WR Bulletin Vol 10 Issue #02 28-Jan-09
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
The Wainhouse Research Bulletin NEWS AND VIEWS ON REAL-TIME UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS As always, please feel free to forward this newsletter to your colleagues. To be added to our FREE automated email distribution list, simply visit www.wainhouse.com/bulletin. Andrew W. Davis, [email protected] Lotusphere 2009 Highlights WR analysts Andy Nilssen and Brent Kelly carried the Wainhouse Research banner at the Lotusphere 2009 conference held in Orlando January 18 – January 22. One surprising tidbit was that attendance for the 7,000+ end users attending the event was up 2% over last year, which correlates with our recent WRB survey that spending in conferencing and collaboration, and IT in general is expected to be slightly UP over 2008 levels in spite of the current economic difficulties. IBM Lotus and its partners made many announcements including: ¾ LotusLive (www.lotuslive.com), a cloud-based portfolio of social networking and collaboration services designed for business. For those familiar with Bluehouse, IBM’s year-long beta of its services offering, LotusLive is the resulting commercial version. The current quick services list includes IM/Presence (think Sametime), web conferencing (Unyte), colleague networking (think Connections), activities (to-do lists, project tracking), file repository (with access control, revision tracking); email will be added shortly (based in part on IBM’s recent acquisition of Outblaze). Proving that LotusLive is going to be more than just what Lotus can muster (and, it turns out, to help get the word out as well) Lotus also announced LotusLive will integrate with the service offerings from LinkedIn (people search), Skype (VoIP & video conferencing), and Salesforce.com – offerings that touch over 400 million users today. Pricing was not announced, nor was commercial availability other than 1H09. ¾ Lotus Sametime 8.5, which extensively reworks the Sametime Meeting client as well as the voice and video capability within Sametime. Sametime 8.5 supports a choice of either an abbreviated feature set for casual meeting participants using a pure HTML web browser client (Web 2.0- based, no Java or applet downloads), or a formally installed fully-featured, rich client for presenters and mainstream users (WR notes that Microsoft Live Meeting went the same way, though Microsoft’s rich client is limited to Windows desktops). Using either method, starting up a meeting is lightning fast – “as fast as a chat window”. IBM Lotus has also upgraded the Please take our ONE QUESTION poll. Results in next WR Bulletin Are your room or desktop videoconferencing systems integrated with your telephony system? { Yes, Avaya-based { Yes, Cisco-based { Yes, Nortel-based { Yes, Alcatel-Lucent-based { Yes, Siemens-based { Yes, other { No If you answered Yes above, would you be willing to talk to WR on the phone for 10 minutes, off the record. Yes, my email address is: Submit operates if you opened WRB in a browser. If not, visit www.wainhouse.com/wrbpoll The Wainhouse Research Bulletin Page-1 Vol. 10 #01 January 28, 2009 Meeting client so that shaded backgrounds display flawlessly. Sametime 8.5 will also come with a SIP server and a SIP softphone client. Consequently, ANY standards-based SIP device will work. We saw Polycom SIP video endpoints connect with the new Sametime client (which supports H.264 video). ¾ We learned a lot more about the Sametime Unified Telephony architecture and deployment strategy. Voice is complicated, and SUT is a complicated product; it will be deployed only by IBM’s Global Technology Services Group. SUT’s availability date has been pushed out to the second half of the year to allow additional beta customer installs. SUT is compelling because it allows companies with heterogeneous telephony environments to provide collaborative capabilities independently of the telephony solutions a customer has deployed previously. ¾ Alloy, a joint software product built by IBM Lotus and SAP that connects Lotus Notes customers with SAP Business Suite. Think of Alloy as an elegant mashup that allows employees easy access to SAP reports, procurement, data and product life cycle management tools from within Notes. The product is extensible so that any widget or dashboard the user prefers can be created. ¾ New collaboration software and development tools for the RIM Blackberry. These new tools allow any Domino developer to immediately be a fully functional Blackberry developer as well. The Blackberry platform now supports IBM Lotus Domino Designer and XPages. The Blackberry Java Development Environment for Eclipse also plugs into IBM Lotus Domino Designer; this will enable Eclipse-based extensions and mashups to be added to business applications running on the Blackberry. In addition, the Blackberry will support the open document format so that documents from Lotus Symphony, IBM’s free desktop software suite that includes word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation