates to Lotus/Apple stuff)? I thought I’d come up with that list now. (Incase you haven’t figured it out, all of these things are things I HOPE I’ll be thankful for – but none have really happened yet):

• iPhone Client for Lotus Notes (with push email/calendar, global and personal address book, and as much integration to the iPhone as possible)
• Notes 8.5.2 – the release that fixes whatever wasn’t found in testing of 8.5
• Domino Admin/Developer clients for the Mac
• Release of Notes clients for the Mac at the same time as Windows
• Matte screen for the new MacBook Pro
• Another USB port on the MacBook Pro (I always need “one more”)
• Some type of Office software for the Mac that handles menus better with spaces (I’m looking at you MS Office 98), better support for Microsoft Office file formats (now looking at you iWork) or faster loading time without Java errors (yeah, that’s you, Symphony).
• Cisco VoIP client for the iPhone
• Sametime IM client for the iPhone
• Quickr 8.x release that makes it feel like a finished product, not a work in progress — ideally one that runs on Domino; since its a Lotus branded product and not an IBM WebSphere one

What are you wanting to be thankful for?

Kevin Misc. Info, Notes and a MAC

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!

Kevin Apple / Mac, Notes and a MAC Apple / Mac, interface, iphone, lotus, notes, ui

Sort of.

A few weeks ago I talked about an application called NotesCal which looked to be a promising application that would deliver my Notes calendar to my iPhone. However, I ran into a common error that many others did. The developer contacted me to tell me that he was seeding a new update to the AppStore and since then, I’ve been waiting patiently.

Today, it arrived. The application has been renamed to NotesPro and its worthy of the name change! Not only does it deliver calendar information (which now works for me, btw) but it also supports email, contacts and to do’s.

Let me repeat that: iPhone application that displays my Lotus Notes email, calendar, contacts and to do’s.

Now, before I go further, let me just say that I’ve litterally tried each and every iPhone-Notes solution out there and this one, in my opinion, comes closest to being “the app” that’s been missing in the marketplace. AND, I’m plesantly surprised that the upgrade didn’t just fix the calendar issue, but threw in some AWESOME value-added tools in the process!

That being said, I think there are some obvious next steps for the app. No, you’re not going to be able to tell your organization you can now support the iPhone. A few more things need to exist, including:

• Ability to delete emails (right now its view, create and reply)
• Ability to create calendar entries
• Ability to create to-do’s (or at least update them)
• Scrolling of the entire “document” on the iPhone. The app just scrolls the text field, not the whole thing. I thought this was going to be a cool feature but it feels like my HUGE iPhone screen just got limited down to about 1/3 the size.
• Ability to accept calendar invites
• Ability to set email/calender/etc. sync schedules (the whole thing works off an agent you need to build in your mail file, so I’m not even going to beg for push email). And then if I had that, I’d want…
• Icon denoting how many new messages in the inbox at the iPhone application menu

Overall, its still a great app and a very strong release (considering that I didn’t even expect ANYTHING else to be in the release other than a calendar fix). The app is a bit slow, but tolerable (and faster, for me, than using the ultralite thing). My contacts also don’t work and give a generic error – but I haven’t followed up on that yet.

So… if you’re looking for a strong iPhone-to-Notes application, this is worth checking out. I have to say, I’m really hopeful for where this will go based on the HUGE step forward since the last update. Who knows … maybe I’ll get my dream list above and more on the next round!

Kevin IT Management, Mobile Phones, Notes and a MAC appstore, iphone, lotus, notes

I just realized that equation could actually be true. Let me explain:

TUAW covered (rather re-re-covered) a story about DWA/iNotes ultralite for the iPhone. In the article, they mentioned that there are 140 million people using Notes.

Earlier today, I referenced another TUAW article that talked about sales figures for some of the iPhone applications. In this case, they showed that two products from a company called tap tap tap produced revenues of $52,815 in 24 days.

The current iPhone applications that run either parts, or all, of Lotus Notes mail, calendar and contacts functionality range in price from $2.99 to well over $100 plus monthly fees. And all of those apps have some goofy element of them. Either they don’t work with the iPhone’s built in calendar, mail and/or contacts applications; or they require PCs and servers to act as conduits; or they flat-out don’t always work.

So that led me to a crazy idea: why doesn’t IBM/Lotus build their own native iPhone application that integrates Lotus Notes email, calendar and contacts into the iPhone’s application set? I know, crazy isn’t it? In my idea, this would be a true application, not just a website you have to authenticate to, navigate through, etc. via your browser.

Let’s do some unrealistic math. Let’s assume all of the 140 million users bought an iPhone and paid $9.99 for the Notes application. Boom! $1,398,600,000. But that’s a big assumption.

How about some more conservative math. Let’s assume 1% of the 140 million users (1.4 million) get an iPhone and pay a fee for the application. Let’s look at some pricing models:

1.4 million X $9.99 (a low-cost price-point for the software) = $13,986,000
1.4 million X $29.99 (a fair average) = $41,986,000
1.4 million X $99 (the equivalent of GOOD’s license cost) = $138,600,000

Now, to be fair. That’s not instant revenue because you’ve got to tell businesses that the iPhone is now a device that can be supported and that they should ditch their Blackberry for it. Still, those are some big numbers and I’m going to go out on a limb here, but I don’t think it would cost them anywhere near any of those numbers to develop the software.

I could be all wrong, but I enjoy doing math. By the way, these calculations were brought to you by my iPhone.

Kevin Mobile Phones, Notes and a MAC dwa, inotes, iphone, math, ultralite