E-Harmony For Business

IBM and Ariba have signed an agreement designed to help fuel better commerce by matching B2B buyers and sellers of goods and services in the cloud using state-of-the-art collaboration and social networking technologies.

Think E-Harmony for business.

With this deal, Ariba plans to integrate its cloud solution, the Ariba Commerce Cloud, with IBM LotusLive to help buyers and sellers communicate and share information more fluidly and effectively. 

Face-to-face meetings, phone calls, faxes, documents and spreadsheets are being leapfrogged by more advanced, efficient methods of collaboration and communication such as Web conferencing, instant messaging, social networking and file sharing, among other things.

To help companies take advantage of these advances, Ariba’s integration with LotusLive will provide a web-based service that helps buyers and sellers find each other quickly and efficiently for new business opportunities by automatically matching buyers’ business requirements to seller capabilities.

Integrating LotusLive communication and collaboration into the buyer-seller discovery process will provide buyers and sellers the tools to interact, answer questions and exchange accurate information prior to entering the formal RFI/P or contracting phase.  

“Finding the right trading partners is hard. Collaborating with them to do business better is even harder,” said Bhaskar Himatsingka, Chief Technology Officer, Ariba, Inc. “Our integration plans with IBM LotusLive are designed to help make it easier for buyers and sellers to collaborate in new ways by taking advantage of IBM’s powerful set of web-based tools for real-time collaboration within Ariba’s sourcing and sales process solutions.”

“Like people searching for someone special, businesses are looking for a high degree of compatibility with their prospective partners," said Sean Poulley, IBM VP of cloud collaboration.

“The successful combination of LotusLive and the Ariba Commerce Cloud will provide such a matchmaking comfort zone in which networks of partners, suppliers and customers can easily work together across company boundaries to help do their jobs more efficiently and cost-effectively, and perhaps even develop lasting relationships."

Click here to learn more about the IBM LotusLive online collaboration portfolio.

Live @ Lotusphere, Day 3: Goin’ Mobile

It’s Day  3 at Lotusphere, and my brain is slowly evolving into collaborative mush.

I had a great chat with some business partners from New Jersey over breakfast, who explained that they were Lotus faithful and had been coming to the event for over 10 years now.

They told me how they thought this was the FIRST year they’d been here where the event didn’t seem to revolve completely around the next release of Lotus Notes, and that there was a much broader view into the Lotus collaboration portfolio.

And, they seemed to be digging it.

Well, gents, I definitely don’t think that was a happy accident, but we very much appreciate the feedback and are glad you think we seem to be heading in the right direction.

As to this AM, let’s get to some breaking news coming out of the second floor of the Dolphin hotel press conference.

First, more news on the emerging IBM Lotus mobile strategy, which includes a major expansion of IBM Lotus Collaboration software and delivery of enterprise secure email for Android, the iPhone, and Nokia Symbian-based smartphones.

IBM customer General Motors related during the event this week how it’s building for an increasingly mobile workforce, connected and equipped for anything, anytime, anywhere.

Specifically, GM chief strategy and technology officer Kirk Guttman explained he has thousands of people on iPhones and BlackBerry devices using their Lotus collaboration tools while in motion, increasing their productivity while in motion…just not behind me while driving down the Interstate, please!

As mentioned the other day, the Lotus Notes Traveler Companion, a plug-in that allows you to view encrypted email on the iPhone.  Available in the Apple App store now.

Traveler will also be supported on Nokia Symbian smartphones and Windows Mobile devices, because we want to be sure Bill Gates and Ray Ozzie can securely read one another’s Lotus Notes email on their iPhones.

That was a joke!  Get it, Ray and Bill, Lotus Notes, iPhone!? (Well, let’s give Bill credit…he did apparently just get his own Twitter account after three years of critical Twittering mass).

Next up, we had some great news on the online meeting front, which is where, as you know, I spend most of my life.

In fact, I think I’m supposed to be in an emeeting right at this very moment!  Doh!

These new features in IBM Lotus Sametime offer a new online meeting experience that provides a consolidated calndar view and enables users to start or join a meeting with a single click…because taking a few clicks to open an emeeting was apparently a major labor on the part of IBMers and customers around the globe!

