Collaboration Loop - Lotusphere 2007 Impressions: IBM Lotus Notes/Domino and WebSphere Portal

Part 2 of my Lotusphere impressions; see the post for more details

Lotusphere 2007 was probably the most upbeat and exciting event for Notes/Domino loyalists since the first two Lotusphere sessions (during December, 1993 and January, 1995).  While the pressure is still on IBM Lotus to deliver a timely and robust release of Notes/Domino 8.0 during the first half of 2007, the Notes/Domino-focused sessions at Lotusphere 2007 made it very clear that Notes/Domino is central to IBM’s enterprise communication/collaboration strategy, and that IBM Lotus has made very significant investments in and improvements to the product over the last several years. 

Link to Collaboration Loop - Lotusphere 2007 Impressions: IBM Lotus Notes/Domino and WebSphere Portal

Blogger: [My RSS feed is still unreliable]

 Apologies to any readers who have found their way to the HTML version of my blog, wondering if I've been kidnapped by aliens, due to the lack of updates on my RSS feed.  The Atom feed seems to be updating more regularly (but it still doesn't work, at least for me, in a synchronized FeedDemon folder...). 

I think Google is going to have to do a bit more QA on these tools, if it ever wants to make serious progress beyond consumer-centric contexts.

Link to Blogger: Create your Blog Now -- FREE

You Want Innovation? Offer a Prize - New York Times

Read the full article for another timely invisible hand snapshot. 

So on the Ides of March last year, Reed Hastings, the company’s chief executive, and three other executives were meeting at their Silicon Valley headquarters to talk about making the system better. They had just finished discussing one failed effort — a promising algorithm designed by a hotshot computer scientist from Stanford (since lured to Google) — when Mr. Hastings threw out an idea.

“We should run a prize,” he said, an open competition challenging people to come up with a better version of Cinematch.

One of the other executives asked how much the company should offer, recalled James Bennett, the vice president who oversees Cinematch.

“A million dollars,” Mr. Hastings said.

With that, Netflix unwittingly started down the path of proving that today’s economy doesn’t have nearly enough prizes.

Source: You Want Innovation? Offer a Prize - New York Times

The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs: Caption contest [final entry]

I knew it was too good to last forever (indeed, I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did), but I'm still sorry to see the end of The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs. 

Well my friggin lawyers are advising me that I will have to shut down this scandalous old blog. Details not worth going into here. Someday I'll be able to explain. Maybe I'll write a book or something. Maybe a really beautiful e-Book that you can carry in your pocket and which will be sleek and elegant and shiny, with rounded corners and an extremely hi-res touch screen and only one button. Anyhoo, I've really enjoyed having this naked conversation with you, and I hope I've managed to restore a sense of childlike wonder to your life.

Source: The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs: Caption contest

How Boss's Deeds Buff A Firm's Reputation - WSJ.com

Interesting reality check... 

Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates proved even more appealing than cuddly babies in the eighth-annual Harris Interactive/The Wall Street Journal ranking of the world's best and worst corporate reputations.

Top-ranked Microsoft managed to beat Johnson & Johnson, whose emotionally appealing baby-products business had kept it in first place for a remarkable seven consecutive years. In the Reputation Quotient survey conducted by market-research firm Harris Interactive Inc., respondents gave Microsoft very high marks for leadership and financial results. But Mr. Gates's personal philanthropy also boosted the public's opinion of Microsoft.

Source: How Boss's Deeds Buff A Firm's Reputation - WSJ.com

Games That Sell While Others Languish - New York Times

More on Sony's limited PS3 progress 

Both consoles were hard to come by during the holiday shopping season. This week, visits to stores in San Francisco, New York, Boston and Austin, Tex., turned up several with PlayStation 3’s in stock, while the Wii was sold out.

The PlayStation, reflecting Sony’s longstanding dominance, seemed destined to be the one that gamers would snap up. But the Wii is winning many converts who are playing games by moving not just their thumbs but the whole complement of limbs.

