Daimlers CIO about the Microsoft Deal

On the german > Automotive IT website is an > interview with Daimlers CIO Dr. Michael Gorriz about the Microsoft deal. He explains that they calculate to get a positive Business Case in five years.

Gorriz: […] Wenn wir allein die IT-Kosten rechnen, gehen wir in einem Betrachtungszeitraum von fünf Jahren von einem positiven Business Case aus. Was wir nicht eingerechnet haben, sind Effizienzverluste durch den Wechsel auf eine neue Umgebung. Und die Effizienzgewinne, die der Wechsel auf eine schnellere und voll integrierte Umgebung mit sich bringt.

He explains that 10 % of all users (180.000) work intensive with documents. These users will save one or two minutes each day, since it is possible to find documents with the desktop search faster. Further users which use web conferences or other communication tools will save five minutes each day. These seven minutes each day means high savings in five years.

Gorriz: Wir haben Modellrechnungen gemacht und die Nutzer in verschiedene Klassen eingeteilt. Da gibt es eine Klasse von etwa 10 Prozent der Nutzer, die sehr intensiv mit Dokumenten umgehen. Und die sehr intensiv mit Onlinemedien und Onlineverfahren arbeiten.

Hier sparen wir mehrere Minuten: Weil die Kollegen beispielsweise mit Hilfe der Desktopsuche Dokumente schneller finden, rechnen wir mit ein bis zwei Minuten am Tag. Mit dem Aufbau von Webkonferenzen und der Nutzung anderer Communication-Werkzeuge rechnen wir noch einmal mit fünf Minuten pro Tag. Bei 180 000 Mitarbeitern auf fünf Jahre gerechnet addieren sich diese Minuten zu hohen Einsparungen.

He explains further that the users have to work with the Microsoft Outlook client (for e-mailing) and the IBM Lotus Notes client for the existing applications.

Gorriz: Zu einem Zeitpunkt X wechseln wir von Lotus auf Outlook. Und: wir werden weiterhin beide Clients auf dem Desktop haben. Sowohl Lotus-Notes als auch die Sharepoint-Oberfläche. Die bestehenden Notes-Applikationen werden wir weiterhin mit Lotus Notes nutzen können. Allerdings nicht mehr den Mail-Client, sondern nur noch die Notes-Applikationen.

Further, he explains that Daimler will not use the cloud offering from Microsoft for the Exchange usage.

AutomotiveIT: Aber es ist nicht Microsoft und deren Cloud-Angebot?

Gorriz: Nein.

Of course, I like Lotus Notes and I’m not working for Daimler, but the explanations are unconvincing for me. If you save at most seven minutes a day, means this that you can use this time for other useful work? Or are the setup costs for these work higher? Further, the users have to work with two different clients instead of using one client.

Scheduling Appointments and Vacations in Teams

Yesterday on the Powersphere PAVONE announced a new release of its scheduling application PAVONE GroupCalendar, which is based on IBM Lotus Notes and Domino. It should be available in October. The application collects appointments and meetings from the user’s mail applications. In the new user interface the users can see the appointments and vacations from all other users. A single calendar view gives a complete overview about the dates of each colleague. The main improvement is the new user interface. For example, it contains a gantt view for vacations or a gantt view for all dates. The application can used with different function ranges. For example, you can use it only as a vacation scheduling application or as scheduling application without vacation dates. Further, it has an interface to a project management application and shows the project appointments in the views.

Build Workflow Applications based on XPages

Today, PAVONE announced a new release of his workflow application PAVONE Espresso Workflow. This new release is based on XPages. With XPages the application developer can build an user interface for the IBM Lotus Notes client and web browsers. Espresso Workflow is on the market since 1995 and has the same roots as Lotus Workflow. Besides the XPages implementation Espresso Workflow provides a full featured API based on LotusScript. The workflow definitions can be modelling with the grafical tool called PAVONE ProcessModeler.

