Genii Weblog
Can people help me out with an index card of Lotus terms?
Wed 24 Jan 2007, 11:47 AM
Tweetby Ben Langhinrichs
I am trying to come up with a single page (half if possible) that can help identify the crucial parts of the Lotus brand that equate to external social software and popularly recognized phenomena. For example:
SameTime ==> Instant Messaging + Web meetings
Quickr ==> File sharing ala Flickr but for more than just photos
Dogear ==> Shared bookmarks like Del.icio.us or Digg
Composite applications ==> business mashups
Connectons ==> Facebook + whatever
and so on. When somebody sees "Dogear" on a menu, it would be nice to say, "That means shared bookmarks like De.ico.us or Digg", but I sometimes find myself grasping. Some things are obvious, such as the IBM Blog Template. It might also be handy to have a table of popular social/viral software that went the other way. So, what does IBM that is equivalent to the following, but with a business context?
Flickr ==> Quickr, but it handles more than photos
I.M. ==> SameTime
LiveMeeting =>. SameTime
Digg ==> Dogear
Del.icio.us ==> Dogear
YouTube ==> Quickr, sort of
Wikis ==> Wikis
Blogs ==> Blogs
and so on. Are there obvious ones I am missing. I'd love to have an index card with these, and done well it could really make a clear message without an hour long talk.
Copyright © 2007 Genii Software Ltd.
What has been said:
550.1. Roberto Boccadoro (01/24/2007 02:21 PM)
Ben
I wouldn't compare Quickr with Flickr. Quickr is more than just photo sharing. You can organize a teamspace and put docs in, but you can have blogs, forums and wikis in that same space, and this goes way beyond the capabilities of flickr.
I agree with Jerry's comment about Connections. Just let me go back home and I will post something about this on the "yellow is the new black" blog.
550.2. Ian Randall (24/01/2007 10:26 PM)
I understand your confusion, but many of these new announcements (Connections and Quickr) can't simply be compared on a one-to-one basis with existing public systems, because they are not stand-alone systenms but are instead tightly integrated systems.
Therefore their value is more than the sum of their individual parts.
What I also like about the Connections announcement is that IBM is avoiding a vendor lock-in, both at the Client end and at the Content Server end. Including Windows Explorer (shades of Domino.Doc & ODMA) and Sharepoint as a Content Server platform will open more opportunities for this strategy. Although the Notes 8 interface will be spectacularly compelling.
However, it will be interesting to see if the SME market will have enough critical mass to justify Quickr or decide simply to stick or implement existing "public systems" because their true value only becomes evident after a certain critical mass (size) is achieved.
The only way for existing systems to compete is to integrate with other systems (possibly through alliances) or to be replaced in the market by a new generation of integrated systems.
Although the cost of systems integration will be very high and it will be hard for many existing systems to attract the capital necessary with their current income strategies. It also raises cost sharing issues between their different revenue generating models. I believe that only the largest players (like Google or Microsoft with cross-subsidizing revenue streams) will have the capital to compete in this new game.
My only concern is that this technology might only be adopted by the top tier of Fortune 500 companies. This after all this is market segment where both Notes and IBM has the strongest market share.
Perhaps IBM should consider "seeding" a number of Universities around the globe with these products just to get the ball rolling.