Source: Games That Sell While Others Languish - New York Times

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Startups to make big pitch at Demo

Another subtle tip of the hat to Vanevar Bush 

At Demo, Trailfire plans to announce a new service that allows people to create and share a path on the Web by using annotations, or marks, that make up a "trail."

Going forward, the trails will be found not only on TrailFire's Web site, but also through other resources, such as a search engine or through ranking tools, such as Digg or del.icio.us. To do so, the trails will have a unique Web address, or URL.

Source: The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Startups to make big pitch at Demo

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Gates savors what could be his last big launch

Read the full interview for additional timely observations. 

Q: How has the competitive landscape for Microsoft changed since the last Windows release?

Gates: Five years is a long time in this industry, and I guess five years ago, you know, Sun and Netscape were perfect companies that understood everything and Windows was nothing. And you know in that same extreme way of looking at things, people say, what about Google or what about the latest great work that Apple has done?

So [it's] always very competitive, always someone who's kind of new and done something right and that's great.

Source: The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Gates savors what could be his last big launch

Profit Slips at Sony on Losses for PlayStation 3 - New York Times

 More trying times for Sony

Sony and its chief executive, Sir Howard Stringer, had hoped the PlayStation 3 would become the company’s latest “champion product,” much like the console’s predecessor, which has topped 106 million in sales since 2000.

But so far, response has been mixed since PlayStation 3. While Sony says that it has met its targets of shipping one million units in each of the two markets, analysts have pointed to signs of disappointing sales.

And no other products with superstar potential are visible in the Sony pipeline.

Source: Profit Slips at Sony on Losses for PlayStation 3 - New York Times

A Lively Market, Legal and Not, for Software Bugs - New York Times

Read the article for more context -- the invisible hand at work in a weird way... 

Vista, which will be installed on millions of new PCs starting today, provides the latest target.

This month, iDefense Labs, a subsidiary of the technology company VeriSign, said it was offering $8,000 for the first six researchers to find holes in Vista, and $4,000 more for the so-called exploit, the program needed to take advantage of the weakness.

IDefense sells such information to corporations and government agencies, which have already begun using Vista, so they can protect their own systems.

Source: A Lively Market, Legal and Not, for Software Bugs - New York Times

A Researcher for Microsoft Is Reported Missing at Sea - New York Times

Very sorry to see this 

The Coast Guard is searching for a computer scientist from Microsoft who left for a daylong sailing trip off the coast of San Francisco on Sunday and did not return.

The man, James Gray, 63, who works in Microsoft’s Silicon Valley research lab, set out alone Sunday morning for the Farallon Islands on his 40-foot boat, Tenacious, and was expected back that afternoon, Lt. Amy Marrs, a Coast Guard spokeswoman, said Monday.

Source: A Researcher for Microsoft Is Reported Missing at Sea - New York Times

Fortune: Why tech leaders think Second Life could be a gold mine. - Jan. 22, 2007

 Interesting Second Life factoids (although perhaps needing confirmation, since they, e.g., got Ray Ozzie's title wrong).

The company's backers include some of the world's smartest, richest, and most successful tech entrepreneurs. The chairman and first big outside investor is Mitch Kapor, creator of Lotus 1-2-3, the spreadsheet application that helped begin the PC software revolution. Other investors include eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, Amazon (Charts) CEO Jeff Bezos, and Microsoft chief technology architect (and inventor of Lotus Notes) Ray Ozzie - each credited with a seminal networked product of our age.

Source: Why tech leaders think Second Life could be a gold mine. - Jan. 22, 2007

Hundreds turn out to buy Windows Vista in Tokyo

Go figure.  Hopefully they weren't hired, as was reportedly the case for the PS3 launch (and discovered since they didn't speak Japanese; oops)... 

Hundreds of people braved chilly weather in Tokyo on Monday night and into the early hours of Tuesday to be among the first in the world to buy a retail copy of the Windows Vista operating system.