Just kidding…I love one click access, particularly to the delete button in my Notes mail inbox.

With this new feature, users are going to be able to easily invite participants to a meeting by dragging names from their IM contact list and dropping them into the meeting.

Participants will also be able to accept meeting invites with a single click as well as upload materials to the meeting with a drag and drop capability.

I presume this also means I can drop you OUT of the meeting if you’re misbehaving.

IBM Lotus has had a number of world class companies participating in a beta to test out these new capabilities.

Thomas Eidenmueller with Merck KGaAsaid that “With our planned deployment of Lotus Sametime 8.5 in the second quarter of 2010, we will be able to further lower travel expenses with our plans to run education sessions both internally and externally with our partners.”

Other new features of Sametime 8.5 worth highlighting: Always-ready, reservation-less meetings with password-protected meeting rooms…a zero-download Web client that makes it easier for companies to embed Sametime capabilities into their apps and Web sites…a new browser-based Apple iPhone chat client, for all you Macheads out there…and enhancements to the Sametime Unified Telephony capability, which helps users better manage their phone calls based on presence and location.

That one’s a no brainer for companies that have an exceptionally mobile workforce, and I’ve used that function when I was working remotely and didn’t want to run up a big phone bill from overseas.

Have wifi and Sametime Unified Telelphony, will travel.

Finally, for those of you on the small and medium sized business front, IBM announced today that it’s working with business partners to create solutions integrated with IBM Lotus Foundations to help small and medium business address the challenge of complexity.

Lotus Foundations is IBM’s hardware and software solution that helps SMBs collaborate with tools that include email, office apps, file sharing, and backup/data recovery and protection.

Lotus Foundations basically provides a one-stop shop for smaller businesses that want to focus on running their business (and not their IT infrastructure), and because the Foundations solution is autonomic, you can install, setup, monitor, and do problem resolution without human intervention.

Speaking of human intervention, I need to intervene with myself and cut off this post.  That’s it, that’s a wrap, and I think that’s the fastest I’ve ever typed in my life…and I’m a fast typist (they don’t call me Turbo for nothin’).

More to come later today, including our podcast interview with IBMer Rawn Shah, author of “Social Networking for Business.”

In the meantime, I encourage you to read this thoughtful post from ReadWriteWeb’s Alex Williams about IBM vs. Microsoft’s approach to the open Web.

Live @ Lotusphere 2010, Day Two: Making Lotus Connections

Another session I attended earlier today (and a debrief promised from an earlier post) revolved around the Lotus Connections platform.

Sure, I’m biased, I work for Big Blue, but let me just say that before I get into the specifics, I’m a regular user of the Lotus Connections product by design.

IBM is definitely walking its own talk in this particular arena, and I can personally attest to the way it has changed the way I (and my extended global team) work.

For example, I run a weekly Web team call that has been continuous for going on six years now.  Every Friday, 10 AM CST, sharp (except when I’m on a jet plane to nowhere).

I used to manage the communications for the call entirely through Lotus Notes, and while I’m a Notes fan as well, Connections has helped ease the pain of managing that call.

For example, I’ve asked all 70+ regular participants to go and “Join” the community I set up for the call in Connections, so now instead of having to manage an access control list, I’m crowdsourcing the subscription list.

You want to have access to information about the call (including call-in #s and the weekly Symphony presentation), then you simply join and you’re automagically emailed the info as soon as I send it out.

Talk about a time saver and productivity enhancer.

I’ve also used the Connections community for this particular call to share important industry news, and embedded several helpful RSS feeds so the group can follow some other important info threads.

We also have a discussion group there to discuss issues of importance to our global Software Web community, and the email function lets me easily send out dispatches to the global team no matter where in the world I am.

The SWG Web Marketing Community also allows me to take advantage of the blogging feature, so that I can share info about coming calls and anecdotes worthy of the community’s attention.

Finally, I share all my presentations from each week in the “Files” service, so that anybody can go back in time and download an earlier presentation should they be interested in reading more about that week’s given topic/call.

All of this in a single community, and all powered by Lotus Connections.

Testify, Turbo, testify!

