Introduction Matt Paddon, Lotus Notes & Domino Product Manager, A/NZ
Or if you are don't have direct web access respond to registrations@lotusenergizers.com We will have a copy of the famously published " Lotus Notes Domino 8 Please also encourage your colleagues who have an interest in Lotus Notes to join up registration May 22nd, 2008 07:55:28 AM Ed Brill, Lotus Software, IBM Software Group registration October 11th, 2007 06:37:29 PM
Comments (0) registration October 3rd, 2007 02:47:26 PM Click here to let us know if you are comming to the next committee meeting. Rowan Mitchell August 24th, 2007 04:06:39 PM Welcome back to LotusEnergizers. Rowan Mitchell August 24th, 2007 01:19:06 PM Welcome to this weeks Lotus Competitive Newsletter. Linux Road Show - Get your questions answered Big savings with Linux desktop: IBM, Novell IBM takes Microsoft to task over SOA No OOXML - Say NO to Microsoft Office Broken Standard Microsoft's Open XML loses crucial vote Lotus Collaboration Summit Online - A Virtual Event Torvalds attacks Microsoft's open-source strategy
Linux Road Show - Executive Event - Get your questions answered Are you thinking about whether your organisation should move to Vista? What are some of the most popular alternatives grabbing businesses today and why? IBM and Red Hat, with a number of guest speakers will take attendees through the potential financial benefits, interoperability features, security and manageability benefits of deploying a Linux operating system on the desktop. Importantly, IBM and Red Hat will demonstrate that from a functional perspective, many users will experience little difference in running a Linux desktop or a MS Vista desktop for completing their specific business tasks. Martin LaMonica, CNET News.com | 08 August 2007 08:51 AM IBM and Novell are set to do battle with Microsoft on the desktop with the launch of a new open-source software bundle that promises savings for users. The two companies claim the offering is US$300 to US$500 cheaper per user than the latest office worker software from Microsoft. The "open collaboration client" includes Lotus Notes 8, Sametime instant messaging and IBM's Lotus lightweight productivity applications, which natively support the OpenDocument format. The companies developed a one-click install process for Novell's desktop Linux. The package is well-suited for customers who are looking to test Linux desktop alternatives to Microsoft's Office, according to a statement from Dagmar Ziegler, manager of IBM Software sales for Azlan, a business unit of Tech Data in Germany. IBM and Novell also came to an agreement in the server area that will see Novell distribute and support IBM's open-source Java application server and offer it as an alternative to JBoss. Before JBoss was acquired by Novell competitor Red Hat, Novell established an agreement to distribute and provide support for the JBoss application server, which it still does. With the new offering, Novell is encouraging customers to use WebSphere Application Server Community Edition with Suse Linux Enterprise Server. The package will also provide migration tools to get applications off of JBoss. Tom Espiner, ZDNet UK | 09 August 2007 08:51 AM IBM has taken Microsoft to task over its service-oriented architecture (SOA) approach, claiming the software maker relied too much on Windows-oriented, proprietary standards. Service-oriented architecture, or SOA, links business applications to provide services. By creating an architecture where applications communicate with each other, using protocols including Extensible Markup Language (XML), the aim is to enhance business processes. SOA requires open standards to link applications. These can be produced by third-party vendors or in-house. IBM said on Monday that Microsoft's approach to SOA was stymied by its emphasis on linking Microsoft-compatible processes. "We're doing all platforms, all applications," IBM Software Group executive Steven Mills told ZDNet Australia's sister site ZDNet UK. "We're integrating everything. Microsoft is trying to provide connectivity capabilities for those that are running on Windows platforms. That's a profound difference." "Their perspective is how to make Windows environments connect, as long as you're using Microsoft technology. Our view is: how do you make every environment connect whether you are using Microsoft or anyone else's technology," Mills said. Mills claimed there is a "big difference" between IBM and Microsoft's approaches, saying that, in contrast to Microsoft, IBM uses open standards for XML and Web services. XML is used in SOA to describe both the data in the applications and the metadata necessary for the interaction between the applications. Is Microsoft's OOXML still proprietary? Microsoft wants OOXML to be accepted as an ISO standard. It insists that OOXML, having gained certification from standards organisation ECMA International, is now an ECMA concern, and no longer a proprietary standard. Microsoft is one of the major technology players that participate in ECMA, along with IBM. IBM, however, uses and favours OpenDocument Format (ODF), an ISO-certified, open-source standard. The ODF Alliance and many in the open-source community argue that OOXML is proprietary. Mills provided further contrast between IBM and Microsoft, saying that, in SOA, IBM takes vertical approaches to automation around inventory management and transaction control, and makes these horizontal processes. "We want to be frictionless in transactions as we rethink business-processes models," said Mills. "Transaction integrity requires sustained access flow, and Microsoft doesn't do that. Microsoft is about passing messages from one Windows-based system to another, not about involving the transaction function. "SOA is not just about the message-passing architecture, which is why Microsoft SOA is significantly different from IBM," he added. "The (Microsoft Developer Network) mechanism is a lightweight messaging infrastructure in a message-based environment, whereas IBM delivers a fully functioning infrastructure." Microsoft was unvailable to comment by presstime.