Major electronics retailers across the city and specialist PC retailers in the electronics mecca of Akihabara were open at midnight to sell the first copies.

Source: Hundreds turn out to buy Windows Vista in Tokyo

Adobe - Release PDF for Industry Standardization FAQ

Useful FAQ on the Adobe/PDF news; excerpt: 

Why is Adobe taking this step with PDF?

PDF has become a de facto global standard for more secure and dependable information exchange since Adobe published the complete PDF specification in 1993. Both government and private industry have come to rely on PDF for the volumes of electronic records that need to be more securely and reliably shared, managed, and in some cases preserved for generations. Adobe expects this release to ISO to drive even broader adoption of PDF, accelerate innovation around PDF and ensure that PDF will continue to meet the unique needs of government and private industry alike.

Source: Adobe - Release PDF for Industry Standardization FAQ

WIRED Blogs: Running Vista on a Mac

 Interesting times...

Microsoft’s Vista hits store shelves on Tuesday and although it's got a kicking in the press, there's one group that actually seems quite excited about it -- Mac users.

At Macworld, the most crowded booths belonged to Parallels Inc. and VMWare, two software companies that help run Windows a Mac. It was quite remarkable: both were mobbed.

[...]

Hopefully Vista is spurring Apple to reinvigorate the interface of OS X in Leopard. According to reports, Leopard is already resolution independent. Let’s hope the rumored interface overhaul, Illuminous, does for Vista what Vista’s done for OS X: make it look dated.

Source: WIRED Blogs: Cult of Mac

Adobe to send PDF to standards group | CNET News.com

A significant strategy shift for Adobe 

Adobe will give the specification that forms the basis for its PDF Reader and Acrobat products to the industry group Enterprise Content Management Association (formerly the Association for Information and Image Management and still referred to as AIIM).

AIIM will host a working group and release the specification to ISO. ISO is expected to form a PDF standardization technical committee with representatives from businesses and customers, including governments.

The process is expected to take one to three years, Lynch said.

Source: Adobe to send PDF to standards group | CNET News.com

Google moves to shake up software, take on Microsoft - The Boston Globe

Perhaps it'll be a bit more successful than, e.g., OpenOffice.org... 

The company is bundling the Web-based software programs it offers free to consumers into a premium package and, in a challenge to Microsoft Corp., it will be selling a paid version to businesses.

Google's enterprise product, which will include e-mail, calendar, word processing, spreadsheet, instant messaging, and voice-over-Internet programs, is expected soon, said Dave Girouard , vice president and general manager for enterprise at the Mountain View, Calif., company.

Source: Google moves to shake up software, take on Microsoft - The Boston Globe

Business 2.0 Beta: Amazon.com Launches Its Own Wikipedia

 The wiki way to improved sales?...

Amazon.com (AMZN) has, without much fanfare, launched Amapedia, a "wiki" site that lets users collaboratively edit its pages like Wikipedia. They key difference is that Amapedia is all about products, and its users have to be registered Amazon.com shoppers.

Source: Business 2.0 Beta: Amazon.com Launches Its Own Wikipedia

Awaiting the Day When Everyone Writes Software - New York Times

Another Simonyi snapshot. 

Charles Simonyi, the chief executive of Intentional Software, a start-up in Bellevue, Wash., believes that there is another way. He wants to overthrow conventional coding for something he calls “intentional programming,” in which programmers would talk to machines as little as possible. Instead, they would concentrate on capturing the intentions of computer users.

Mr. Simonyi, the former chief architect of Microsoft, is arguably the most successful pure programmer in the world, with a personal fortune that Forbes magazine estimates at $1 billion. There may be richer programmer-billionaires — Bill Gates of Microsoft and Larry Page of Google come to mind — but they became rich by founding and managing technology ventures; Mr. Simonyi rose mainly by writing code.

There's an interesting and tangentially related article about Numenta in the latest issue of Business 2.0, but, annoyingly, it's not on the publication's web site yet. 

