FEATURE EDITORIAL

IBM Lotus Quickr Content Integrator

IBM's Lotus Quickr is a team collaboration product that continues and enhances the Lotus Quickplace offering, as well as embraces design ideas from the Web 2.0 world. It is also multiplatform, running on Microsoft Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems. Last week IBM announced the availability of a migration and coexistence tool for Quickr, so that organizations can shift content from team sites in SharePoint, Public Folders in Microsoft Exchange Server, document libraries in IBM Lotus Document Manager (previously Domino.Doc) and teamroom applications from IBM Domino Server into Quickr places. Note that the technology underpinning Content Integrator is from CASAHL Technology.

Few organizations can start with a greenfields approach to their collaboration environment, and thus the IBM Lotus Quickr Content Integrator technology enables firms to move ahead with IBM and Quickr with confidence. Aside from the obvious competitive undertones of this announcement — around migration from Microsoft products to Quickr — it is a further data point about IBM that they provide choice and flexibility for their enterprise customers. The technology provides capability for organizations to consolidate their efforts onto new platforms, and provides a way of shifting off things that made historical sense to newer tools that provide a more strategic approach going forward. Organizations make decisions about IT investments given the information available at hand, and hopefully in line with the best forward looking and strategic thinking that they have access to, but life changes and things don't always turn out as expected. Equally, vendors change their minds about what is strategic going forward and CASAHL's Content Integrator works just as well with Microsoft technology as it does with IBM technology (Domino.Doc and Teamroom applications).

I find three interesting angles in this announcement from IBM.

First, is the investment protection and modernization angle. IBM has always taken the high road in investment protection with its collaboration offerings, especially with Notes and Domino. Custom applications that were developed to support team work or specific business processes back in the mid 1990s can still run pretty much unchanged on the newest editions of Domino Server. Although IBM has continued to innovate the Notes and Domino products, applications built for a previous time can still run without too much disruption. On the other hand, there is also a modernization angle. Once an organization has decided to move to a new thing — say Quickr — they need the capability to move from IT constructs that were developed under previous strategic thinking. This Content Integrator tool provides a way of doing that.

The second major angle is that this offering will make a lot of sense for IBM customers in merger and acquisition situations. Let's say that the lead organization is an IBM shop, and it acquires a firm with Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint. Rather than having to relegate any Exchange Public Folders or SharePoint sites to the trash can — or being forced to support dual infrastructures going forward and all of those associated costs — the lead firm can provide a migration approach to shifting collaboration data into Quickr places. That is a good IT capability to support business led organizational changes and marketplace efforts. And to ease organizational concerns and risk about big-bang migrations, the Content Integrator technology supports staged migrations through synchronization capabilities between the older tools and Quickr.

The final interesting angle about this announcement has nothing to do with IBM, and everything to do with CASAHL Technology and SharePoint. A very large SharePoint customer complained to me last week about the lack of easy archiving tools in SharePoint for shifting "no-longer-needed" SharePoint sites off the production environment to an archive one (and back to IBM … of course, this has been super-easy with a Notes/Domino application since the beginning of time, just move the .NSF file that encapsulates all of the application logic and content). If Quickr Content Integrator can do a SharePoint to Quickr migrations, then surely the underlying technology from CASAHL Technology can be re-purposed for doing automated archiving of SharePoint sites. That is a whole new business opportunity for CASAHL right there!

Michael Sampson

NEWS HIGHLIGHTS

Partner Program Announced

Huddle.net recently unveiled a partnership strategy for resellers. According to the company, "Resellers joining Huddle's partner program will receive full training, access to online support and participation in quarterly webinars. Their efforts will be backed by Huddle's aggressive online and offline marketing campaigns. All partners can expect 30+ percent commission on reselling Huddle packages. They will also receive a free branded enterprise package for their own use."

Interwoven Broadens Mobile Option

Interwoven announced a new version of WorkSite Mobility. Previously available only for BlackBerry users, the new version offers mobile access to Interwoven content from devices with a Web browser. "Interwoven WorkSite Mobility enables users to access client files, collaborate with colleagues, manage email, and share information with clients through their smart phones. Interwoven WorkSite Mobility provides a fluid user experience that helps professionals locate and access the right content quickly for on-the-fly client interactions. Using a Web-based browser across all devices allows firms to maintain proper data hygiene and governance firm wide." Available June 2008.

Tungle Meeting Coordinator

Tungle, a service for coordinating meeting times, is now generally available. The company said, "You should be able to use your existing calendaring application to coordinate meetings and not have to migrate to another solution. Our first step was to solve the problem for Outlook users—by far, the largest electronic calendar user base. With Tungle, people on Outlook can coordinate meetings with anyone, users on Outlook (with or without Exchange), Google Calendar, Lotus Notes, iCal, Entourage and even people that don't use an electronic calendar."

We welcome your ideas and your news for Collaboration Newswire's News & Trends in Collaboration. Let us know what you think by sending your comments to editorial@messagingnews.com. Written or compiled by Michael Sampson. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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