Friday, August 01, 2003

Thinking the unthinkable: Lotus without Notes

Thinking the unthinkable: Lotus without Notes "But now it is possible to think the unthinkable. The result is not the withering away of Lotus but rather its evolution into a more integral and highly innovative component of the IBM Software offering.
Lotus is no longer envisaged as one among four distinct groups within IBM Software, but rather as the top layer in an integrated stack. In this model Lotus is responsible for supporting and defining human interaction, collaboration and information access to the pieces below (and, of course, is in turn enabled by them). The concept of the Lotus Workplace – a conjunction of existing Lotus collaboration technologies, the WebSphere portal (now part of the Lotus group) and a new, evolving set of messaging and collaboration capabilities — encapsulates this development.
In this model, the evolution to a world in which collaboration and messaging are vital IBM capabilities but in which the Notes client, Domino server or NSF data store are no longer central elements, becomes clear. Not only is this a conceivable goal, it is a potentially liberating one for Lotus and its customers.
Both can start to think about collaboration, human interaction and messaging in a much more flexible way, driven by real needs met by the latest developments in software and standards. IBM, not surprisingly, calls this On Demand Collaboration. But don’t be too cynical about the marketing hype. Underneath the slogan is a real technical vision that might just change the way we work."

Via Analyst Views

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