(I will update photos later this afternoon/evening...)
Today's the big day! Lotusphere Opening General Session


Live blogging from Lotusphere. Oops. Can't connect to WiFi. OK, Almost-live blogging....

After finishing breakfast, I wind my way in the queue of thousands, waiting to get into the Lotusphere Opening General Session (OGS).

I've just walked into the Lotusphere General Session. I hand over my golden ticket which gets me an immediate escort to the Bloggers Den - a roped off area with 20 Lotus-yellow bean bags with our names on them. Ed Brill motions me to my bean bag.  I'm in the firs row. Wow! To my right is fellow Notes blogger, John Head and behind me is Alan Lepofsky.

First up, Blue man group. Awesome.

Bob Picciano, just greeted the audience.
(Bob's wife has been a Notes developer since version 3. He assured us that someone in his house, who he sits across from each night at dinner, is a key advocate for the Notes product line.)

Over 12,000 new customers added to the Notes list...

Here it comes... the 2009 OGS Speaker... Dan Ackroyd

This year's theme: Resonance  (We got a taste of this yesterday at the Business Development Day general session.)

Dan goes on to talk about collaboration, drawing up his experience in film and television as a model for working together toward a common goal.

Working together is more than just being in the same place and space.

Bob's back on stage

Theme statement: Resonance. People drive effective outcomes.

OK, I get it. Resonance  It's about the resonance that happens when all aspects of collaboration, technology, and ... PEOPLE, work together to bring about change.

Customer spotlight:: Bob introduces three key customer users of Lotus Notes.


#1. Coca Cola Company.
Jean Michel-Ares, CIO shares how Coca Cola works as a company and how the Coca Cola product development teams collaborate to develop new products. But, the collaboration doesn't just happen in the product. No. They extend that out to bottlers shippers, retailers, and customers..

Integration into Line of Business Applications
Lotus Notes 8 and Connections are central to the Coca Cola 10-layer information stack and drives the way the teams communicate, collaborate, and innovate.

Notes on Collaboration - what did they look for and what led them to Notes and related Lotus products...
  • Ease of Use
  • Extended Enterprise
  • Openness
  • Mobility
  • Partnership

#2. NetJets (Leader in fractional Jet ownership).
_______ VP Of planning and architecture at NetJets is up.
5000 owners, 800 jets, 173 airports around the world. It's an amazing network of logistical collaborative factors that must work together to get our owners where they want to go. Lotus technology is at the core of their collaborative systems. Like Coca-Cola, people drive the process and a reliable collaborative infrastructure makes this possible.

#3. HSBC
Ian Haynes is up. 300,000 employees across 9,500 offices - people who need to collaborate.
The HSBC collaboration system is composed of
  • Telephony
  • E-Mail
  • IM
  • Team Spaces
  • Streaming media
  • Video Conferencing
  • Social Software

IBM Lotus is a key partner. Notes, Sometime, Connections, are key.

Paradox of business
      We bring more and mire information to employees in their office. Paradoxically, people spend less time in their office.

Jim Balsilliue Ce-CEO RIM is up to talk about RIM BlackBerry and Lotus Notes and the mobility made possible by BlackBerry.

(Alan Lepofsky is kicking my bean bag)

RIM Blackberry

Blackberry announces the enhanced suite of Lotus Applications for Blackberry
- Blackberry client for IBM Lotus Connections
- Blackberry Client for IBM Lotus Sometime
- Support for Lotus symphony and Quickr on Blackberry - take your desktop with you.
- Support for Domino Designer with XPages on the Domino Environment

( think we have a big announcement coming up....)

Yes, here it is:  LotusLive A single destination for on-line collaboration applications.

Visit www.lotuslive.com

Allistair Rennie

Happy Birthday, Lotus Notes. Lotus Notes celebrates its 20th birthday in 2009.

Kevin Cavanaugh up to talk about Notes.

(Someone just handed me a network cable, so I will refresh this page live from time to time....)


Notes 8.5 focuses on refining the user interface and making it better and easier as a platform to integrate with. Example: LinkedIn sidebar.

Impressive demo of adding a sidebar widget from a library to a pallet - just drag and drop. Now, items defined by the widget appear as live text.

iNotes Demo - it actually looks and works like Notes - in your browser! Well Done!

Brief tour of the new Eclipse-based, Notes 8.5 Designer Client.  Among many features: xPages and Ajax controls, same page for web browser or mobile device (e.g. BlackBerry). New view properties in designer to allow you to show, hide, or customize information for mobile  devices,

Other announcements:
      Lotus Commerce site for IBM Lotus Partners
      Partnership with OpenNtf

Be sure to check out Lotus Foundations - great stuff happing. Run VMWARE machines, even ones with Windows, inside of Foundations.

SameTime Unified Telephony

- Works with legacy systems, VOIP systems, etc.
- Great Demo
- SmartPhone client
- Rules for follow-me or find me capability. Let the system find you. (Based on SameTime awareness, location or even callerid)
- SameTime client can monitor Notes client and invoke rules based on your schedule.
I want Sametime SUT


Sametime 8.5 coming this year.

NO MORE JAVA Applets to download to run Sametime!
Desktop integration, recording in industry standard formats (e.g. QuickTime)

Next us: Jeff Schick  V.P. of Social Software, IBM Lotus

Lotus Connections and QuickR- proven leaders in business social software. (Brief overview...)
New services coming to Lotus Social Software
- Wikis
- Content Sharing Services
- Planned integration with Success Factors software
- Home page can direct your attention to people and information of interest
- New microblogging features
- Lotus Connections will soon support communities (great for KM)
- Out of box themes, but you can create and customize your own.
- Did I say that Wikis are core services within Connections?

I should not have stayed up so late last night. A warm comfortable bean bag chair in a reclined position. Not a good combination for me.

I have to say, I have seen a number of outstanding demo of BlackBerry Integration throughout the Lotus product line. Nice work IBM Lotus!

Now, we're covering Quickr and how it is meeting the content management and content sharing needs of the knowledge worker of the future..
Quickr 8.2 foir Domino coming mid-year.

Next up: VP IBM Portals and Mashups, Larry Bowden
Now announcing integration with metrics and analytics companies for Webshpere Portal.
Adding rich content editing, for 6.1 and above.

The demos this morning are impressive and compelling. This simply work. Well done, Ron and all of team Lotus!

Lotus Bluehouse is now LotusLive Engage


Looks like a great way to collaborate and engage with people outside the firewall.

LotusLive announces partnerships with SaleForce, LinkedIn, and Skype. Awesome.

Introducing Kristen Lauria, V.P. Marketing of Lotus Software.

Demo of new air cover marketing focused on working smarter, together.

Outstandingf finale: The Elguji team wins the IBM Lotus CTO Award for IdeaJam!!!

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