Source: Awaiting the Day When Everyone Writes Software - New York Times

Preaching From the Ballmer Pulpit - New York Times

Timely and long NYT Microsoft reality check  

Competitors once feared and respected Microsoft. Now they simply respect it. And as Microsoft prepares to unveil new versions of its desktop operating system and office programs on Tuesday it finds itself facing emboldened competition, even uncertainty. With the Internet revolution upending business models across a broad swath of industries, Microsoft itself is feeling the heat. The challenges that the company confronts today are different from those of the past, and its market power in the personal computer business matters less than before.

Source: Preaching From the Ballmer Pulpit - New York Times

Rivals Voice Complaints About Microsoft’s New System - New York Times

It will be interesting to see how "the group" responds when WPF/E, which will take a subset of XAML cross-platform, is released. 

The group said Microsoft’s XAML markup language — which it said was positioned to replace the current Web page language HTML — was designed “from the ground up to be dependent on Windows.”

“The very same practices the European Commission found to be illegal almost three years ago have now been implemented in Vista,” the group of rivals said.

Source: Rivals Voice Complaints About Microsoft’s New System - New York Times

Intel Says Chips Will Run Faster, Using Less Power - New York Times

Size does matter, at least in some contexts.  Read the full article for more details, including a PR spat between IBM and Intel. 

For several decades there have been repeated warnings about the impending end of the Moore’s Law pace for chip makers. In response the semiconductor industry has repeatedly found its way around fundamental technical obstacles, inventing techniques that at times seem to defy basic laws of physics.

The chip industry measures its progress by manufacturing standards defined by a width of one of the smallest features of a transistor for each generation. Currently much of the industry is building chips in what is known as 90-nanometer technology. At that scale, about 1,000 transistors would fit in the width of a human hair. Intel began making chips at 65 nanometers in 2005, about nine months before its closest competitors.

Now the company is moving on to the next stage of refinement, defined by a minimum feature size of 45 nanometers. Other researchers have recently reported progress on molecular computing technologies that could reduce the scale even further by the end of the decade.

Source: Intel Says Chips Will Run Faster, Using Less Power - New York Times

Buy Desktop PCs available in different series direct from the HP Home & Home Office Store

Looks like the WSJ source on Dell yesterday wasn't entirely accurate; I'm still seeing "free upgrade" scenarios for some PCs (e.g., Inspiron notebooks) at www.dell.com (Dell's XPS line of notebooks is now all Vista, however).  In contrast, HP appears to have already switched to Vista throughout its PC line.  From a quick skim, Toshiba is the only vendor I've found this morning offering a PC built for Vista (rather than just Vista compatible).

Link to Buy Desktop PCs available in different series direct from the HP Home & Home Office Store

Collaboration Loop - Lotusphere 2007 impressions part 1: IBM Versus Microsoft

FYI my overall Lotusphere 2007 impressions -- see the link below for details.

IBM’s 14th annual Lotusphere conference was held in Orlando this week.  This post is the first in a series that provides an overview of key themes from Lotusphere 2007, along with some projections about how IBM’s revised strategy is likely to change the competitive landscape. 

Source: Collaboration Loop - Lotusphere impressions part 1 

Dell to Take Orders for Vista PCs - WSJ.com

And so it begins... 

Dell Inc. plans to start selling personal computers loaded with Microsoft Corp.'s new operating system, Vista, on its Web site and over the phone Friday night, according to people familiar with the matter.

The Web site will begin selling both notebooks and desktops loaded with Vista just before midnight eastern standard time. The earliest customers who order right away could receive their new Vista-loaded computer is Tuesday, the day Vista for consumers officially launches, these people said.

I remember when Windows XP was released to the consumer market in October, 2001; the speed and scope of the switch-over (primarily from Windows 98/Me, since Windows 2000 was never a successful consumer-oriented client OS) on hardware vendor sites were amazing.