In terms of today’s informative update, Suzanne Livingston and team shared insights about IBM’s own wider adoption of Connections, which will ultimately replace the IBM Bluepages directory.

She explained that social collaboration’s mission is simple: Lotus Connections is social software for business that is focused on people based collaboration that empowers you with the collective knowledge of your organization, your partners and your customers, and helps people build better outcomes.

Got that?  Good, ’cause there will be a quiz later.

For organizations needing to cut costs and provide for workforce flexibility, all while helping leverage collective organizational expertise and communicating with employees as individuals, Lotus Connections 2.5 fits the bill.

Need more insight?  The right info at the right time in the right context, and all while magnifying the value of your content?

Lotus Connections 2.5 fits the bill.

Need an advantage by leveraging your innovation across your full value chain, all while improving the strength and speed of making connections and depth of relationships?

All together now.

Okay, enough Kum Ba Ya and instead some details about the new version of Lotus Connections:

Improvements to Communities

Communities can be enhanced with additional tools: communitiy activities, blogs, files, and wikis. Community discussion forums have a new look and now show the number of replies for each topic; community owners can customize the look of their community and move widgets around on the community’s home page.

Wikis

Wikis let you create sites to collaboratively author and share documents. Built-in revision history makes it a snap to roll back to previous versions.

Files
Files makes sharing files with other people a snap, and reduces inbox bloat.

Mobile access

Support for mobile browser to Lotus Connections Profiles from Apple iPhones or Nokia s60 devices.

Federated Updates

The Connections home page has a new Updates tab that lets you see news items relevant to you from across your social network. Use the “discover” tab to easily browse content from across all of connections.

Microblogging

Profiles now features status updates and a profile “board” that lets you easily post messages to other users’ profiles. Go to the profiles home page to see a list of status updates for all the people in your social network. Discover profiles by expertise with the organization-wide tag cloud.

Improved Search

Easily search all connections applications, and filter by tags, person, or time range.

Activities & Blogs feature Community Integration

Tired of adding the same people to an activity or blog in order to share it with them? Use a community to start group-centric activities or blogs.

Visit here to learn how you can better connect your organization with Lotus Connections 2.5.

Live @ Lotusphere 2010: Day 1 Wrap-up Podcast

Scott Laningham and I met late yesterday afternoon to compare notes and record a recap what we learned at Day 1 of Lotusphere.

You can download the podcast here (MP3, 18:04).

In this podcast, we hit on what we thought were some of the highlights of the very informative first day and also recapped all the key Lotus announcements.

IBM VP Gina Poole on Social Software: Podcast Coming Soon

It’s just a little after half past noon on Monday.

developerWorks podcast guru Scott Laningham and I had the opportunity to sit down and speak with Gina Poole, VP, Marketing 2.0 with IBM Software Group, after the exciting opening session this AM.

Gina, whose team I support at IBM, went deep on several topics relevant to Lotusphere, expounding on marketing via the social media, the adoption of social software in the enterprise, and much more.

Keep an eye tuned for that podcast…I’ll link to it just as soon as Scott’s finished producing it!

There’s LOADS of activity on the Lotusphere Twitter stream, so if you’re not keeping an eye on hashtags #lotusknows and #ls10, it’s time to start.

In just a short while, we’ll be off to hear the infamous Ed Brill catch us up on what Lotus Knows about the state of Lotus Notes.

Lotusphere 2010: What Up on the Weekend?

I’m not a talk show host, nor do I play one on TV.

But I do like to sit with my cute little Flip Video camera in my living room and pretend that I’ll be taking over for Conan.

Today, I pretended to be Conan preparing to fly down to Orlando to emcee this year’s Lotusphere 2010 grand opening session come Monday morning.

You can catch the completely unedited, totally-on-the-fly, cinema verite-ish cut of said video directly below, where I slowly metamorphasize into an overly friendly Lotus talking head and traffic guard explaining which way is up at the Swan and the Dolphin.

I’m still completely in the dark about who the emcee for Monday’s grand opening session is…that’s because I’m a complete nobody, and nobody tells me anything, which is also why you probably ought not even be listening to what I say right now, because I really don’t know anything.  Really!

In any case, my money’s on Denis Leary as emcee.

