Slate

 Information Week reports:

"Collaboration processes require rich content seamlessly integrated into the user's experience," Ken Bisconti, vice president of IBM workplace, portal and collaboration products, said in a statement. "3D collaboration is the next wave of interactive technology for knowledge workers."

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AMEinfo covers this launch...

Lotus Notes and Domino 7, a key component of the IBM(R) Workplace™ strategy, marks a major milestone in IBM's product roadmap for the Lotus product family. Customers have indicated that a critical factor when choosing a software platform is a reliable, long-term product plan that won't require additional software purchases or major migrations to upgrade.

IBM is helping customers plan their software purchases and deployments by delivering new versions of Lotus Notes and Domino every 12-18 months and making it simple for customers to upgrade to new versions. As a result, IBM's clear product roadmap and consistent delivery of new Lotus Notes and Domino technology has resulted in more than 90% of customers working on the most recent1 version of the product, which is an unprecedented rate of adoption in the software industry.

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The Lotus world is full of them. :) At any slight Lotus v/s MS centric discussion, you would find them raising their respective banners/flags. And why not, this is a very competitive area and the stakes are high for many; Product Vendors, ISV, Partners, Developers and definitely the Customers or end-users.

Two interesting blog entries @ edbrill.com where ultimately sentiments will prevail :)

Microsoft "de-emphasizing" all existing Exchange developer APIs

Steve Ballmer on blogging

IBM Lotus has been leader in Collaboration Software for over a decade with its widely used corporate softwares like Lotus Notes and Domino. But there is no end to innovation and with the recent launch of Notes Domino 7 you would gonna hear and see alot on this.

Like the one Ed Brill had pointed out to this eye-catching and a supercool Lotus Ad in a recent Wall Street Journal Issue.

Release 7 is a server focus, with lots of improvement to Domino for performance/scalability and reducing TCO.

A simple but real way to know whats people talking and working about.

Notes / Domino 7 is shipping!

Lotus News 

I wanted to check some stuff on IBM Workplace implementations (WSE/ WCS/ whatever) but haven't found any suitable link. IBM do have a large case study database, but the one from Lotus site does not include any category for IBM Workplace. The main Workplace page does not have any links for Case Studies. Or is it that they don't have any yet? But its seems so long we have been hearing IBM Workplace story.

Yes I did find this link @ IBM which shows some cases studies but they are for Content Management (LWCMS) and from years when IBM Workplace was used to be called Lotus Workplace. No stories on WSE or WCS here.

M$ has never understood Collaboration or Workflow. For years it has been trying to build these capabilities in its various flagship products. In past we had heard about Exchange enabled Workflow, but this was a mess. Then came Sharepoint but they are not nothing more than IBM QuickPlace-like document sharing.

Today we had an M$ Consultant who was every eager to show a POC of Sharepoint-based Workflow (we are in midst of migration (: And being gung-ho, he asked for the most complex one. I gave him a 4-sheet printout of our Lotus Workflow based process which has some 60+ activities. I would be exagarating if I say "He fainted" but thats best I can describe his state then.

Though he admitted this cannot be done in Sharepoint, but still describing it as the best collaborative platform, with check-in/check-out and document routing. (wow, now dats definitely collaboration...LOL)

Now it looks like M$ is beefing up BizTalk's "Human Workflow Services" which remindes me of Lotus "Super Human Software" campaign for R5. The planned release of BizTalk is code named V-Next, i guess a pun on RNext, the beta for Lotus Notes Release 6.

And the words are out that the same BizTalk team is building Windows Workflow Services, and you bet it would definitely provide Check-in/Check-out collaboration.

So the CEO now proclaims...

"We have Lotus Notes opportunities coming out the yin-yang. I've never seen [such] a customer base waiting to be plucked."

But I say they should focus more on Exchange 5 installations (there are still pretty many). Plus the migration success rate is much higher here than moving LN bases.

Though the CEO can get away with a laugh for all the incorrect details/rumors.

The Register: Microsoft's Ballmer tells lurvely partners to stick it to IBM

At a recent partner conference Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has announced the new Forms capabilities in its next version of MS Office.

After having tried to come up with a Notes Killer App by buffing up Exchange/Outlook with workflow and collab features, MS is now trying to embed these features in its flagship Office software.

But the underlying architecture is still very primitive using Email services to route these so called Workflow Forms either to User mail-box or a mail-in database application. So you cannot have two-way updates available to the Application Form Submitter; unless you notify him with an email. So still for MS collaboration is only & all about Emails :)

CNET -> Microsoft to demo forms' abilities in next Office