Arguments which can be used to formulate a submission to your National Standard Body (for references in these document cmp. the specification) General Background Papers
ECMA (essentially a Microsoft proxy) has published a document to counter all the contradictions submitted by countries against the Fast Track. This document can be seen as the core of the counter-arguments by Microsoft to convince National Bodies that OOXML is a good thing. A very informative document on which arguments Microsoft will use to discuss with other stakehoders during the forthcoming meetings. Edward Macnaghten has written a detailed analysis of the counter-arguments and his responses to them in Free Software Magazine. Formatting of your submissions In this phase of the debate Standard Committees prefer table formatted comments. The documents above are an inspiration. National standard bodies provide appropriate document templates for objections (original word version) (French version: ODT DOC). General, technical and editorial comments are to be separated for their convenience. Objections should be technical and refer to the sections of the ECMA standard document. The distinction is important because "technical" comments are the only type of comments which matters for the ISO/IEC process of approving or rejecting a draft international standard. Deadlines
14 August 2007 08:55 AM Microsoft has suffered a setback in its endeavour for Office Open XML (OOXML) to become an alternative to OpenDocument Format (ODF) as a standard of the International Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS). The software giant failed by one vote to get the necessary backing from INCITS for OOXML last Thursday. Acceptance by the International Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS) is critical for Microsoft in the US. The software company has already gained approval in principle from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), but it needs INCITS approval to keep up the momentum. It failed to gain acceptance for Office Open XML (OOXML) on Thursday by the slimmest of margins. Eight votes were cast in favour, with seven against and one abstention, one vote short of the nine votes needed. The result is the latest setback for Microsoft in its long-running battle to see its Open XML approved as an open standard for office documents on equal terms with OpenDocument Format (ODF). The discussions within INCITS have been controversial. Last month, questions were raised over the membership of the crucial V1 technical sub-group of INCITS when it emerged that the group had ballooned from seven voting members at the start of the year to 26. The vote was split along familiar lines: Intel, HP, EMC and Apple voted in favour of OOXML, while Sun's allies, such as Oracle and IBM, lined up against it. Sun had no vote. US government bodies were split, with the US Department for Homeland Security backing Microsoft and the US Department of Defense voting against. IEEE, a large international standards body, abstained. INCITS now has until 2 September to make its final decision as to whether it will support Office Open XML.
14 August 2007 08:35 AM Microsoft has turned to spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt in the open-source market because it cannot win against open source on price, according to Linus Torvalds. In an interview published on Friday, the creator of the Linux operating system claimed Microsoft is falling short with its technology and is trying to encourage inertia in the IT industry. The software giant is falling short with its technology and, because it cannot win against open source on price, it is trying to encourage inertia in the IT industry, the creator of the Linux operating system said. Microsoft has been at the centre of considerable controversy over the last 12 months, mainly arising from its statements on open source and its technology partnerships with a range of Linux distributors. Microsoft has claimed that open-source software violates 235 of its patents, but says it will not sue open-source users at the moment. It is this type of claim which angers Torvalds. "I personally think it's mainly another shot in the FUD [fear, uncertainty and doubt] war," Torvalds said in the interview with Computerworld late last week. "Microsoft has a really hard time competing on technical merit, and they traditionally have instead tried to compete on price. But that obviously doesn't work either, not against open source. So they'll continue to bundle packages and live off the inertia of the marketplace, but they want to feed that inertia with FUD." As well as making assertions over patents, Microsoft has also caused a stir in the open-source world by forming partnerships with Linux distributors, the largest one being Novell. But despite the controversy, Torvalds remains nonplussed. "I don't actually think the Novell-Microsoft agreement kind of thing matters all that much in the end, but it's interesting to see the signs that the sides are at least talking to each other. I don't know what the end result will be, but I think it would be healthier for everybody if there wasn't the kind of rabid hatred on both sides," he told Computerworld. Torvalds also addressed the issue of the slow uptake of open-source software in businesses, saying that there is considerable inertia when it comes to operating systems. "These things don't take a year or two. They take a decade or two," he said. "We've come a long way in those 16 years [since the creation of Linux]. Is there a long way to go? Sure. There are technical issues, support infrastructure and just people's perceptions that just take a long time to sort out." Microsoft could offer no response to Torvalds' comments by presstime.
