A few months ago I was one of the lucky ITS @ IBM to get a laptop refresh. I was so very excited, even though it always takes sometime to upgrade, transfer all your files, install all your plugins, and to customize the machine to fit my person demo preferences and make sure I have all the bells and whistles to show my customers what IBM Lotus has to offer. It was great to get hardware refresh.
I was so very surprised to see one piece that I was not expecting. The laptop was shipped to me without MS Office on the desktop. I had Lotus Notes 8.5 of course, Sametime, Connections plugins and SYMPHONY.
So here is my thoughts after the first 90 days without MS Office.
The first thing that I thought was… ok… now I can really cut the cord and use Symphony only. I had been using it for over a year… but not exclusively. IBM has been offering all of our templates, forms and presentations in the Symphony formats, but I was still using the Office Suite. Well really it was the default on my old laptop. But I do have to say that I have been using MS Office since it’s inception, so it is hard to make a complete cut over without taking some action.
To be honest… I am enjoying this much more. The fact that when I do a file save, my machine does not freeze, most of the capabilities are not that different, in presentations I can add animation, manage groups, combine objects, add text effects, so many things that you can do in Powerpoint. My favorite thing is the ease of use (more logical in my opinion) for the Masters – Slides, Notes and Handouts and controlling the Page Layouts. I tend to use presentations the most, but really there are great things about the Document and the Spreadsheet tools as well. Really tables are so much easier, formating is easier too… no pesky hidden code to make you mad and hard to control.
It is also so very easy to save documents into Office formats to share with my customers, and to easily export in one click to PDF / HTML format.
Here is the point: I am just one person and with little to no effort this upgrade saved IBM $350. You can do the math for your own organization and see how much money you can save.
I am really happy… and I have not looked back once! Give it a try yourself for free… BE FREE AND WORK SMART!!
In a world of on-line collaboration, sometimes there’s nothing like meeting face-to-face! So we’re kicking off a new series of events aimed at helping you and your teams better understand how to embrace the power of collaboration, regardless of where you are in the process, or which Lotus software products you currently use.
Get up close and personal with our executive team and product experts for a day of interactive sessions, demos and one-on-one meetings, and even some sneak peaks of what we’ll be showing at Lotusphere in January. Come see us at one of of our upcoming events we have planned this fall. We have a lot up our sleeves!
If you want to learn how to benefit from your existing collaboration infrastructure, or maybe even looking for some new ideas — you’ll want to be here.
UPCOMING EVENTS:
* Chicago: October 6th
* New York: October 22nd
* San Francisco: November 5th
Do you know what IBM Lotus knows? Come join in some fun and learn more! IBM Lotus is hosting a tour of the Lotus Knows bus which houses demonstrations, videos and experts who will share with you what IBM Lotus knows about collaboration and communication. We will also be hosting a delicious lunch, live demos, video vignettes and discussions at the IBM office at 425 Market Street. So come check it out. See you there!
WHAT? Lotus Knows Bus Tour WHEN? Tuesday, October 13, from 11 to 2
WHERE? The bus will be parked at Market Street and the Embarcadero. And we will also be hosting lunch, live demos, video vignettes and discussions at the IBM Office (425 Market St, Floor 20, Room 420)
WHY COME? Free lunch! Prizes! Check out the cool bus! And learn more about what Lotus knows regarding collaboration and communication To RSVP, please email Steve Bauer bauerst@us.ibm.com or 303 570 5511
Presentations and Hands-on Lab Exercises for a 1 or 2 day Proof of Technology (PoT), with materials focusing on Notes ® End User, Domino® Administration, and Domino Application Development enhancements in version 8.5.
OBJECTIVE
The Notes & Domino 8.5 Upgrade PoT is intended to provide the customer with an in-depth examination of the new capabilities of version 8.5 of the products. For existing customers, this exploration will help them assess the additional value and potential impact to their existing environment. For new customers, this exploration will not only give them a hands-on experience with a product new to them but it will also reinforce our advantages over the competition, such as the power of applications. At the conclusion of the Proof of Technology, the customer will leave with an excitement about the business problems this new version can help solve.
AUDIENCE
This Proof of Technology is targeted for IT Managers, Application Developers, System Administrators and Architects evaluating IBM Lotus Notes / Domino. No prerequisite knowledge of Notes or Domino is required; however, it is recommended that participants have an understanding of their business needs and current IT technologies.
COST
This session is offered free of charge. Complimentary refreshments including continental breakfast and lunch will be provided. However, participants
are responsible for their own business travel expenses.
SCHEDULE
For your convenience, registration and continental breakfast will begin at 8:00 AM. The session on day 1 will start at 8:30 AM and end at approximately
6:00 PM. On day 2, breakfast will start at 8:30 AM, the session will start at 9:00 AM and end at approximately 5:00 PM.