No?  Not likely?  Been there, done that, got the t-shirt?

Okay.  Well, I also doubt it’s Conan, but who knows?

Who knows?  Ah, I get it!!!

C’mon, only Lotus Knows!

Which means I guess we’ll just have to share a moment and all find out together early Monday morning who the emcee is.

In the meantime, safe travels!

Talk Show For Sale, Cheap

Has anybody but me been DVRing Conan O’Brien’s “Tonight Show” episodes this week and watching them in the morning to start the day with a good laugh?

Wow.  There is no love lost between the Peacock network and O’Brien, and boy is he using his show as a bully pulpit to get in his last digs before he leaves.

On last night’s show, he joked about putting the show up for sale on Craig’s List.

On this one, I’m not joking.

Classic.

The Daily Beast’s Kim Masters reports that the late-night nightmare is almost over, and that Conan is leaving NBC with a payout, and will be free to appear on another network before his contract expires.

As Conan ponders his wide open future, leading consumer and industrial electronics giant Panasonic Corporation is reshaping its own, having announced yesterday that it is adopting IBM LotusLive’s suite of collaboration services.

Panasonic will be using LotusLive for Web conferencing, file sharing, instant messaging and project management.

It will also implement LotusLive Connections to enable business social networking between employees, partners, and suppliers to help them find other people with specific skills or knowledge and to share insight.

Panasonic will be migrating from Microsoft Exchange and other collaboration tools to LotusLive for email, calendaring, and contact management, and will present more details next week at Lotusphere in Orlando.

FYI, the global cloud computing market is expected to grow at a compounded annual rate of 28 percent from $47B last year to $126B by 2012 (based on various market estimates).

Speaking of global, IBM has also extended its LotusLive Cloud collaboration service with the availability and free trial of LotusLive Engage and LotusLive Connections in Brazilian portugese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese and Spanish.

The additional language support for the LotusLive portfolio follows the recent announcement of the availability of LotusLive iNotes, IBM’s email service that delivers the benefits of cloud computing with a focus on reliability, privacy and security, to millions of mainstream business users for $3 per user, per month.

LotusLive provides integrated email, collaboration and social networking services to simplify and improve daily business interactions with customers, partners and colleagues. A no-cost, 30-day trial of LotusLive is available at www.lotuslive.com/compare.

Lotus Changes Leaders

Some reorganizational and leadership changes were announced in our Software business earlier today, and in particular, in our Lotus business.

For those looking to understand the nature and opportunity of those changes leading into next week’s Lotusphere need look no further than Ed Brill’s blog post.

Bottom line, the Lotus business will be in very good hands with Alistair Rennie at the helm, and current GM Bob Picciano will go on to have even more impact on our business in his cross-SWG sales role.

Congratulations to them both on their new positions.  We look forward to hearing more in Orlando!

Countdown To Lotusphere

All righty then.

The Dallas Cowboys won a playoff game for the first time since the 1996 season!  Woo hoo!

Cowboy haters everywhere are uniting as Americas team gets through the first round of the playoffs having beaten the Eagles two weeks in a row.

Even I couldn’t believe the surprise.

Next week, it looks as though I’ll be on a plane heading out to Orlando for Lotusphere during the Cowboys/Vikings game — but good news: I took the lowest fare and am flying JetBlue, which means DirectTV!  Woo Hoo!!

That’s what I get for being such a cost conscious foot soldier.

While I’m watching the game from 35,000 feet, you could be listening to (podcast, 10:14) Scott Laningham and I chat up our anticipation of covering the forthcoming Lotusphere.

In the podcast, we talk about our excitement regarding the now even more stringent security measures, but more importantly, an overview of some of the exciting events and must sees at Lotusphere, and what we hope to hear more about while on the ground in Orlando.

If you’re not attending (or even if you are), you can follow the tidings at the official Lotus Twitter hashtag #lotusknows as well as #ls10 where we expect to see many attendees and Lotus watchers posting as well.

In the meantime, leading into the event I’ll be pointing out some other key Lotus-relevant blogs to keep an eye out for.

Feel free to comment below to let Scott and I know more about what you would like to hear about coming out of Orlando.