I’m a Mac, and I’m a Lotus

Though there may have been an earthquake in Chicago yesterday, to complement the lovely snow storm, none of that had anything to do with the earth-shattering announcement today from our friends at Lotus.

As the headline says, I’m a Mac, and I’m a Lotus.

Lotus and Mac, it turns out, are great friends.  I love it when we can all just get along.

In this case, it’s all about IBM announcing that Lotus will be delivering its business-grade collaboration and social software for use on the Mac platform, including iPhones, iPod Touches, or Mac computers.

In fact, I recently test drove some of this software, and was most pleased to be able to chat securely with mi IBM amigos using the Lotus Sametime iPod application.  It was tres cool.

With this new announcement, organizations will be able to use IBM software for enterprise social networking; instant messaging; and securely encrypted email and collaborative applications with the iPhone and Mac.

The new software includes Lotus Symphony 3.0, IBM’s office productivity suite, which is now available on the Mac,  providing spreadsheets, presentations and documents free of charge.

In addition, new offerings for the iPhone and Mac include Lotus Connections and Lotus Sametime, which customers can use to build professional networks with social capabilities such as blogs, wikis, activities and microblogging, as well as instant messaging capabilities.

Viewing a document from Lotus Quickr on an Apple iPhone.

This news underscores IBM’s commitment to expanding its software to support the increasing global mobile work force and popular consumer devices.

Today, IBM delivers the broadest range of business-class software for mobile devices, ranging from e-commerce, email and now social software. General Motors, for example, relies on IBM collaboration software to increase the agility of its work force through a wide range of mobile devices, including the iPhone.

Analysts estimate that mobile devices will exceed personal computers by 2013 with global shipments of mobile devices growing 46 percent to more than 250 million in 2010.

IBM’s Lotus Social Software can help users share and discover expertise and content instantly, harnessing the wisdom of the crowds.

You can learn more about Lotus and Mac in this press release.

Charlie Wilson’s Last War

I was sitting here in Austin working away this afternoon, catching up on some email and trolling the news, when the headline hit my desk about former Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson’s death in Lufkin, Texas earlier today.

I was immediately saddened.

Charlie Wilson was a larger-than-life character, but he was also a great American and a great Texan who, through sheer doggedness and determination, helped bolster the mujahideen and overthrow the Soviet Union in the U.S./Soviet proxy war in Afghanistan in the mid-to-late 1980s.

You can read Wilson’s obituary in The New York Times here.

But what you really ought to do is read his book, Charlie Wilson’s War, which Wilson co-authored with writer George Crile.

I had an opportunity to see Wilson speak about his experience arming the mujahideen and helping them overthrow the Soviets at the Texas Book Festival here in Austin earlier in the decade when the book came out, and was simply stunned by the account I read.

Though the movie, made several years later, starring Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts, was quite entertaining, the details of Wilson’s adventures and efforts just can’t be done justice, even with that great cast.

You have to read the book to believe Wilson’s experiences as he worked to drive and manipulate the levers of Congress to help arm and provide the support necessary to help overthrow the Soviets, which paved the way to the later dissolution of the U.S.S.R.

My best thoughts and prayers go out to Wilson’s family.  He was 76.