Tuesday Mar 25, 2008

Rivers of conversations at the edge on twitter

By Nick Hortovanyi

A couple of days ago, I found an article by the Burton Group on the current excitement surrounding Microsoft Sharepoint. As I have a focus with WebSphere Portal, any article describing whats happening with Sharepoint is of interest to me. Especially, when Sharepoint appears to be being chosen because of perceived short comings with other on-premise collaborative software or as a result of pressure from Microsoft only focused consultants.

So I thought I'd tweet about it on twitter (a micro blogging tool). It was a very simple question that I posed "Why is Sharepoint doing so well?" you can see it here. Denis Howlett, of ZDNet fame, who follows me on twitter, immediately responded to me and then off started a discussion, that ended up spanning many people. Denis, summarised the discussions that followed in a blog entry (maybe read from the bottom up). 

It was a very interesting read, as I had not thought of myself as being an edgling, participating in the media fabric. We are using these tools to build relationships and communicate with people, that are not located in the same geographic region as our selves. The usage of these type of tools is second nature to us and an invaluable part of our day.

Through twitter though, I'm seeing some very interesting relationships form and watching some conversations that ordinarily I would not of had the privilege to watch or join in with. You can see what I'm saying from my twitter id hortovanyi. Its hard at times to follow from just one users perspective. So the more you follow, the more interesting the journey down the river will be. Enjoy!


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Tuesday Jun 12, 2007

It should be WebSphere Portal vs Sharepoint not Domino vs Sharepoint

By Nick Hortovanyi

I've been following the debate over at Ed Brill's blog regarding Domino vs SharePoint redux, a week in the field. This debate is scaring me as the focus is just not correct. I know the Domino guys, have that Notes/Domino as their prime concern because of the experience they have with the product. But the fact remains that the Notes/Domino combination is not Portal technology, which Sharepoint is (even though they have removed that term from the name of the current version).

WebSphere Portal was placed into the Lotus brand and it is about to become a core part of the new Lotus Notes strategic platform through Lotus Expeditor. Lotus Notes 8 and Sametime 7.5 has been developed using Lotus Expeditor 6.1. Am in the process of gaining confirmation from Cisco regarding when the Cisco Unified Personal Communicator will be shipped based on Lotus Expeditor.

The ability to create composite applications, with multiple technologies, and have these applications accessible across multiple platforms and pervasive devices seems to be foreign to some of the Lotus Notes/Domino guys. The main discussion, in the comments on Ed's blog was around Workflow, there is an excellent article on user created and managed workflow, in WebSphere Portal 6 at developerWorks here, I must try it out and have it available to demonstrate to clients.

However, WebSphere Portal is not completely dependent on Lotus Domino infrastructure and it competes in its own right against Microsoft Office SharePoint Services 2007. The new WebSphere Portal Collaboration and WebSphere Portal Enterprise offerings include a number of products inclusive of some of the Lotus Domino based infrastructure components. Lotus Quickr and Lotus Connections whilst also being stand alone products reinforce the potential strategic investment that an organisation is making with the Lotus brand and WebSphere Portal.

If WebSphere Portal is part of the Lotus brand then Lotus people should be promoting it. Leading with Lotus Notes and Domino will surely push existing Microsoft Exchange clients closer to Microsoft Office Sharepoint Services.

What excites me about what is occurring in Lotus, is the products evolving that are not based on Domino and Lotus Script!  


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