It is possible to create a workflow application based on the Espresso Workflow application or add the design elements into another application. The release will be available at the beginning of October.

Live blogging from Powersphere

Today, is the second day of the 10th > Powersphere in Paderborn (Germany). The first day was only for business partner. Today is an open day for everyone. Since I have no presentation today, I will try to blog some interested news. Ed Brill is the first time here in Paderborn. Unfortunately, Brent Peters is not here, due to illness. Hot topics are about IBM Lotus Notes and Domino, BPM and other things. Ed Brill will talk about the > Project Vulcan, Daniel Nashed will talk about > Lotus Traveler, Niklas Heidloff about mobile apps with XPages, Leo Westhues about Lotus Symphony. Besides these are some presentations about IBM Websphere Portal, LotusLive and Cloud Computing. So, please refresh this page during the day, since I will write down the news.

5:20 pm: End of the event for today. Tomorrow is the third day, but only for invited people.

4:30 pm: New session in the forum: > BPM in the Cloud. 2009 only 6 % of the companies uses business process models. Afterwards Artur Habel shows an introduction of workflow management with > PAVONElive.

4:10 pm: Back from a > session about grafical tools for Lotus Notes applications. Hady Mirian and Thomas Rychlik presented tools for designing the Organization structure or Project structure with the Eclipse Rich Client-based  > PAVONE StructureBuilder framework.

2:00 pm: Session from Niklas Heidloff about > mobile apps and XPages.

Transition effects without page refresh. Showed the > XPages Mobile Controls project, > XCamera (XPages with PhoneGap), > ImageViewer.

Works offline with the last 10 entries. Data will be stored locally in a SQL database.

He showed the new > XPages Extension Library. Very awesome! Controls will be deployed on the server. With the API the developer can develop own controls. More information on the > OpenNTF Blog.

12:20 am: Sitting in a > session from Daniel Nashed about Lotus Traveler. Some basics about Traveler.  Components: Traveler servertasks, servlet, LotusTraveler.nsf (documents can see in the Administrator client).

Two types of devices: a) Windows Mobile, Nokia S60 and Android (in future): Client download is needed. b) Apple devices: Only a profile is downloaded.

In Traveler 8.5.2 new Lotus Mobile Installer, which install and updates the clients

Deploying settings to users with Traveler policies. Settings are locked down on device for WM, S 60 and Apple devices. Pushed to the mailfile by default every 6 hours (speed up by tell adminp process traveler command).

Settings are written via Adminp to the profile. Policy settings are not used by Apple devices (ActiveSync does not support it). Security settings are supported by Apple devices. Security settings are very important. Settings for the devices are different. Important settings: Require device password and Wrong passwords before wiping device (for example 7 days). It is not possible to push specific policy settings.

12:10 am: Back from a > LotusLive presentation from Claudia Pölkemann. She spokes from “unglückliches Marketing” because of the product names from Lotus.. 🙂 16. Mio users of LotusLive due to acqusition of Outblaze. Concord will be a new tool “Web-Symphony” in which users can write documents and later work on spreadsheets together. A reference for LotusLive in Germany is the > Deutsche Aids Hilfe.

9:55 am: Ed Brill comes on the stage. He speaks about the strategy of Lotus Notes and Domino.

TCO Analysis for messaging services: IBM Lotus Notes and Domino is 52% cheaper than Microsoft Office 2007

Collaboration desktop: Web 2.0 integration with Tungle, LinkedIn, Gist, Doodle, TripIt, Salesforces.com, eproductivity and others.

He shows some Sidebar plugins: LotusLive meetings, Travelling information from TripIt. Shows a live demo of Tungle.me and the integration in Lotus Notes. Very cool.

Updates in Notes 8.5.2: Startup improvements, more LotusLive integration, consistent window behavior for XPages in the Notes client, multithreated replication, saving mail entries to a file and some others. Some Calendar and Contacts enhancements. DAOS capabilities were improved.

More tools for developers and partners should be available in Domino 8.5.x.