registration August 15th, 2007 09:34:27 AM Welcome to this weeks Lotus Competitive Newsletter. Deploying IBM Lotus Connections: Planning and architecture considerations IBM looking beyond email for business networking An open document standard for China Stacking Vista Licenses Too High Sun exec accuses Microsoft of 'patent terrorism' IBM: saving costs and the planet IBM Lotus Notes and Domino 8 Deployment Guide Open Document Format (ODF) was approved last year as a global standard for file creation, sharing and storage -- backed by numerous industry leaders. Now, there's a proposal and vote (in September 2007) for another open document format known as Open Document XML (aka OOXML). Stephen Hardison, I/T Architect, IBM Software Services for Lotus | 31 Jul 2007 IBM is looking to popular consumer Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs, wikis and social networking tools to breathe new life into its Lotus Notes mail and messaging platform. The computing giant says research shows businesses have become too reliant on email as a tool of communication and will offer new ways for colleagues to collaborate and share information with a suite of tools dubbed Lotus Connections. The Lotus mail platform has struggled to gain traction in New Zealand. The Bay of Plenty health board, baggage handling system maker Glidepath and Herald publisher APN News & Media are among its local clients. But IBM says Connections can be used independently of its mail platform as a web-based portal and that 40 per cent of IBM's existing sales of portal software are to organisations that do not run Lotus Notes for email, but rivals such as Microsoft Outlook. Connections is partly modelled on IBM's in-house personnel directory, Blue Pages, which has profiles of around 330,000 IBM employees. Connections profiles, much like a user can assemble on websites such as Facebook or LinkedIn, show the details of employees who can also set up blogs, use a service called Dogear to swap internet bookmarks with colleagues, participate in online communities and subscribe to RSS feeds to keep up with company developments. Lotus Software program director for social computing software Heidi Votaw said using online social networking tools outside of the office had become second nature to young workers. "In colleges and universities, that's how they get their work done. Their expectation is that they'll be able to leverage those technologies in their working life," she said. New ways of managing information were grouping employees into networks linked by messaging tools, blogs and community groups, rather than a strict corporate hierarchy, said Votaw. She pointed to a recent survey from US company Ogilvy Research which showed that 23 per cent of upper management believe email use is reducing efficiency. The same survey found that 45 per cent of executives check their email inbox every five to 30 minutes. Connections allowed documents to be posted to the portal and employees to be updated of any document changes via RSS (really simple syndication) feeds, rather than documents being shuffled around via the company email system. "It saves mail storage space, because it stops the mail files from getting too big," she said. In a few months of use within IBM, Connections had established a network of more than 9000 blogs and 700 community groups. About 3.5 million profile searches are performed each week. read the rest of the article here By Peter Junge
March 26, 2007 6:31 PM Microsoft's claim of 20 million Vista licenses sold simply doesn't add up when trying to assess who realistically bought them in the time frame—"in the opening month"—stated in today's press release. Further, the press release claims that "Windows Vista made a splash in its debut." What kind of Kool-Aid are they drinking up there in Redmond? Who spiked the Windows Vista-logo soda cans? "Clearly there haven't been 20 million PCs sold worldwide since Jan. 30, and we're really only talking about February," said Stephen Baker, NPD's vice president of industry analysis. License sales are good public relations fodder, but they're real world merits stop there. By every reasonable measure—PCs and retail boxed sales—Microsoft's numbers don't add up with the 20 million figure in one month. The company used the 20 million in-one-month figure compared to 17 million Windows XP licenses in two-and-a-half months to bolster its Vista gangbusters sales claim. Just like vulnerability alerts aren't a good measure of Vista security, number of licenses sold is no way to reckon the operating system's sales success. The number's meaning collapses for three simple reasons:
The numbers reflect more than first month sales. Contrary to Microsoft's boasting, the real sales period for Vista sales is actually longer than Windows XP. Windows XP PCs purchased from Oct. 26, 2006 to March 15, 2007 were eligible for a free or substantially low-cost Vista upgrade. Microsoft includes these upgrades in the 20 million figure. People buying PCs during the holidays had some expectation of a Vista upgrade. Since Microsoft set up a Windows XP comparison, the door is open for another. Microsoft launched Windows XP on Oct. 25, 2001, or about five years to the day before Vista "Express Upgrade" program. Microsoft issued its first XP sales blow out press release on Nov. 11, 2001, touting 7 million licenses sold in the first two weeks of availability. That worked out to "200 percent higher than sales of Windows 98 in the first month of its availability," according to the press release. Microsoft issued the 17 million sold PR on Jan. 7, 2001, about two-and-half months after XP's official launch. The October dates are fair comparisons. Windows XP was available for holiday sales from Oct. 25, 2001. From Oct. 26, 2006, holiday PC buyers were assured of free or super low-cost Vista upgrades. By that reckoning—if number of licenses is to be the measure of success—Vista is off to a substantially slower start than Windows XP. Microsoft made its 20 million license claim almost two months after the 17 million XP announcement, in a comparable time frame. The XP announcement came about two-an-a-half months from launch date, while Vista's sales assessment is about a four-month period. Microsoft deferred $1.1 billion from its fiscal second quarter to third quarter on account of the licenses sold through the Express Upgrade program. A license sold isn't a license a sold. Microsoft counts licenses sold to OEMs in the 20 million number, but the number of actual Vista PCs sold is likely much lower. Roger Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies, described the licenses as "sales in" to the channel that don't necessarily reflect actual purchase and use by consumers. Stock sitting on store shelves, whether in boxes or on PCs, accounts for a fair number of those licenses. The number could be significantly higher than normal. Except for some direct sales, "almost no one was building Windows XP PCs after Dec. 15," Baker said. PC manufacturers and retailers made a concerted effort to clear out Windows XP stock and replenish it with Windows Vista. The phenomenon created a vacuum for Windows Vista licenses to