Source: Dell to Take Orders for Vista PCs - WSJ.com

IBM Selling Printing Business To Ricoh - Printers, Infoprint Solutions Company - CRN

Interesting times 

IBM's entry into the printer business ended in 1991, when it spun off its printing unit into what is now Lexmark. In 1995, IBM began building its Printing Systems Division, which focused on high-end, production-level printing solutions. Of late, IBM executives decided the industry and technology were moving in a direction that wasn't in step with its core strengths, said Nick Donofrio, IBM's executive vice president of innovation and technology.

"There comes a point in time -- and trust me IBM has been there before -- when you realize you no longer have the capability to move certain technologies in the direction of sustainable, profitable growth," Donofrio said. "At IBM, we constantly look at how fast we are changing, the rate we are changing. ... Sometimes we must learn to let go."

Source: IBM Selling Printing Business To Ricoh - Printers, Infoprint Solutions Company - CRN

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Q&A with Microsoft's Jim Allchin

Some interesting insights on many Vista-related topics. 

In a rare opportunity for readers of The Seattle Times, top Microsoft executive Jim Allchin answered your questions about Windows Vista, the company's new flagship operating system.

Source: The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Q&A with Microsoft's Jim Allchin

New dinosaurs: Spelling, conversation skills | CNET News.com

Some interesting factoids from a Nickelodeon survey (no doubt designed to determine how to maximize advertising effectiveness on the new channels...); see the article for details  

The modern wired family is seeing a few mainstays going the way of the dinosaur: landlines, printed dictionaries, maps, newspapers and, of course, the need to remember phone numbers or learn to spell.

Source: New dinosaurs: Spelling, conversation skills | CNET News.com

Delays Limit Robust Sales at Microsoft - New York Times

Impressive... 

Sales rose 6 percent in the quarter ended in December, to $12.5 billion. But the company said that showing would have been much stronger if it had not deferred $1.64 billion in revenue as a result of delays in the latest versions of its mainstay products, Windows Vista and Office 2007. They will be introduced next week.

Without the one-time move, sales would have been 20 percent higher than in the quarter a year earlier, the chief financial officer, Christopher P. Liddell, said.

The quarterly results “exceeded our expectations across the board,” including healthy sales of PC software, Mr. Liddell said.

Source: Delays Limit Robust Sales at Microsoft - New York Times

AT&T's Delivery of TV Hits a Glitch - WSJ.com

Still gaining momentum in a key market segment 

Mr. Lindner chalked up any issues with its TV rollout to "normal new-product development" and said that AT&T plans to offer TV to eight million homes by year end. "We're adding customers slowly, watching the platform and trying to train our technicians and improve installations," Mr. Lindner said.

At least seven major telecom companies world-wide are using Microsoft's system, and others are testing it. Microsoft, of Redmond, Wash., said the company spent much of the past year fine-tuning its system and that it is helping AT&T to deliver a highly competitive TV service. "We believe the biggest challenges are behind us," said Microsoft spokesman Jim Brady.

Source: AT&T's Delivery of TV Hits a Glitch - WSJ.com

IBM prepping 64-bit, directory, authentication upgrades for delivery beyond Notes/Domino 8 - Network World

 Useful snapshot of server-side plans -- I attended a Lotusphere session on Domino database directions for 8.0.1 and beyond and was very impressed.

While Notes/Domino 8 is all about the client, the first maintenance release and the next major version beyond that will concentrate on the server as IBM settles into a cycle of 12-to-18 months for major releases.

See the article for more details.

Tangent: I hope to get back into my normal blogging routine next week; the Lotusphere chaos seriously disrupted my schedule this week.  I also plan to share my Lotusphere impressions via some Collaboration Loop blog posts -- I'll link to them here when they're posted.

p.s. Google/Blogger still seems to think the update cycle for my RSS feed should be measured in days instead of minutes; hopefully that will get straightened out soon...

