Back from DNUG

Just a few takeaways returning from DNUG. First of all there are two things:
1. vowedoesnotlikeworkplace
2. Lotus Notes / Domino is more alive than ever

Well, I feel more confident about the Workplace strategy – even if it will not be called „Workplace“ in the future and we see all that stuff integrated in the Websphere Portal on the one side and into Notes / Rich Client on the other side.

Talking about Workplace, there are a few other things:

1. The Rich Client aka Workplace Managed Client aka Notes Client of the Future starts up significantly faster in version 2.6, which will be available soon. At least they made it loke like starting up faster 😉

2. Workplace 2.6 makes finally the Common PIM Portlet available (because its based on WPS 5.1), and that was a major weakness in the Portal / Workplace. Who wants a Workplace without PIM integration? And Workplace Messaging will NOT be the migration path for Domino shops.

3. The Rich Client aka Workplace Managed Client aka Notes Client of the Future has actually no name. Maybe it will be „Lotus Notes 8“, maybe not. If it will be „Lotus Notes 8“, we will have two code streams called Lotus Notes, because you will not be able to run Hannover with less then 512 MB RAM. So the old code stream will continue and improve (I heard „Activity Explorer“, and I am curious how IBM wants to integrate this in the old Lotus Notes codestream)

4. The Rich Client aka Workplace Managed Client aka Notes Client of the Future is a pure client for the Domino Environment. A separate Workplace / WebSphere Portal infrastructure is not required.

5. IBM promises to deliver filter for the „Open Document Format“ for all solutions – even for Lotus Notes. Hopefully its better then the other filters they build in the past. And since I installed the Workplace Managed Client and OpenOffice 2.0 I have lots of trouble on my machine. IBM does not use the current codestream of OpenOffice.

6. The Activity Centric approach to communication, collaboration and coordination is still the best thing for me in the new client technology

Ahh, and yes: They rebuild the good old Lotus Notes workspace for the new client!