IBM Leads Social Platform Software Market

For those of you in the U.S., I hope you enjoyed the long holiday weekend.

For those you not in the U.S., I hope you enjoyed not having to hear from your U.S. colleagues yesterday!

I survived my trip back from Bangalore, but just barely.  The horrible weather in Houston (remnants of the minor Hurricane Alex) left me spending the night Friday at the Houston Intercontinental airport Hilton Garden Inn.

Thanks for the hospitality, Houston. 

It appears during my flight homeward that we made an announcement I wanted to be sure and pick up here in the Turbo blog, and that was the announcement that IDC has ranked IBM as the worldwide marketshare leader in the Social Platform market (and based on total software revenue in 2009).

Worldwide, the IDC report states that revenue for social platforms was $369.7 million, representing growthof more than 55 percent.

This is the first time that IDC has published a report on worldwide social platforms by revenue. 

According to IDC, social platforms emerged as one of the leading technology trends for organizations, based on the recognition that people –- customers, employees, business partners, and suppliers –- are looking for ways to more easily collaborate interact and share data. 

The report states that "social platforms are centered around, but not limited to, social networking applications that allow people to connect share, and interact on the Web around a common goal or interest."

IBM’s portfolio of social computing, mashups and Web 2.0 technologies, including blogs, communities, profiles, activities, shared bookmarks and more, can help organizations of all sizes work smarter, become more agile, and foster innovation.

IBM Lotus Connections profiles feature helps workers find the people they need based on their expertise, projects and responsibilities.

IDC characterizes social platform software as "promoting transparent and authentic two-way dialogue that is open, synchronous, and unstructured." 

"Social software helps enterprises define their collaboration agenda," said Alistair Rennie, general manager, IBM Lotus Software. "The use of social software can transform the way people work increasing the speed of business."

According to the 2010 IBM CEO Study, 98 percent of CEOs need to restructure the way their organizations work. 5.3 hours is wasted per employee per week due to inefficient processes.

Two hours is spent per employee per day looking for the right information and expertise within an organization.  Social software can help alleviate this problem because it helps keep global work teams better connected and more able to deliver results.

We use these tools inside IBM to manage our own business, and I’m finding them to be extremely helpful in helping to try to bridge the big gaps that can occur between time, space, and people! 

By way of example, I run a weekly team call on Fridays that’s been in operation for over 4 years now.  I use my own Lotus Connections space for that call to manage all the assets related to the call, to email the extended participants info about the call, and even to help self-manage the access control. 

It’s a huge time saver and provides the necessary context and materials required for running the ongoing call.

Global Adoption of IBM’s Industry Leading Social Software

According to IDC, the social platforms market includes IBM Lotus Connections as well as the cloud based offering, LotusLive Connections. 

IBM Lotus Connections is software that empowers business professionals to develop, nurture and remain in contact with a network of their colleagues; respond quickly to business opportunities by calling upon expertise in their network; and discuss and refine new creative ideas with communities of coworkers, partners and customers.

LotusLive Connections is an innovative set of Web-based collaboration services combined with social networking capabilities. LotusLive Connections features include file sharing, business instant messaging, activity management and networking.

Over 35% of Fortune 100 companies have adopted IBM’s social software offerings.  IBM Lotus Connections clients include Berlitz International Inc., Sogeti, Digital China Holdings Limited, and Rheinmetall AG.

For more information about IBM social software, visit www.ibm.com/software/lotus.

In the meantime, listen to IBM’s (and Austin’s!) own director of marketing for Lotus, Kathy Mandelstein, expound on the virtues of social software in the video clip below:

Live @ Lotusphere Day 2.5 Podcast Recap: Speedgeekers Unite!

Scott and I did a Tuesday/Wednesday Lotusphere 2010 recap yesterday morning, chatting about SpeedGeeking, the Blogger Briefing, our visit to the IBM Innovation Labs demos (which were incroyable), Wednesday’s key announcements, and the overall tenor of the event.

Click on the following to download the podcast: Live @ Lotusphere 2010: Day 2.5 Podcast Debrief: Speedgeekers Unite! (MP3, 11:25)

Live @ Lotusphere 2010: New Insights

Scott Laningham and I were able to experience two very cool things over and just after lunch.

First, we sat down for a collaboration market overview with Carol Galvin, who is currently the principle segment analyst for IBM Market Insights, focusing on IBM Software and Lotus in particular. It was a far-reaching discussion which included great insights on the collaboration software market (including a segment breakdown and geo view), as well as some insights on the “consumeratization of IT.”

Keep your eyes peeled here in the Turbo blog and on Scott’s blog for that podcast soon.

Then, we had an opportunity to visit with the IBM Innovations Lab, where I saw several mind-blowing advancements in social data visualization, and some of the LotusLive Labs breakthroughs we heard about earlier in the week.

I wish I could just beam everyone here and do a walkthru (Can somebody bring back William Shatner!?), but Scott did some interviews there which we hope to have up later which will give you direct access to some of the insights we found there.

In terms of highlights, I saw the Shared Presentation experience, which would allow for real-time crowdsourcing of presentation building (No, give ME the mouse!), as well as an email/task in-box triage tool that’s about one of the coolest things I’ve seen in Orlando.

It’s predicated on David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” principles and allows you to quickly “triage” your in-box.  I’m praying Lotus will integrate that into the next version of Notes and Notes Traveler!

Things are slowly winding down here, but it looks as though there’s still plenty of traffic and plenty of folks to network with and learn from.

We’ll be here until the (almost) bitter end!

Click here if you’d like to see a rundown on the latest “Lotus” relevant news coming out of Lotusphere 2010.

Lotusphere 2010: Day 1 Announcements

At the press conference this morning here in Orlando, IBM made a number of key announcements relative to the collaboration space.

