What Happens at Lotusphere...

...Should NOT stay at Lotusphere!

Sure, there was no heavy announcement about Rnext or even with regard to some products any details on their futures, at least in the main sessions. Some specific sessions on topic did include roadmaps but let's see what did come out of the 'Sphere and what you should be bringing to customers all year long.

Project Vulcan? no, not a product yet, more an idea and while we can discuss it, I prefer to see it as a truly universal inbox for email, videos, sametime, twitter and more with internal and external feeds seamlessly integrated. I may be wrong and it may turn into something completely different.

Traveler, especially for iPhone users, and soon Android, remains a key reason why customers are upgrading from R6,R7 even R8 (I have one going from R5 even)! My discussions with some IBM execs showed that IBM really does see the future is mobile and will work very hard to be more up to date with the latest and greatest toys, I mean phones.

Mobile is not only critical but cool too. Finally.

LotusLive is the future and IBM is really expanding the offer for LotusLive Notes to include a full Notes client with sameitme, calendaring, etc.., and even BES options and dropped the minimum down to 25 from 1,000 users. This should stop any customers looking at going to Exchange or Google, if for no other reason than the fear of migration and the lack of infrastructure required to have it this way. The Cloud may still be a ways off for some, but others I think will jump at this chance and they probably should.

Websphere is out in the public and IBM did an excellent job of not making a big deal about it. It should be this way. You as the customer want a solution, the back end should really not matter. Besides that is what we as business partners are here for.

Quickr is evolving further, 8.5 is in beta and I have it up and running but I can't tell you where without NDA from IBM. So if you have questions let me know. The plus side RIM has made a client available for Quickr and Connections which will cost a little money and looks really good. I still don't have a copy so don't ask, I will review it once I get a copy.

Windows Mobile as a device OS is dying so don't get it unless you have no choice.

Linux is growing, my netbook is solely Ubuntu as is a server on the rack. An excellent idea from Joe Litton and Bill Machilsky to help people go to Linux was done on the last day of Lotusphere and hopefully will become something bigger next year. My personal view of Linux has become much more favorable since using the Ubuntu version. Not my primary device but it is really nice to do everything there just like on Windows, but it's all free and for those non-IT geeks, mostly graphical.

So Lotusphere is done, but you can carry it on all year long. Attend events, comment on blogs, post requests, answer questions, host a proof of technology or a lunch and learn at your office, do a webinar on how to use the Notes client for the other 85% of what it can do aside from email and calendar/scheduling.

If you need help, just ask, some Lotus user groups have asked me to speak or submit sessions for their events this year and if I can help you with yours, I will too.