Comments on: IBM: Set Your Workplace Free

By: stephen o'grady

stephen o'grady — Tue, 10 Jan 2006 18:07:40 +0000

Ed: tried to note that with the “that should change soon - first half of ‘06″ comment, but it’s a point worth emphasizing. be interesting to see what the takeup will be.

Sam: should be interesting indeed. i think the PIM metaphor can be pushed much further than we’ve seen to date, and open source could help. the trick will be managing the balance between conservative (Evolution) and too aggressive (Chandler).

Dennis: totally agree. one of my main issues with the current crop of PIMs is that they are outdated in how i interact with my contacts - and that is absolutely, in my view, an opportunity for innovation.

Kjell: partially. i think Notes running on Linux via Workplace is another good option for cross-platform messaging solutions. but what i really want is something entirely server agnostic that is not tied to the Notes UI, which can be non-intuitive at times. Workplace could be that, IMO.

Drew: i think AJAX based clients - and Zimbra in particular - are a very welcome development, and i’ve been quite high on them in the past. the trouble that AJAX clients have, of course, is offline access. that’s where rich clients come in - at least until we have some form of browser persistence available.

By: Drew Clark

Drew Clark — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 02:14:37 +0000

Stephen, what’s your take on the prospects of APAX-architected clients like Zimbra? Seems to me that what you and others are *really* asking for is what they are just now revving up to deliver…Zimbra client to Workplace server anyone?

By: Kjell Ryder

Kjell Ryder — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 14:32:32 +0000

Stephen,
can you comment on Ed Brill’s reply? His answer is to technical for me. Is that what you asked for?

By: Dennis Howlett

Dennis Howlett — Wed, 28 Dec 2005 21:38:24 +0000

There’s another take on this. With the rise in social software, I’m having more conversations over VoIPI/IM than ever before. If not there then on blog posts. email usage is tumbling and is more or less limited to administrative issues - like monitoring comments on blogs or sending out the occasional invoice for work done. Much else -like shared information - is now taking place in dedicated online virtual communities that exist for the duration of the project and then are torn down or archived away.

Is there not therefore a case for saying that Notes needs to transmute into the kind of community tool it once appeared to be but which since has been outglammed by the social software movement?

By: PlexNex

PlexNex — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 01:05:53 +0000

Stephen-

Such interesting questions and analysis of the mail-scape.

I for one am really disappointed by Evolution’s lack of rapid progress, and would really be excited by such a play for a Notes client.

(Your aside about Asterisk is stimulating, too. Would absolutely adore a plug&play asterisk install, as am adding Cisco 79xy’s to the workspace.)

By: Ed Brill

Ed Brill — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 19:07:31 +0000

the plan is for Notes to run on Linux within the Workplace RCP. So it’s a best-of-both scenario — a mature rich client combined with the flexibility and extensibility of the Workplace managed client. That work has already been demonstrated publicly and will be part of the 2006 deliverables.