Today IBM made three major announcements relevant to IBM Workplace:
- The release of IBM WebSphere Portal 5.1, one of the primary technologies underlying the IBM Workplace platform
- The availability of new IBM Workplace Solutions aimed at specific horizontal and vertical business problems
- The introduction of IBM Workplace Services Express, an affordable and easy-to-implement offering for deploying IBM Workplace to small-to-medium-sized businesses and departments within larger organizations.
IBM Workplace Announcement Page
Early Analysis
We have all been watching as IBM integrates its previously disperse applications and middleware. It was obvious to many that they would need to break up the monolithic approach to the Lotus Domino product into more of a web services model. Although, I was hard pressed to find detailed technical information or even screen shots, it sounds like with this upcoming release they have succeeded in integrating their products for complete web delivery. However, the success of the workplace still seems dependent on an integrated suite approach...
I was able to find more information about the previously released Lotus Workplace 2.0, including this flash tour, and this technical platform information.
The tour is quite impressive showing which could be summed up as the next generation of Lotus Notes software. Some differences from previous versions are the inclusion of a fairly complete web interface, integrated presence and instant messaging, web conferencing, document management, basic content management, and team spaces. The web client allows for the download of the full native client, which has the benefit of drag and drop file management and disconnected operation/syncronization, a long time benefit of Notes.
Entering into the Lotus Workplace environment is a rich experience, benefiting from the integration of several IBM technologies. However, from what I have seen thus far, it does not appear that they have proven a level of integration of applications across the enterprise. Perhaps that is covered by websphere components not brought to the forefront of their marketing stuff.
This concern about integration, is further demonstrated by the strict list of platform requirements for the client and server peices. No rich client for Macintosh? Don't they write everything in Java? A Macintosh platform supported browser is not even mentioned. Of course with the Websphere Everywhere product they are wrapping all applications in their portal and transforming display content to portable devices, so I doubt that web access is a problem regardless of the platform... but still a bit confusing.
Its a tricky thing, being the ultimate "middleware" company, and yet selling integrated product suites. From experience, the ability to replace a component with a non IBM product reduces the benefit of the integrated suite. Lots of questions remain for higher education. How easy would it be to integrate an online learning environment package into this architecture? Would it be able to take advantage of the presence and workflow already present in IBM Workplace? Does the cost structure scale to the ever expanding number of customers, parents, alumni etc.
One things is clear, IBM Workplace is an impressive messaging, collaboration and workflow environment. It shows the effectiveness of an integrated environment for getting work done in groups. Its effectiveness is directly linked to getting users and services into a single "workplace" to do all their work. As long as all applications can be brought into that environment it would reduce the number of interface switches a user goes through in a day. And there is the remaining question, now that you have the single workplace, can you get everyone to use it?