Source: IBM prepping 64-bit, directory, authentication upgrades for delivery beyond Notes/Domino 8 - Network World

The Seattle Times: Brier Dudley's blog: The guy behind Microsoft's Wiki woohoo

The rest of the story -- see the post for details.  Another example of "citizen journalism" gone wrong, apparently. 

That would be Doug Mahugh, a Microsoft technical evangelist who was straightforward about why and how he recruited a blogger to correct a Wikipedia entry about the Open XML technology he works with in Redmond.

I wish I'd read Doug's blog postings before I ranted about Microsoft flubbing this one.

Source: The Seattle Times: Brier Dudley's blog: The guy behind Microsoft's Wiki woohoo

A Stream of Movies, Sort of Free - New York Times

Timely analysis of pros/cons  

Once again, Netflix has rewritten the rules — this time, of the online movie-rental game. The company has done away with expiration dates, copy protection and multi-megabyte downloads. That’s because you don’t actually download any of Netflix’s movies; instead, they “stream” in real time from the Internet to your computer. (This advantage comes with a key disadvantage: you must be connected to the Internet. Wireless hot spots at airports and hotels are fair game, but movies can’t be carried around on a laptop.)

Source: A Stream of Movies, Sort of Free - New York Times

Oracle's 'Web 2.0' interface coming this month | InfoWorld

It'll be interesting to see how this compares with IBM Lotus Connections 

Oracle plans to release WebCenter Suite before the end of the month, a product for building application interfaces that incorporate content from a variety of sources as well as "Web 2.0" tools such as blogs and wikis.

The software aims to make workers more productive by providing access to a variety of content and services from one screen, so they don't have to flip between different applications. Other vendors including IBM  and Microsoft are working on similar functionality.

Source: Oracle's 'Web 2.0' interface coming this month | InfoWorld | News | 2007-01-24 | By James Niccolai, IDG News Service

W3C XQuery 1.0 and XSLT 2.0 Become Standards: Tools to Query, Transform, and Access XML and Relational Data

Major milestone.  XQuery is going to be fundamentally important. 

Based on widespread implementation experience and extensive feedback from users and vendors, W3C has published eight new standards in the XML Family to support the ability to query, transform, and access XML data and documents. The primary specifications are XQuery 1.0: An XML Query Language, XSL Transformations (XSLT) 2.0, and XML Path Language (XPath) 2.0; see the full list below.

[...]

XML Query (XQuery) describes a database query language for XML data.

"XQuery will serve as a unifying interface for access to XML data, much as SQL has done for relational data," said Don Chamberlin of IBM Almaden Research Center, co-inventor of the original SQL Query language and one of the co-editors of XQuery 1.0. "Since virtually any kind of information can be represented using XML, I expect XQuery to play a central role in unifying information from many different sources. Companies across a wide range of industries can use XQuery to pull together structured and semi-structured information for processing in a unified way."

Source: W3C XQuery 1.0 and XSLT 2.0 Become Standards: Tools to Query, Transform, and Access XML and Relational Data

Jobs quizzed in option inquiry

More interesting times for Apple 

The meeting shows the U.S. government is still seeking information about Jobs' role in the backdating, even after the company's report clearing him and others, said Nell Minow, editor at the Corporate Library, a corporate governance research firm in Portland, Maine.

"It is, after all, the SEC's view on his culpability that matters, not the internal investigation at Apple," Minow said.

Source: Jobs quizzed in option inquiry

Microsoft riles Wikipedia

Interesting incident -- read the full article for details. 

Microsoft Corp. landed in the Wikipedia doghouse Tuesday after it offered to pay a blogger to change technical articles on the community-produced Web encyclopedia site.

While Wikipedia is known as the encyclopedia that anyone can tweak, founder Jimmy Wales and his cadre of volunteer editors, writers and moderators have blocked public-relations firms, campaign workers and anyone else perceived as having a conflict of interest from posting fluff or slanting entries. So paying for Wikipedia copy is a definite no-no.