capabilities, will display on the mobile handset. IBM’s social networking software, Lotus Connections, and its team workspace solution, Lotus Quickr, will now also run on the Blackberry. Here’s What Brent Thinks: [email protected] The IBM Lotus offering is impressive. What I like about it is that most of the collaboration tools are Eclipse-based, and they can easily be embedded within one another. For example, from within Notes, one can have the Sametime buddy list displayed, and you can also add widgets and mashups easily to any of these applications so that people can work how they choose within their own customizable environment. The Lotus conferencing and collaboration capabilities are also easily embeddable within other line of business applications. The ability to use standard SIP devices with Sametime is a good move on IBM’s part. IBM does not make its money off of devices or telephony systems, but off of software, servers, and services. The company has promised its technology partners that it will help them succeed, and this is engendering good will among the partner community toward IBM. That being said, IBM is still seen as a company for the large enterprise, and in order for its products to be more widely adopted, it is going to have to develop better strategies for the middle market. I see the Lotus conferencing and collaborative solution as a very compelling offering. Here’s What Andy Thinks: [email protected] While the already impressive mix of premise-based conferencing, collaboration, and social networking products from Lotus continues to march on – with well-thought-out, open, standards- based enhancements, to me LotusLive is the standout of this Lotusphere. I always thought that the Bluehouse team was in an enviable position: cherry pick the best Lotus technology and unleash it as a compelling SaaS offering to go after WebEx and Microsoft. What the team has done in a year is astounding: taken bits of Lotus stuff here, have the courage to mix it with technology from an acquisition or two (WebDialogs, Outblaze) when the in-house technology is not appropriate, run an open beta to get real customer feedback, and then get it out the door. What I did not expect is the level of integration (integration is “an overused word”, laments LotusLive marketing) not only between LotusLive components, but between SaaS offerings from The Wainhouse Research Bulletin Page-2 Vol. 10 #01 January 28, 2009 three hi-stakes partners AND “click-to-cloud” from the existing Lotus on-premise offerings. IT departments everywhere will be able to mix on-premise and SaaS to match their particular needs. Besides the task of getting LotusLive actually out the door (it is not there yet), Lotus faces an enviable dilemma: is LotusLive an extension of the product line to SaaS targeted for large enterprise users? Or is it a new services offering for SMB’s ?? I think it is both, though two- mints-in-one presents quite a marketing challenge – perhaps one that, with a plan already in place to get in front of 400 million users, an aggressive $100B entity can actually pull off. LotusLive web conference demo with (simulated) BlackBerry participant Sean Poulley, VP online collaboration services, IBM Lotus, reveals the company’s strategy to instantly gain exposure to 400M people. Starting a Skype conference call A Polycom video endpoint is just another SIP from within LotusLive device to newly-SIP-enabled Sametime 8.5 The Wainhouse Research Bulletin Page-3 Vol. 10 #01 January 28, 2009 The Lotusphere partners showcase displayed applications that integrate with the Lotus ecosystem Andy Nilssen, WR, gets the latest Saturday Night Live alumnus Dan Aykroyd Lotus Sametime and Notes integration demo tells the Lotus faithful what team collaboration from Dan Demeis, Premiere Global means to him Tandberg Launches C60 Codec Your company name & link here! Tandberg has introduced the company’s latest HD Join the elite group of WR Bulletin videoconferencing codec dubbed the C60. This is sponsors for 2009 & get your word out! essentially a little sister to the C90 introduced half a Contact Sara Fargo, [email protected] year ago – same fundamental technology and The Wainhouse Research Bulletin would architecture but smaller 1U form factor, fewer I/O like you to join us in thanking our connections, and less cost. The essence of the product 2009 sponsors who help keep announcement is support for 1080p video (optional, distribution of the WRB free: with 720p standard), 20 kHz stereo audio, automatic Aethra Compunetix gain control and noise reduction, and an embedded 4- AGT Haedenbridge way, 720p bridge with individual transcoding (also optional). There are some powerful collaboration Cisco LifeSize capabilities as well (also optional) including support Talk & Vision for UXGA and full 1080p HD and the ability to share The fine print: Sponsorship of the WR Bulletin in up to three multimedia sources simultaneously. The no way implies that our sponsors endorse the MSRP for the base C60 is $21,900; software options opinions expressed in the WRB.