A couple were mentioned in my prior post, but let me quickly break down all of them now that they’ve been made public:

1. Acceleration of Cloud Computing with LotusLive
2. Collaboration Agenda Announcement
3. Project Vulcan (Blueprint for the future of collaboration)
4. IBM and RIM Enterprise Collaboration and Social Networking
5. Availability of IBM Client for Smart Work in India (via Business Partners)

I already addressed a couple of these via Mr. Picciano’s keynote, so now it’s time for a little depth on the others.

The LotusLive announcement involves both the technology and business expansion of the LotusLive cloud collaboration pipeline through a new R&D pipeline from IBM Research.

IBM also plans to open the LotusLive suite to new partners, and the services will provide integrated email, Web conferencing, social networking, and collaboration with IBM’s focus on security, reliability and enterprise integration.

A number of the fruits from this new R&D effort will be unveiled this week, including the following:

• Slide Library, a collaborative way to build and share presentations (I can hear a collective ‘Amen’ across IBM marketing on this one)
• Collaborative Recorded Meetings, a service that records and instantly transcribes meeting presentations and audio/video for searching and tagging
• Event Maps, an interactive way to visualize and interact with conference schedules
• Composer, the ability to create LotusLive Mashups through the combination of LotusLive services.

Also expected in 2Q10, Project Concord, a new Web-based document editor for creating and sharing documents, presentations and spreadsheets.

On the LotusLive Notes version upgrade, IBM will provide email, calendar, contact management, and IM capabilities to customers in a multi-tenant environment.

New services and options here will result in a reduction in the minimum number of users for a LotusLive Notes subscription from 1,000 to 25, IBM Lotus Sametime IM support, and a 5G standard mailbox quota.

IBM is now accepting requests to participate in the LotusLive Notes managed beta program here.

Lotusphere 2010: Opening Session Debrief

Lotus knows why.  Lotus knows how.

That’s the Lotusphere 2010 conference mantra, according to outgoing Lotus general manager Bob Picciano, who kick started today’s opening session before handing the reins over immediately to Captain Kirk.

Yes, Ladies and Gentleman, William Shatner was finally in the Lotus house, and despite a short talk, it was spot on in terms of its message to the Lotus faithful.

Moviemaking, like business everywhere, is ultimately about collaboration, Shatner explained, and the only thing that makes completing the work possible is the collaboration of everybody.

Shatner also reminded us that remakes are great if only they remind you how great the originals are, seeming to suggest Lotus was the original collaboration software partner.  Hear hear.

Shatner also joked with the Loti that he could help them save on a hotel room or rental car while in Orlando.

After the Enterprise beamed Shatner away to much applause, Bob Picciano returned with some key messages he’ll leave us with as he makes his way to broader IBM shores as head of all software sales.

First, the Lotus Knows campaign, which lifted Lotus out of the IT trenches and into the faces of enterprise line of business leaders around the globe.  Rock on Lotus marketing.

Bob explained that this campaign demonstrates the benefit of investing in the Lotus portfolio to help your organization become more productive, period.

He also highlighted the fact that 18,378 customers, to be exact, have signed on to use Lotus Notes since release 8.

And in a straight on jab, he highlighted the fact that Lotus is “freeing you from paying outrageous licensing fees for software which should be a commodity.”

He would be talking about office productivity software.  Expect more on the Lotus Symphony front soon.

Finally, Bob introduced what he called the “Collaboration Agenda,” that is, a strategic view of how companies want their employees and stakeholders to work better together.

The Collaboration Agenda is an industry-specific, structured approach to help Lotus clients realize measurable business value from improving the way people interact. (A recent survey by IDC shows that 66% of businesses believe that a thorough understanding of their business is important or very important for a vendor.”)

The Collaboration Agenda provides a way for organizations to view how they’re working today, and to identify gaps where people can be better equipped to improve and speed their roles and processes.

This morning, Picciano also announced industry-specific ROI metrics around collaboration capabilities for four key industries, including banking, insurance, government, and healthcare providers/payers.

He also announced a reselling agreement with BlackBerry maker Research in Motion, including an agreement between RIM and Lotus for Lotus to sell BlackBerry Client for Lotus Connections and BlackBerry Client for Lotus Quickr.

A new version of both products will be released on January 18^th.

RIM Chief Technology Officer David Yach also spoke onstage about RIM’s having recently purchased new versions of IBM Lotus Connections, Quickr, and Sametime for his own organization to be more collaborative on the go.

There are more announcements to come.

Keep an eye on Ed Brill’s blog for some of the latest, including Lotus Notes Traveler Android support and encrypted Notes mail for the iPhone via the Lotus Notes Traveler Companion.

Also, keep your eyes peeled here on the IBM Press Room for more details on all the announcements shortly.

Stan Kyle Eric & Kenny Go To Florida

Lotus faithful everywhere, it’s time for the now annual Ascendant Technology South Park video.

Yes, Kenny and Cartman are back in the yellow saddle, starring in a brand new Lotusphere 2010 preview video that features, among others, Steve Ballmer (as the Lotus Knows bus driver), Kenny, Cartman, others from the South Park gang, and customer #2 from the final episode of “The Sopranos” (rumored to be the guest speaker at this year’s opening session!)

Just keep an eye on your backpack — Kenny’s got a hunger for yellow.

Though you won’t likely see Kenny, Cartman and the gang there in Orlando (they are fictional animated characters from a popular television show), you can see some of mi Lotus amigos, including Bilal Jaffery, Lotus social media guru, who will be co-hosting the first ever (but surely not last) Lotusphere Tweetup.

Check out Bilal’s post here for all the details of this Sunday night festouche.

I can finally feel it.  The yellow fever is coming on!