fill. "In the short term, sales in—even if replenishment is better than stuffing—is a poor proxy for sales out," Kay said. The phenomenon would tend to skew higher the number of Vista licenses going into the channel, but not necessarily correspond to an increase in PCs coming out of the channel. Related is a debatable sales in/sales out interpretation of Microsoft's XP-Vista comparisons. A few years back, Microsoft changed its accounting to recognize license sales going into the channel rather than coming out. That would suggest the XP numbers represent sales moving out of the channel, while Vista license numbers would be going in. A Microsoft PR spokesperson confirmed that the Vista numbers are for sales in, as Kay stated. But she asserted the XP numbers are also sales in. However, that's not at all how the press release reads: "17 million licenses of Windows XP were sold by computer manufacturers on new personal computers." I asked Paul DeGroot, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft, and he had similar recollection about the sales-in change. If the XP number is in fact sales out, the Vista comparison collapses, because the 17 million number wouldn't represent unsold licenses. The faulty comparison, if indeed flawed, would be another indicator that Vista is off to a weak start. Analyst PC sales figures don't jive with Microsoft license numbers. Microsoft's 20 million figure only makes sense when factoring in the longer time period—from Oct. 26 rather than Jan. 30—and the sales-in/sales-out situation. Since the beginning of the year, Baker estimated only 3 million PCs have been sold in the United States. "It's hard to see where you get to that [20 million] number in the first month of sales," he said. Similarly, Vista retail box sales are modest, at best. Gartner and IDC forecasts show no significant uptake in PC sales because of Vista. Considering that 80 percent of Windows client revenue comes from OEM sales, the PC will be the major channel for Windows Vista. In November, Kay predicted that OEMs would ship 21 million Vista licenses during first half 2007. Kay has no plans to revise his estimates, which indicates something about what he thinks Microsoft's 20 million number really means. Kay estimates that, conservatively, worldwide, 17 million consumer or very small business PCs were eligible for free or discounted Vista upgrades during fourth quarter 2006. The Express Upgrade program "would bump the numbers up quite a bit, because Microsoft would be realizing those licenses during the first month of Vista sales," DeGroot said. Similarly, the channel fill of Vista licenses to replace XP stock and Microsoft's sales-in reckoning would account for much of the remaining number. But all the analysts said there is no indication that Vista license sales in is leading to a corresponding increase of PC sales going out of the channel. "With all the channel issues and overlapping with tech guarantees, it'll take a longer period to establish just how successful Vista actually is," Kay said. Even if Microsoft could somehow justify the 20 million number, DeGroot would dismiss its significance as a measure of Vista's success. "It's kind of meaningless to say they sold a lot more," he asserted. "The run rate for PCs in 2001 was 120 million." The run rate is 220 million now, he said. By the measure of run rate, "One could argue [Microsoft] sold more XP in 2006 than 2002," DeGroot said. "It would look like XP is on this incredible sales curve as well."
Munir Kotadia and Brett Winterford, ZDNet Australia 24 July 2007 04:04 PM The efforts of Microsoft to pressure the Linux community over alleged and unspecified patents is akin to "patent terrorism", according to a local executive for Sun Microsystems. In recent times, Microsoft has struck legal agreements with Linux distributors Novell, Xandros and Linspire, pledging not to sue users of these distributions over alleged patent violations -- none of which have yet been tested in a court of law. In return, the Linux distributions have agreed to varying conditions around the distribution and use of their software -- many of which fly in the face of their open-source heritage. "What we're seeing though now can be loosely described as patent terrorism, where people are using their patent horde as a threat," said James Eagleton, systems product manager for Sun Microsystems. "It's almost like a cold war stand over tactic; where I have these patents and if you breach these patents, I'm going to come after you and sue you." "That's totally, from Sun's point of view, going against the spirit of innovation around software. No one, certainly in the OS development community, wants to have these doubts lingering over them, especially users," he says. "No one [wants a situation] where you have to think, if I go and use this open source software, who knows who's going to come after me for damages and claims." Eagleton says that Sun, and to a lesser degree IBM, have far more palatable approaches to patent protection. "One of the things that Sun has done with OpenSolaris, for example, has been to put in place an open standards approved open-source licence model -- the CDDL [Common Development and Distribution License] -- that provides indemnification to the users," he said. IBM has also introduced "non-assert covenants" across a range of standards the company has been involved with, Eagleton said. Earlier this month, IBM released over 150 patents, in an exercise through which the company claims to "defuse the growing tide of litigation around software IP". "[IBM] believes that within these standards there are some patents that IBM own, but they're issuing non-assert covenants -- basically a covenant to all the users of that standard -- that IBM will not come after those users," Eagleton explained. "From Sun's perspective that's a great thing. We've really encouraged IBM to go and do that. In fact it's the same approach that Sun has taken in many of its implementations of standards prior, such as Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) and certain other areas." But while he encourages IBM's strategy as a counterpoint to that of Microsoft, Eagleton says there is a "slight sticking point" to IBM's non-assert covenants. "If you look at the wording, [IBM] talk about this thing called 'necessary claims'," he says. "Basically it leaves a little window of opportunity there where [IBM] can apply a 'necessary claims test' [to prove] whether it was necessary to use that standard and if they could have done it by some other means. It leaves a little window of opportunity to come later on for IBM to follow up with some action." ZDNet Australia's Liam Tung contributed to this story.
3rd August 2007 IBM has announced its latest energy saving initiative, Project Big Green. 'Content IBM has already made great advances in the consolidation of its IT infrastructure, many of these as a result of its decision to run its IT as a commercial service to the rest of the business. As well as providing a significant, long-term cost saving, this will enable IBM to build a team of very credible resources to pass on the experiences learned to its customer base.