Talked about XPages (as an example IdeaJam).

Lotus Traveler support for Android client/Windows 6.5 client will be available in 2H of this year.

Talks about LotusLive and LotusLive Notes.

Talks about Lotus Protector for security and mail encryption.

9:50 am: PAVONE announced the new release 10 of PAVONE Espresso Workflow. It is based on XPages. Some more infos: > Build workflow applications based on XPages.

9:40 am: Introduction to > Biotic CRM, which is based on the Lotus Notes/Domino-based CRM solution PAVONE Sales. Biotic CRM uses Structogram.

9:30 am: Jürgen Zirke (CEO PAVONE AG) starts the Powersphere with some presents for some customers.

8:47 am: The openning session starts at 9:30 am. Afterwards at 10:00 am Ed Brill will talk about the Lotus Notes and Domino Product strategy.

8:40 am: Powersphere is in the > Arosa Forum in Paderborn and we have sunshine… 🙂 A nice view about the buildings of the city.

Presentation about new Features in IBM Lotus Domino Administration 8.5

I have uploaded a short presentation about new features of release 8.5 in IBM Lotus Domino administration. Most of the content come from the Domino Administrator help. So, it is nothing new, but gives a short overview about the most importance innovations.

Now, I’m up to date

Today, I passed my last IBM certification test for this year. (I hope… :-)) It was the IBM Certified System Adminstrator – Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5 update test. So, I’m up to date in the Application development and System administration of the release 8.5 of Lotus Notes and Domino.

Don’t forget: Top Speakers at Powersphere

At the > Powersphere several top speakers will be coming. From IBM Brent Peters, > Ed Brill, > Niklas Heidloff and > Marcel Klotz will be there. Furthermore > Daniel Nashed will hold a presentation. News and interesting topics about IBM Lotus Notes/Domino, LotusLive, Lotus Traveler, Websphere Portal, Project Vulcan and several other topics. Don’t forget the 15th September.  The Powersphere will take place in > Paderborn, Germany. You can register here: >registration page. So, please take note of the date and my blog or just > follow me on Twitter.

The good and bad about new Lotus Notes/Domino releases

As you can read in many blogs today, IBM has > announced the new release 8.5.2 of IBM Lotus Notes and Domino. Every new release is a good news, since it shows that the development go further and the product will be improved. On the other hand, each release means that every IBM Lotus Notes/Domino-based application has to be tested whether it runs with the new release. Since I work for an > ISV which has some IBM Lotus Notes/Domino-based applications in his portfolio, it means a lot of work. In some of our applications (for example > TimeTracking and > Project Management) we use Java applets as main components. Unfortunately, we have to change the code of our Java applets nearly in each release of IBM Lotus Notes and Domino. I do not know why, but sometimes they did not run with the new releases. A bad example was the release 6.5.4, which was very unstable and we had several problems with the Java applets. Without code modifications the applets run well in 6.5.3 and 6.5.5. But of course the Java support in 8.5.x is much better than in 6.x or 7.x releases. So I hope, that we have not too much work if we test the applications with the new 8.5.2 release.

Passed the Test

Today, I have passed the > IBM Lotus Notes Domino 8.5 Application Development Update test. I found the test difficult since I have not developed several XPages applications before. But now I’m happy that I’m a IBM Certified Application Developer – Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5.

New update of Atom/RSS/Twitter News Reader for IBM Lotus Notes/Domino

Last week > PAVONE published a new update of his Atom/RSS/Twitter reader for IBM Lotus Notes/Domino. The update contains no new feature, but some detail improvements. Especially if you are working with the Newspaper functionality and the News preview. The > PAVONE NewsReader application can be used as a Lotus Notes application or as a Sidebar plugin. The main advantage against other Atom/RSS/Twitter reader are, that you can put it on your IBM Lotus Domino server and all people with access can read the news. It is not necessary that each user collects the news from the sources. If you like to try it, it is free of charge for personal usage.

Download: > PAVONE NewsReader

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