Source: Microsoft riles Wikipedia

It's time to fight back against 'infomania'

See the article for some tips on time & attention management. 

Here's a quick test: Can you make it through this story -- or this sentence -- without being interrupted by e-mail, or feeling the urge to check your in box?

If not, there's a group of technology specialists very interested in your problem. And yes, they say, it's definitely a problem.

A two-day workshop on the Microsoft Corp. campus last week brought together people from a wide variety of companies and institutions to discuss the issue of "infomania" -- the loss of concentration caused by the constant electronic interruptions that plague many office workers.

Source: It's time to fight back against 'infomania'

Group Formed to Support Linux as Rival to Windows - New York Times

 I wonder if this will truly promote open source or if it'll be another indirect subsidy program for Red Hat, Novell, and others.

Linux, the free operating system, has gone from an intriguing experiment to a mainstream technology in corporate data centers, helped by the backing of major technology companies like I.B.M., Intel and Hewlett-Packard, which sponsored industry consortiums to promote its adoption.

Those same companies have decided that the time has come to consolidate their collaborative support into a new group, the Linux Foundation, which is being announced today. And the mission of the new organization is help Linux, the leading example of the open-source model of software development, to compete more effectively against Microsoft, the world’s largest software company.

Source: Group Formed to Support Linux as Rival to Windows - New York Times

Microsoft Makes It Easier for Organizations to Transition to Its Unified Communications and Collaboration Platform: New resources personalize platform and simplify transition from Lotus Notes/Domino.

Lotus-related news from Microsoft... 

Today, Microsoft announced new tools that will help IBM Lotus Notes/Domino customers take advantage of the new unified communication and collaboration innovations that are being delivered as part of the recently released Microsoft^® Exchange Server 2007, the 2007 Microsoft Office system and Microsoft Office SharePoint^® Server 2007 technologies. These resources include a new suite of tools for managing transitions of IBM’s directory, messaging and application solutions, as well as new templates for SharePoint Products and Technologies, which make it even easier for IT professionals to roll out customized applications for common business scenarios. Together these tools are making it easier for IBM customers to manage transitions to and start experiencing the benefits of Microsoft’s modern, integrated platform, which increases organizational productivity, streamlines business processes, and reduces IT cost and complexity.

Source: Microsoft Makes It Easier for Organizations to Transition to Its Unified Communications and Collaboration Platform: New resources personalize platform and simplify transition from Lotus Notes/Domino.

IBM renews Microsoft rivalry with new Web software - Boston.com

 Great to see renewed competition in the collaboration space.

I'm at Lotusphere this week -- pretty upbeat vibe so far, e.g., at the opening reception last night, despite the Patriots loss :(

My RSS feed seems to be irregularly updating again -- sorry about that.  The Atom feed is current, but it still doesn't work consistently with FeedDemon.

IBM's Lotus unit will introduce on Monday a set of social networking services that functions like a MySpace for office workers and which analysts say marks a renewed challenge to Microsoft Corp.

Lotus is going back to its roots as a pioneer of business collaboration software with a service called Connections that features the latest ways for users to share information via the Web, while giving businesses controls over who sees what data.

Source: IBM renews Microsoft rivalry with new Web software - Boston.com

Patriots beat Colts in Xbox 360, lead 6-0 in Tecmo Bowl | Crave : The gadget blog

I guess we'll find out in ~10 hours... 

When the New England Patriots visit the Indianapolis Colts this Sunday in the NFL's AFC Championship game, Boston.com hopes the result will be a foregone conclusion: the Patriots will win 38-31.

That will be the final score, according to a Madden NFL 2007 simulation of the game performed by Boston.com on an Xbox 360. This is thanks in part to Colts kicker--and former Patriots hero--Adam Vinatieri missing two field goals. A video of the game's virtual highlights is posted on the site.

Source: Patriots beat Colts in Xbox 360, lead 6-0 in Tecmo Bowl | Crave : The gadget blog