IBM Lotus Notes and Domino 8 Deployment Guide
registration August 7th, 2007 07:48:28 AM Welcome to this weeks Lotus Competitive Newsletter Lotus Notes makes foray into Web 2.0 IBM Lotus Quickr: Enhance team productivity with social computing Migrating a corporation to OpenOffice Microsoft Office Open XML rejected as standard IBM recorded demonstration portfolio Firefox takes almost 30 percent of EU browser market Open source take-up booming in APAC SNAPPS' Quickr Sample Templates Acer: "The whole industry is disappointed with Windows Vista" Notes & Domino 8 Training Courses have been released! I have included links to some of the key courses that are now being offered in Australia and New Zealand. Building the IBM Lotus Domino 8 Infrastructure IBM's social software dubbed Lotus Connections E. Stride writes "This case study describes the successes and pitfalls of migrating a large corporation from Microsoft Office to open source office suite OpenOffice. Find out what to avoid and discover the lessons they learned."
Tom Espiner, ZDNet UK | 18 July 2007 07:42 AM A US standards body has rejected Microsoft’s Office Open XML document format as an international standard, which could further boost the popularity of open source standard OpenDocument (ODF) Late last week, Office Open XML (OOXML) failed to gain approval in a vote by a sub-group of the International Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS), a standards body influential with the US government. OOXML has strong support from Microsoft, and is a rival to the OpenDocument Format (ODF) favoured by open-source vendors and companies such as IBM. But while ODF has gained important acceptance from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), OOXML is still struggling to be seen as a truly open. According to Rob Weir, a member of INCITS and an IBM performance architect, OOXML failed to gain the majority needed for INCITS V1 sub-group approval, which is seen by some as a step towards being accepted by the ISO. "On Friday July 13th, INCITS V1 met via teleconference for three hours but failed to reach a 2/3 consensus necessary to recommend an 'Approval, with comments' position on Microsoft 'Office Open XML' document specification," said Weir in his blog. Currently a group of companies is applying for ISO certification for OOXML. Microsoft is keen that OOXML gains ISO approval rapidly, as ISO is seen as an important milestone for standards. However, Weir said that the V1 sub-group would not report consensus on the "controversial" OOXML ISO submission, which has been fast-tracked. "The result is that V1 will report a large list of technical comments for consideration by INCITS, but will not report a consensus position on this controversial ISO 'Fast Track' submission," said Weir's blog post. He added that an "important factor" in the voting process was the number of members new to the committee who were Microsoft business partners. "An important factor in the V1 vote was the large number of members who joined very late in the process," said Weir. "At the start of the year, V1 had only seven voting members. But, by Friday's meeting, V1 had 26 voting members. There was a clear pattern in the voting where the long-time V1 members voted for the 'Disapproval, with comments' position, while the newer members voted overwhelmingly 'Yes, with comments'. This is not surprising since the new members were largely Microsoft business partners." A Microsoft insider insisted that OOXML, having gained certification from another standards organisation, Ecma International, is now an Ecma concern. However, no official Microsoft comment was available at the time of writing.
New Lotus Demonstrations - Lotus software provides a multiplatform foundation for collaboration software designed to maximize human productivity. Tom Espiner, ZDNet UK 17 July 2007 08:25 AM Firefox continues to take market share away from Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE), according to a recent survey of 32 European countries by Web monitoring company XiTi Monitor. Microsoft's IE is still the dominant browser, but Mozilla's Firefox continues to take small chunks of its market share on a regular basis. In July 2006, Firefox accounted for 21.1 percent of the browser market. Exactly one year on, that figure has increased to 27.8 percent, according to the report. "It's a nice way to get started on a Monday morning," said Tristan Nitot, president of Mozilla Europe. "I hope we continue to gain market share, as our goal is to promote choice. Monopoly leads to lack of innovation." Although Microsoft still has 66.5 percent of the browser market across Europe, in certain countries Firefox has now become very popular -- especially in Eastern Europe. In Slovenia, Firefox has 47.9 percent of the market, while the browser now has over 39 percent market share in Poland, Hungary, and Croatia. Nitot said that a major contributory factor for Firefox's success in countries like Slovenia and Poland was the support network that exists in them. "There's a very active community there -- there's active forum support online. Also, if you have a problem, people from the community will come to your business and fix any potential issues," said Nitot. Firefox gaining market share should give Microsoft cause for concern, according to Nitot. "I think it should be a cause for concern for them -- our intention is to encourage Microsoft to get back to work and improve IE," said Nitot. "We want a better Web experience for everybody." Microsoft should also be concerned about the wider implications of the loss of browser market share as it makes hosted applications a bigger part of its business, said Nitot. Steve Ballmer last week announced Microsoft's intention to move towards Web-based applications. Nitot said that Microsoft faced a complex situation at the moment, as it tries to redefine itself as a Web services, rather than a software, company. "Microsoft has recognised that, if it wants to be successful in the future, it should move towards the Web applications space. In the short term this is going to hurt Windows and Office. It's a difficult situation to be in," said Nitot. "Also, how is it going to leverage those assets to be more successful in the Web scene?" Microsoft had not responded to a request for comment by the time of press. Aaron Tan, ZDNet Asia | 11 July 2007 08:33 AM Open source accounts for between 25 and 70 percent of all software in Australian, Chinese, Indian and Korean companies, according to a recent IDC survey. In an interview with ZDNet Australia sister site ZDNet Asia, Wilvin Chee, research director with IDC's Asia-Pacific software research group, said: "Businesses are using a variety of open source software, ranging from infrastructure software and storage to enterprise applications such as CRM (customer relationship management) and ERM (enterprise resource management)." Conducted by IDC between February and March this year, the study involved top executives from about 1,000 companies of all sizes. Chee said most organisations in the Asia-Pacific region are opting for open-source software because they perceive it to offer better protection against security breaches, a view which the analyst said is "justified to some extent". The open source development process means software can be developed in collaboration with programmers and end users who want to improve software for its own sake, rather than to seek commercial objectives, he said. "Because of this non-association with commercial purposes, open-source software is not bound by time-to-market deadlines," Chee explained. "And there is no pressure from end users to adopt it, because people are always looking forward to newer versions of commercial software." Better