Lotus Tiptoes Up to the E-Line
While wireless devices, knowledge portals, and other new tools to improve organizational effectiveness were the main story at Lotusphere, a scattering of secondary announcements suggests that Lotus could also be an important factor in the emerging world of e-business. In the general sessions, Lotus executives noted the sudden demands faced by all businesses to respond to the challenge of the Internet and “cross the e-line” and become e-businesses themselves, but their answer was just software that lets employees collaborate more easily, share information more effectively, and respond more quickly to external events. This is useful, but not specifically connected to the particulars of transforming into an e-business.
Nevertheless, the company did introduce some new technology that directly impacts e-business transformation. One is the integration of Domino with IBM's WebSphere application server. WebSphere is a scalable, transaction-oriented platform for building and deploying interactive Java-enabled e-commerce applications. Domino is also a web application server, designed for collaboration, workflow, and information sharing. The integration, accelerated by customer demand, will unite the products’ sign-on and authentication, HTTP services, and scripting environments. For example, WebSphere will support LotusScript, the language of choice for a huge army of Domino developers, and WebSphere applications will be able to leverage Domino’s workflow, team room, and KM services. The combination enables full-service sites that provide secure transactions, personalization, along with rich customer service functionality.
A second new product is Sametime 1.5. Sametime was highlighted in the general session as an instant messaging tool (using chat or voice) in an intranet environment extended to include pagers and cell phones. It’s actually much more. In addition to instant messaging, Sametime provides application sharing (whiteboard) and online meetings. In an eCRM environment, a customer can connect to a live customer service agent simply by clicking an icon on the web site, and converse in real time without a phone. Agent and customer share a common view of the customer’s PC desktop ñ even passing control of a specific application back and forth. In addition, Sametime lets companies conduct live online presentations with one or multiple customers. To provide this range of eCRM functionality, web sites today have to integrate multiple point solution products. Lotus provides it as part of an integrated infrastructure.
A third key product is QuickPlace 2.0. QuickPlace allows Domino users to easily create, customize, and deploy -- without IT or administrator assistance -- virtual team rooms that integrate project information, tasks, and schedules. QuickPlace provides an environment where companies and their customers and partners can share specs, project timelines, and draft contracts -- extending the collaborative intranet infrastructure on an ad hoc project-specific basis to win new business and retain customers.
In addition to these new products, there is a subtle mood shift as well at Lotus. Where they once tried, almost disdainfully, to keep parent IBM at a distance, now a sense of respect is emerging for the new e-business powerhouse. Also, Lotus’s new CEO is an IBMer, so the bonds between the two organizations should only grow stronger.
Today, the world e-business software is a jungle of point products with overlapping functionality from a myriad of fledgling companies. As it did in the world of enterprise collaboration, Lotus now potentially offers a single infrastructure -- with common security, object model, scripting, and transaction services -- to tie it together. While Lotus stayed stubbornly on their organizational effectiveness message this year, look for e-business and eCRM to shine at next year’s Lotusphere.