On becoming an IBM Business Partner after being one for 11 years
Category IBMI spent a few hours today installing Rational Application Developer 6.0, the embedded WebSphere Portal test environment, and Crystal Enterprise 10 (bundled). Rational Application Developer is the new name for WebSphere Studio Application Developer, revved up.The new name comes along with new capabilities and deeper integration with WebSphere Portal. With WSAD 5.1.2, you had to install the Portal Toolkit (adroitly revved at 5.0.2.2 and 5.0.2.3), now with RAD 6.0 it installs as part of the core product as "Portal Tools". Also with RAD 6.0, you get a visual WebSphere Portal theme and skin editor - awesome news if you've ever created a new theme by hand. RAD 6.0 is based on the Eclipse 3.0 platform, so not only does it load faster but has a slicker UI.
Migration is fairly easy, in most cases automatic when you load a project into a RAD 6.0 Workspace. If you have created portlet projects with the Portal Toolkit 5.0.2.2 or 5.0.2.3 in WSAD 5.1.2, they will automatically migrate. Any earlier version combination will require that you export the portlet project to a WAR file and import it into RAD 6.0. Not too severe.
The reason I decided to move to Rational Application Developer 6.0 today was that I received an email from Bowstreet indicating that their Bowstreet Portlet Factory 5.9.3 now supports it. I've been pretty jazzed about RAD 6.0 since I spent time with it and saw a few sessions on it at Lotusphere, and was just about to call Bowstreet (the only thing holding me back) to find out when they would support it. Good timing, Bowstreet.
With this installation, something occurred to me. I've been a "Lotus" Business Partner in one form or another (leading 3 companies through it) since 1994. As a Lotus Business Partner, there is an implied adherence to a code of honor - that Lotus-heritage products are the core of my being, that Notes and Domino would always play the most significant part in my business, and that alternate IDEs, servers, clients, and language choices are inherently threatening and evil, even if they're from IBM. In other words, I refuse to be rational (pun intended). That may have been the case a few years ago, but now I've witnessed a marked decrease in what I like to call "commission-induced thought compartmentalization", a phenomenon whereby sales reps, formerly compensated solely on product-line sales, would push their products, sometimes at odds with the complimentary product offerrings.
My installation of a Rational-branded product today brought my own little shop full circle. In addition to all the Lotus server and client products, I have DB2 (for use with ND7 and elsewhere), WebSphere Portal, Workplace, Tivoli Storage Manager to back up the important stuff, and now Rational Application Developer and part of the IBM Software Development Platform.
Will I forget how to use Domino Designer, or choose not to when the circumstances warrant? I don't think so. And don't get me wrong, my heritage is Lotus-based and I'll continue to use, sell, promote, write about and speak about Lotus Domino, QuickPlace, and Sametime (yeah, I know) while also diving deeper into the rest. I'll integrate Domino with Portal, Workplace, and the new Rich Client Technology, and I'll support expanded use and extensive customization of QuickPlace and Sametime while they continue as NSF versions, especially for global companies.
In a few months I'll be speaking about how to use Rational Application Developer to embed Domino capabilities (backed by DB2) into IBM Workplace and WebSphere Portal. Somebody else can talk about Tivoli because heck, I don't have time and to be honest, I hate dealing with backups. But I use it, and it's pretty good at what it does.
SNAPPS is an IBM Business Partner, and not just because IBM says so and took away the Lotus name. We're an IBM Business Partner because this technology makes sense when used together, for us and for our clients.
Comments
Posted by Alan Lepofsky At 03:59:30 PM On 02/15/2005 | - Website - |
Rob, this is Beverly DeWitt and your blog today made my day.
Rob and I go way back to Domino Designer and NetObjects Fusion connector times when I was the product manager of those tools. I'm now the lead product manager for Rational Application Developer (RAD) which is the follow-on version to WebSphere Studio and I'm the 'proud parent' of the portal/portlet tools in v6 that Rob wrote about. My job also includes working with the Bowstreet team and our mutual goal is for them to continue to deliver value-added features beyond what we can do in the core tools.
Rob's blog speaks volumes and I would like to punctuate it by saying that in all my years as an app dev tools product manager I have never seen a product evolve and improve so rapidly as our portal/portlet tools. Lest you think this is just the product manager's biased view, at Lotusphere a business partner told me that the hands-on-lab exercise would have taken him at least a full day to complete using WSAD 5.1.2 with the Portal Toolkit and he finished it in just over an hour using RAD v6. (It involved editing Themes/skins which as you pointed out is totally visual now, among other things.)
That, along with Rob's words are a credible confirmation that we've delivered real value for Lotus business partners. And that makes all our (IBM's) hard work worthwhile.
Portal is just one area of WebSphere platform app dev that has become much simpler. We have lots of other initiatives underway to reduce the complexity of J2EE app dev. In April, we plan to release a Domino SDO mediator and visual tools that will make it a simple point/click exercise to incorporate Domino views and dynamic Domino data into J2EE applications.
I'm glad to see that Rob and others have noticed our progress and I invite you all to come along for the ride.
Best regards,
Bev
Posted by Beverly DeWitt At 12:33:02 AM On 02/16/2005 | - Website - |
Now on the core of the post, if we could ALSO just integrate WebServices (consume and expose, not just expose to be consumed in W*), then I'd be even happier!
Posted by George Chiesa At 12:58:32 PM On 02/21/2005 | - Website - |
Posted by Rob Novak At 03:20:45 PM On 02/21/2005 | - Website - |
As you know, we have focused a lot on Domino, including PeopleAwareness, and the easy mingling of data from multiple sources. In our next release (end of May), we’ll provide a true data layer for better SOA support, enabling automated switching of data sources. We’re also working on some powerful capabilities for schema modification and transformation that will make it even easier to get exactly the data, behavior and look you want (and all the variations you need) uniformly across all your portlets.
So, I’m with Beverly – hearing you say that the work to integrate with and leverage RAD6 is paying off for you makes us all feel pretty good. And your observation is so right - there is no one tool that fits all and does all. Anyway, they say timing is everything so I’m glad we got there in time for you.
Thanks again...
Rose
Posted by Rose ODonnell At 11:16:05 AM On 03/04/2005 | - Website - |