The IBM Open Mic calls are intended to provide you the opportunity to interact directly with the IBM Lab developing IBM software products, On Thursday August 27th 2009, at 10 am eastern US time, the Notes & Domino team will host an Open Mic call on “Upgrading to Lotus Domino 8.5″. Open Mic calls are Question & Answer sessions with a panel of subject matter experts from the Development & Technical Support teams.
For details about the Open Mic call, please see the invitation document:
Dial-in numbers and the pass code are listed in both the document above and in the forum document below. NOTE: You will need a touch tone phone to be able to ask questions. You can submit your question in advance via our Notes/Domino 8 forum:
During the Open Mic session August 27th, we will answer questions about upgrading your Domino server to release 8.5. Questions should be of general interest and by their nature help you install, configure, manage or optimize your software. We will collect questions, which have been posted to the forum and address as many as possible on the call. We will also take questions on the call, which have not been submitted in advance.
For this upcoming call, you may find it beneficial to review in advance some of the following materials:
Presentations and Hands-on Lab Exercises for a 1 or 2 day Proof of Technology (PoT), with materials focusing on Notes ® End User, Domino® Administration, and Domino Application Development enhancements in version 8.5.
OBJECTIVE
The Notes & Domino 8.5 Upgrade PoT is intended to provide the customer with an in-depth examination of the new capabilities of version 8.5 of the products. For existing customers, this exploration will help them assess the additional value and potential impact to their existing environment. For new customers, this exploration will not only give them a hands-on experience with a product new to them but it will also reinforce our advantages over the competition, such as the power of applications. At the conclusion of the Proof of Technology, the customer will leave with an excitement about the business problems this new version can help solve.
AUDIENCE
This Proof of Technology is targeted for IT Managers, Application Developers, System Administrators and Architects evaluating IBM Lotus Notes / Domino. No prerequisite knowledge of Notes or Domino is required; however, it is recommended that participants have an understanding of their business needs and current IT technologies.
COST
This session is offered free of charge. Complimentary refreshments including continental breakfast and lunch will be provided. However, participants
are responsible for their own business travel expenses.
SCHEDULE
For your convenience, registration and continental breakfast will begin at 8:00 AM. The session on day 1 will start at 8:30 AM and end at approximately
6:00 PM. On day 2, breakfast will start at 8:30 AM, the session will start at 9:00 AM and end at approximately 5:00 PM.
Yesterday was Earth Day. I was inspired by a blog posting on IBM’s developerWorks to think about what it means to be Green…. aaah as Kermit would say… it ain’t easy… or is it? smiles..
When we think about Green in IT, we think of how we can reduce power, manage storage, we think of virtualization and cloud computing. As I am going around the PNW teaching ND8.5 upgrade classes for our customers to help them understand the value of an upgrade to our newest Domino infrastructure, I hear many stories about customers struggle with space and desires to consolidate servers. I talk to them about the introduction of DAOS.
When I managed the messaging environment for Bayer Pharmacuticals in Berkeley California, I reviewed using Single copy object stores (SCO). While this was a great introduction of a capability we leveraged in cc:Mail way back when, it still had points of failure due to the dependancies on single database management. It left you exposed to having 100′s of users dependant on one database. Databases can become corrupt, corruption leads to down time, which leads to 100′s of users DOWN! While this framework offered a promise to reduce storage, it offered a higher cost on end user down time, which can equal to a lot of money lost.
The rate and pace of data growth is growing expodentially. Companies need to review options that can offer shared resources without creating a risk to the organization and down time for end users. DAOS offers a distributed capability to allow end users to maintain mail but offset the file attachments to a file system. Once again reducing risk in that it will not be in a database format, but a flat file store. This allows for less risk with the capabilities of reducing data re-duplication.
Ever wanted to be the big hero and save the company millions of dollars? Well… I have a secret… we have seen drastic calculations regarding saving across the board for evaluating the Microsoft Enterprise Agreements, leveraging what you have in your organization, vs what Microsoft is bundling in their agreenments. IBM offers a site that can help you understand how doing an evaluation of your environment could save you money.
Customers with Microsoft Enterprise Agreements might be able to save up to 40% or more on the cost of their renewal through this “no-charge” evaluation of their current Enterprise Agreement.
If you are interested in setting up a conversation with one of our consultants, please feel free to contact me directly @ holli.konig@us.ibm.com and I will assist in getting you to the right people for your organization.
When was the last time you reviewed The View? They are the same ones that conduct the Admin and Lotus Developer conferences. The view has been around for EVER and consistantly produced high quality, deep dive, technical articles on topics that provided value in managing and developing in my Lotus environment.
