January, 2009

Will 2009 be the year of the mobile device?

In speaking to several Lotusphere attendees, the general consensus is that 2009 will be the year of the mobile device. With workers, and specifically IT professionals, on the go more than ever, being able to collaborate with co-workers and peers has become increasingly important.

Since the announcement that there will be support for Domino Designer with Xpages on the BlackBerry platform, the opportunities for Domino developers to build custom applications on their BlackBerrys has become limitless.

Do you think that 2009 will be the year of the mobile device? Have you begun developing on your BlackBerry yet? And finally, what type of BlackBerry/mobile device material would you like to see on SearchDomino.com. Feel free to comment here or write me at mgervais@techtarget.com.

New Lotusphere 2009 announcements

From Lotusphere 2009, Lake Buena Vista, Florida…

Co-CEO of Research In Motion (RIM), Jim Balsillie, announces BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) support for Lotus Notes 8.5 – only 10 days after the release of Lotus Notes 8.5 at MacWorld. You’ll also be able to use Sametime, Symphony and Quickr on your BlackBerry mobile devices.

Another exciting and important announcement was that there will be support for Domino Designer with Xpages on the BlackBerry platform. The significance of this is that now all Domino developers become BlackBerry developers.

Also of note, Bluehouse, which was announced at last year’s Lotusphere event, has now become Lotus Live.

IBM Lotus will also now promote, distribute and offer support for OpenNTF.org, which was met with a terrific round of applause.

Live from Lotusphere 2009

Hello All,

Greetings from Florida and Lotusphere! This year’s show opened up with an amazing performance from the Blue Man Group that really got the crowd going. The theme for this year’s show is “Resonance” — as in Lotus products are resonating with their customers. During his keynote address, GM Bob Picciano explained that Lotus has seen 16 consecutive quarters of growth and has added 12,236 customers since the release/advent of Lotus Notes 8.

Picciano then introduced this year’s guest speaker, Dan Aykroyd. Aykroyd proceeded to go into his Coneheads/Beldar shtick — but then went on to explain that in any profession, collaboration is key.

After Aykroyd finished, Picciano discussed three large companies that deploy Lotus technology. Coca Cola, NetJets, and HSBC executives explained how and why they use Lotus technology. The main point from all three was that they need to be able to effectively and efficiently collaborate with customers in hundreds of offices all over the world.

There’s certainly a lot more happening and attendees are very excited. Stay tuned to hear more about what’s happening at Lotusphere and what announcements are being made.