vendor support from open-source companies, compared to proprietary software providers, is another reason for companies to adopt open source. This is because support services underpin the business model of open source companies, which are "a little more forthcoming in providing the relevant support", Chee said. He added: "They are also able to come up with less complex support structures for open source users." Noting another key difference, Chee said that when it comes to proprietary software, there is a tendency for companies to "buy something more than what t hey really need". Vista sparks interest Noting that organisations face the decision of Vista hardware investments, Koster said: "If I don't need full functionality on the desktop, maybe I'll go open source. "If you want to roll out a low-cost infrastructure in India and China, open source is definitely the way to go," he added. However, while open-source software may be perceived to be cheaper because there are no upfront licensing costs involved in software acquisition, Chee said, the total cost of ownership (TCO) of open source-software varies. "Both proprietary and open-source vendors will provide their own attractive TCO propositions," he said. "What's critical to businesses is services support, regardless of the kind of software they're using," Chee added. "Businesses want to ensure that they really know how to use the software, especially when they have software from multiple vendors." Yap Boon Leong, business development director of Resolvo Systems, a Singapore-based open-source software developer with operations in Cambodia, noted that open source is appealing in emerging markets because businesses there tend to be very price-sensitive. "In emerging markets, businesses want to have the lowest TCO possible," Yap said, adding that Resolvo offers a utility pricing model in Cambodia for its open source-based products such as inventory control and sales force automation. Resolvo also provides support and deployment services for companies that want to keep their software and data on their own servers. Regardless of software delivery or development models, Chee noted, businesses in the Asia-Pacific region are a practical bunch. "It doesn't matter if software is open source or proprietary, as long as it can meet their requirements," he said.
07/19/2007 11:18 AM Rob Novak has created some open source Quickr (Quickplace on steroids for you old-timers) templates (aka, "applications" for folks who don't use Lotus Notes) so you can see what this Lotus social networking platform can do: QActivities Demo (Activities Integration)
"The whole industry is disappointed with Windows Vista," Acer President Gianfranco Lanci told the Financial Times Deutschland. Acer, which is the world's fourth largest manufacturer of PCs, is the first major PC manufacturer to accuse the software titan of having failed to remove major flaws in its new operating system Vista. Mr. Lanci heads the Taiwanese IT group, which generated annual sales of 11.3 billion US dollars and ranks fourth on the list of the world's largest PC manufacturers behind Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Lenovo, together with the company founder Stan Shih and its CEO J. T. Wang. Never before in the history of the PC manufacturing sector was the impact on sales of a version of Windows so small as that of Vista; and that state of affairs was unlikely to change in the next six months, Mr. Lanci observed. From its analysis of the market situation Acer had concluded that after the launch of Windows Vista computer manufacturers and suppliers had hoped for a surge in growth. Mr. Lanci said he didn't believe Vista was enough to tempt a person to go out and buy a new PC. In many cases business customers had asked Acer to install the old operating system Windows XP on their new machines. Although the sector had been waiting for Vista for years, upon its launch the software had not been as mature as it should have been. "Stability is certainly a problem," Mr. Lanci stated. When looking at the sales of its new operating system Microsoft is likely to see things differently. Upon presenting its income statement for the fourth quarter of Microsoft's fiscal year 2007 the software group from Redmond had declared that the company had also managed to post gains because of the popularity of Vista. Microsoft's quarterly sales grew in quarter-on-quarter terms to 13.4 billion US dollars from 11.8 billion US dollars, net earnings went up to 3.04 billion US dollars from 2.83 billion US dollars. The Client division (all Windows operating systems for desktop computers) was able to boost its sales to 3.808 billion US dollars from 3.347 billion US dollars, while its operating profit rose to 2.818 billion US dollars from 2.546 billion US dollars. Microsoft did not specify how much of this revenue was thanks to Vista; at the end of March the company had however already celebrated the shipping of 20 million Vista licenses. (Robert W. Smith)
registration July 26th, 2007 09:29:06 AM Welcome to this weeks Lotus Competitive Newsletter. Government agencies embracing open source: AGIMO Mac desktops are 'smarter money,' says CIO Windows Loses Ground With Developers Lotus Quickr templates created by SNAPPS Lotus Connections Reviewers Guide
In a report published Monday, Forrester said that uncertainty over the timetable for Microsoft software releases, and the headaches involved with upgrading to new software versions, has many organizations wondering if Software Assurance is worth the expense. Most firms buy Software Assurance for the ability to upgrade to new releases. However, as the time between new releases has stretched longer and longer, this aspect of SA isn't providing the same ROI as it used to, Forrester said. Annual Software Assurance costs are 29% of the license for desktop products and 25% of the license for server products, making Microsoft's offering one of the most costly in the IT industry, according to Forrester. Microsoft has been trying to add value to Software Assurance to entice organizations to upgrade. The Redmond, Wash software giant Monday rolled out Windows Partner Solutions, a package of its Desktop Optimization Pack, as a subscription offering for Software Assurance maintenance contract customers that includes technologies from several recent Microsoft acquisitions. DOP includes application virtualization software from Softricity, inventory services from AssetMetrix, group policy management software from DesktopStandard, and recovery software from Winternals. Still, the lack of a product road map for Windows Vista, Office 2007, SharePoint 2007, and Exchange 2007 has caused many organizations to think twice about renewing their SA contracts, Forrester noted. "This uncertainty regarding product releases makes it difficult for IT procurement and sourcing professionals to justify a three-year SA renewal," Forrester said. Making matters worse is the fact that Microsoft hasn't always adhered to the four-year product release cycle to which Software Assurance is pegged, Forrester said. Microsoft's introduction of so-called Enterprise Client Access Licenses has also eroded many organizations' confidence in Software Assurance. For products like Exchange and SharePoint, Microsoft is telling its customers they need to buy an additional CAL to go with the one they've already purchased as part of SA, according to Forrester. Forrester also expects Microsoft will seek to keep SA relevant by tying it to other offerings, noting that it has already begun doing this with Windows Vista Enterprise edition. "Sourcing pros should make sure to understand the consequences and risks associated with SA before making any final decisions," Forrester concluded.
