Lotus Workplace API is now available!!
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Ed Brill kindly pointed out that the Lotus Workplace API is now available, so for all those customers running lotus Workplace crying out for Workplace Apps, partners now have the opportunity to build them! Don't all go quiet now. To get the help you have to install a 30Mb runtime help viewer, which basically loads up ecllipse in a jvm to open the file in a browser being accessed by a now running locally server, seems a slight overkill to look at some HTML files.
The IM component of the toolkit basically consists of a Instant Messaging SPI :
Which consists of the following 11 methods/interfaces:
So it looks like it's going to be a while longer until we can take our existing Sametime apps and port them to Workplace, right now it looks like the toolkits for Workplace are missing some major areas of Sametimes richness (and also what makes Sametime so much more powerful than it's competitors) such as Place based services, buddylist management, etc.etc. Right now, it's as easy if not easier to move your applications from Sametime to Microsoft Live Communications server as it is to Workplace 2.0, maybe Workplace 3.0 is the one that will do everything?
No doubt I'll get more s*&t for speaking my mind, but I feel it's my job to represent what customers ask me all the time, and honestly this co-existence as it isn't a migration with Workplace is a tough one to sell.
Obviously it's fair enough for someone to always make digs at a product, so it's only fair that I come up with suggestions. If I was still at Lotus, with a position where I had been tasked with competing against Microsoft and winning as much enterprise Instant Messaging market as possible in the land grab that is occuring I would do the following:
Ed Brill kindly pointed out that the Lotus Workplace API is now available, so for all those customers running lotus Workplace crying out for Workplace Apps, partners now have the opportunity to build them! Don't all go quiet now. To get the help you have to install a 30Mb runtime help viewer, which basically loads up ecllipse in a jvm to open the file in a browser being accessed by a now running locally server, seems a slight overkill to look at some HTML files.
The IM component of the toolkit basically consists of a Instant Messaging SPI :
This Java SPI lets you build instant message handlers that intercept instant messages before delivery and optionally block them, modify message content, or perform other operations; for example, logging, saving, or translating messages.
Which consists of the following 11 methods/interfaces:
- addMessagingListener(MessagingListener)
- com.ibm.workplace.services.messaging
- com.ibm.workplace.services.presence
- Contact
- getId
- getMessagingService
- MessagingListener
- MessagingService
- MessagingServiceFactory
- onMessage
- removeMessagingListener
So it looks like it's going to be a while longer until we can take our existing Sametime apps and port them to Workplace, right now it looks like the toolkits for Workplace are missing some major areas of Sametimes richness (and also what makes Sametime so much more powerful than it's competitors) such as Place based services, buddylist management, etc.etc. Right now, it's as easy if not easier to move your applications from Sametime to Microsoft Live Communications server as it is to Workplace 2.0, maybe Workplace 3.0 is the one that will do everything?
No doubt I'll get more s*&t for speaking my mind, but I feel it's my job to represent what customers ask me all the time, and honestly this co-existence as it isn't a migration with Workplace is a tough one to sell.
Obviously it's fair enough for someone to always make digs at a product, so it's only fair that I come up with suggestions. If I was still at Lotus, with a position where I had been tasked with competing against Microsoft and winning as much enterprise Instant Messaging market as possible in the land grab that is occuring I would do the following:
- Install and configure a Sametime SIP gateway at IBM, make it available to customers and partners
- Create a small team of engineers that goes around the existing Sametime customers in the fortune 500 and setup everyone of those customers with the Sametime SIP gateway connecting them to IBM, and providing them with a list of the other Fortune 500 companies that are available to connect to.
- Advertise heavily that Sametime is secure encrypted chat, be sure to point out that yahoo, MSN, AOL etc are not secure, advertise the alternative, how Sametime can be made to speak to Sametime, use the reference story of hooking all these customers together via SIP to prove it
- Samples, Samples, Samples, the more samples of Sametime applications you can provide, the more likely partners are to build apps.
- I would stop the the Sametime connect client release being tied to the Sametime Server releases.
- I would either outsource the connect client to another company or dedicate new resources to revving the client internally, preferably people with an understanding of ho other IM clients have progressed in the last 5 years. I would have that group aim for a new realease of the Connect client at a minimum of every 6 months.
- If you insist on The Java Connect client being the chosen client on a number of platforms, then open up the source so others can enhance it
- Expose the connect client via COM, enabling all those VB and Office programmers to get easy access to it.
- Build a native Macintosh client, not a browser workaround
- Take the existing Sametime meeting component and make it available as both an Active X client and Macromedia client. There by removing the concern of people running public meetings where for 80% of users it doesn't work
- Fix Broadcast meetings so that they perform better than paint drying
- Refresh the design of Sametime Meeting center, make it as easy to change the look and feel as a Lotus Quickplace with a stylesheet.
OK a rushed list, but these are just some of the things IBM Lotus needs to get market share, because judging the publish API today, Workplace is too little too late.
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Comments
Posted by Brett At 01:36:40 PM On 08/15/2004 | - Website - |
Posted by Adam Osborne At 06:46:17 AM On 08/16/2004 | - Website - |
Several of the things on Carl's list of suggestions are in process.
Remember that the API just published is 2.0... there will be more in the future. I don't personally think it is too little too late, but I guess that remains ultimately to be seen.
Posted by Ed Brill At 12:24:02 PM On 08/16/2004 | - Website - |
So OK, Sametime is not dying, but reading between the lines, Workplace is the future client (a bloody heavy client), so correctly or incorrectly the expectation by customers is that at some point they are going to need to move to Workplace.
Existing customers have a lot of investment in their existing Sametime infrastructures, this V2 API does not really deliver much. Potential customers are looking at it, going, ok Workplace is the future lets evaluate it, then they look at it and compare it and go hhm? nice slides, but where's the reality, where's the stuff I want to be able to do? Another company has done very well selling futures, IBM used to do very well sell futures in the 60s and 70s. The problem now as I see it, is that you're not just trying to sell against your competitors products, you're also trying to sell against your own existing products, again this is my perception, not necessarily how you want it interpreted, but how I read it.
This should not be taken as I think your future strategy is flawed (although I do believe there are many issues with it), I think what may be flawed is the level that expectations have been set and what has been delivered to date has not met them.
The only way to judge this for sure is with real market surveys, asking the right questions of the right people. Blogs are not market surveys, SearchDomino scarey headlines are not surveys, and in reality neither are customer briefings. The questions need to be asked of existing customers and potential customers.
Posted by Carl At 02:02:00 PM On 08/16/2004 | - Website - |
Posted by Tim Latta At 05:20:52 PM On 08/23/2004 | - Website - |