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U.K. company examining alternatives to Microsoft because of what it sees as software giant's "aggressive" licensing policies. Property asset management company Capital & Regional is evaluating Linux desktops and Apple Macs as a way to reduce its dependency on Microsoft. While the U.K. company has about 700 PC users and currently runs Windows XP Pro and Office XP Pro, Chief Information Officer Richard Snooks has criticized Microsoft's aggressive licensing policies. "We are feeling the pinch of the aggressive revenue targets of Microsoft," Snooks said. "We are asking ourselves, 'Are they (Microsoft) fit for our business?'" In particular, Snooks isn't convinced by the arguments for upgrading to Microsoft's latest Windows operating system, Vista, and is actively looking at alternatives, including a small trial of a Suse Linux desktop inside the IT department. "I feel we are being railroaded, and the market generally forced (us) into a corner or even a cul-de-sac. In a free market, we have made Microsoft dominant, and now we have the collective responsibility to reverse this situation to re-establish balance and competition. If I am being driven down the Vista route, then an Apple Mac is smarter money and cheaper." Snooks said the browser-based ATMs at Capital & Regional's shopping outlets could potentially run on Suse Linux with a Firefox browser, while Apple Macs may be a better alternative to Windows PCs. A Microsoft representative said the company offers a range of licensing agreements for different business needs and cited security and energy efficiency as benefits of moving to Vista. "Vista is the most secure, reliable and flexible OS available from Microsoft, and is easy and cost-effective to deploy and maintain," she said. "The reduced complexity facilitates maintenance and support, which allows IT management time to be deployed more effectively elsewhere, and the in-depth security ensures protection of sensitive data at all times."
Posted by kdawson on Tuesday July 03, @02:41PM An anonymous reader notes that InfoWorld is covering a survey of North American developers that claims that Linux is gaining share as the number of developers targeting Windows fell 11 percent over the last year. Evans Data has been conducting these surveys of client, server, and Web developers since 1998. Evans Data says that the arrival of Windows Vista likely only kept the numbers from being even worse. The big gainer wasn't developing for a Web platform, but rather for Linux and "nontraditional client devices." Windows is still dominant, with 65% of developers writing code for this platform. Linux stands at almost 12%, up from 8% a year earlier. The article says that Evans Data collected information on Mac and Unix development but did not include them in this year's report.
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registration July 18th, 2007 09:27:25 AM Welcome to this weeks Lotus Competitive Newsletter. Free Trial - WebSphere Portal Express V6.0 IBM Drops an 'e', Goes Web 2.0 with Lotus Quickr Mark Bennett on IBM vs. Microsoft Australian department to switch from NetWare to Linux India slowly dumping Windows for Linux? IBM Forum 07 - the path to innovation IBM OmniFind Yahoo! Edition Software Drives Advanced Search and Visualization Solutions Windows developers begin slow defection to Linux Free Trial - IBM Lotus Sametime 7.5.1 This version extends IBM's award-winning and market-leading instant messaging and Web conferencing solution by introducing new capabilities that include point-to-point video, integration with desktop productivity applications, a tabbed chat interface, client support for Macintosh users, and server support for the Linux® operating system. Lotus Sametime 7.5.1 is a platform for unified communications and collaboration, combining security features with an extensible, open solution that includes integrated Voice over IP, geographic location awareness, mobile clients, and a robust Business Partner community offering telephony and video integration. All of the product's features are enabled, with the exception of Lotus Sametime Gateway and the associated interoperability with Public IM networks.
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Australian department to switch from NetWare to Linux Donderdag 24 mei 2007, 09:30 - As part of a core infrastructure refresh project, The New South Wales Department of State and Regional Development (DSRD) in Australia will ditch its legacy NetWare systems in favor of the open source Linux. The DSRD's Client Infrastructure Replacement Project (CIRP) is seeking quotations from a panel of 23 approved IT suppliers for an enterprise SAN, server hardware to replace end-of-life units, a centrally-managed data replication and backup solution, and consulting services and training to support the new infrastructure. Some 20 existing Novell NetWare servers, including 18 at regional locations throughout NSW, are used for file and print serving and GroupWise messaging, and all are at "end-of-life [and] near full capacity". These are "aging" Compaq ML350 servers with Pentium III processors. According to tender documents obtained by Computerworld Australia, a "possible migration" from NetWare to Linux may occur within the next five years and the proposed solution must be able to work "within this technical environment". This direction should please Novell, which has urged its customer base to migrate from NetWare to Linux since acquiring the SUSE distribution a number of years ago. The DSRD also stipulates that any proposed storage systems and backup software must be supported by NetWare, Windows, and Linux. With each regional office hosting one NetWare server for file and print serving and messaging, the existing local tape backup regime is "cumbersome and often fails". "It is deemed to be unsatisfactory and in need of replacement by a centrally managed data replication and backup solution," according to one tender document. "The data replication solution must provide a facility that will replicate 100 percent of data held on the DSRD regional servers to secondary storage on the SAN solution [in Sydney]. Data from the regional sites will be replicated to the SAN solution where it will be backed up to tape for offsite storage." Overall, the capacity of the SAN solution must initially be configured to cater for the total volume of DSRD data, some 4.33 terabytes, plus a projected data growth of 150 to 170 percent over the next two years. According to the tender, if industry experience of the annual rate of growth of data of approximately 65 percent is reflected within the DSRD and the total volume of DSRD data is 4.33 terabytes, the total amount of data storage required over the next five years will be 53 terabytes. "The SAN solution must be capable of incremental growth which is both vertical and horizontal and must provide a scalable storage infrastructure to meet DSRD's expected storage growth for the next 5 to 10 years," according to one document. "Respondents should provide details of how the SAN solution can be incrementally expanded and should also specify the incremental stages and the cost of each increment." The regional sites are connected to the Sydney city hub via Uecomm ADSL and SHDSL broadband services.
02 July 2007 08:20 AM Indian sta te Kerala is looking at Open Source software to help improve literacy rates and boost the local economy; in January of this year, another Indian state Tamil Nadu switched over more than 3,000 government desktops to Linux and will not offer Windows unless it's an "absolute necessity". According to a statement, the Kerala government has identified free and open-source software (FOSS) as a major strategic component in its efforts to build an inclusive information society. "Kerala has always been a leader in literacy and now we want to make Kerala a leader in e-literacy," said Kerala chief minister VS Achutanandan. "We believe that free and open-source software is an essential component in our drive to democratise information technology and bring its benefits to all sections of society," Achutanandan said. The Indian state is partnering with Red Hat to train the technical staff of various government organisations as well as school teachers on desktop Linux and other open-source applications. The Linux vendor will also work with the state government to promote Kerala as a global destination for developing open-source software. Commenting on Kerala's move towards open source, Nandkumar Pradhan, president and managing director of Red Hat India, said: "The Kerala government has taken a very progressive step in choosing open-source software. The freedom, flexibility and cost-effectiveness of open source helps governments maximise their IT budgets." Kerala is the latest Indian state to widely support the use of open-source software in schools and government departments. Making progress According to C Umashankar, managing director of Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu (Elcot), the new operating system has gone down well with its computer users. "We have switched over to 100 percent Linux in our office, which has more than 200 desktops and laptops. We have also been dispatching desktops with only Suse Linux," he told our sister site ZDNet Asia in an e-mail interview. Although there was initial resistance to change, Umashankar noted, users warmed up to the software after an hour's orientation. Elcot has opened a Suse Linux training centre in its corporate office, and the first batch of 84 officials from the Department of Industries was trained in June. Trainers also conduct onsite training at various government offices. "The current indications are that government users will fully accept the Linux OS in the days to come," Umashankar said. More than 3,000 Suse Linux desktops have been dispatched to government offices in Tamil Nadu, and Windows is not offered unless there is an absolute necessity. Umashankar said: "The government offices have to justify the procurement of Windows by indicating the existing client-server software, if any. If a desktop system is required only for office application, then we will only supply desktop systems with Suse Linux."
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04 July 2007 09:05 AM Two years ago, the number of developers writing applications for the Microsoft Windows platform fell, while the opposite was true for Linux -- this has now become a trend. Instead of the Web stealing away Windows Users, as people have predicted for years, it's Linux and handheld devices. According to analysts at the Evans Data Corporation research house, 64.8 percent of North American developers are writing software for Windows, down from 74 percent only a year ago. The decline in popularity of the world's most prevalent operating systems appears to coincide with the rise of Linux, as the number of developers targeting the open-source environment has gone up by three percentage points from 8.8 percent to 11.8 percent in the same year. The research group expects the number to drop another 2 percent in the coming year . John Andrews, president of Evans Data, said this week that a shift away from Windows began about two years ago. "The data shows that this migration is now accelerating. Linux has benefited, but we also see corresponding growth in niche operating systems for non-traditional client devices," he said, adding that the development landscape was changing. The popular notion among tech industry followers is that a more capable Web browser, able to run sophisticated applications either online or offline, will make the desktop operating system less important, if not irrelevant. Many companies -- even Microsoft -- are taking up the idea of building a "Web, or cloud, operating system" for which developers can write online. Even with more online applications, though, the Evans Data study notes that Windows desktop application development remains steady. The study also predicted that, although Javascript is by far the most widely used scripting language among North American developers, Ruby would see a 50 percent increase in popularity over the next year. In other findings, it seems that a third of developers are currently working with virtualisation, with more than 40 percent set to join them in the next year. Microsoft was unable to comment by press time. David Meyer reported for ZDNet UK from London
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