Lotus Rock Star

03/11/2010

What a little point release can do...

Category iPhone Quickr App Store
Out of brilliant minds (like Julian Robichaux's) and bench time, recently re-branded as SNAPPS: Labs by the way, has come another release of SnappFiles, the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad (April 3. Line up now.) client for Lotus Quickr.

SnappFiles 1.0.3, available yesterday from the App Store, is more than a point release. Julian improved several areas, including better support for self-signed SSL certificates, better handling of Office 2007 documents, added a download counter for large files, and a progressive load feature. Those are cool and useful additions. But the big news is...

We have added support for Alfresco's Open-Source ECM and IBM Content Manager (CM8) to the existing support for Quickr Domino, Quickr J2EE, and Filenet P8. So FIVE document repositories are now available and accessible from one app.

Just to clarify, when we talk about CM8, FileNet, and Alfresco, we're talking about each of those products being front-ended by the "Services for Lotus Quickr" component for that particular product. Julian has a more technical description of this on his blog. The links above all go to sites having to do with the integration, too, not the product websites.

It's actually a brilliant move for IBM to have a common front-end API that is shared across multiple products. Aside from the slight implementation differences in each case, it makes these technologies easy to work with client-side. Well, in this case, easy if you happen to bury yourself in Objective C and XCode like Julian has, and know the REST APIs fairly well, and have access to systems. That kind of easy.

But it also means that the exposure of platform-specific features - like Views in CM8 or lists in the upcoming Quickr 8.5 (public knowledge, call off the NDA hit squad) might not be as readily available if they're not exposed with the common API and could need a new app built to purpose. We can do that. Julian's brilliant a this stuff, and - because he can - Viktor has a prototype of an iPhone app that reads rich text in Quickr. Shhhhhh.

All you iPoeple, go upgrade (or get) SnappFiles today. Enjoy!

Posted by Rob Novak At 2:43 PM Location SNAPPS Glactic Headquarters | Permalink | Comments (1)

03/05/2010

Down to eight seats left. Maybe we'll play musical chairs.

Category Quickr Boot Camp iPhone
The Quickr Development Boot Camp http://bootcamp.snapps.com has eight seats left, and the $200 discount (2 nights in the hotel!) expires Monday. So bug the boss. Also, Julian and Viktor will be doing the heavy lifting at our non-Lotus-related-or-specific-we-don't-care-if-you-can't-spell-IBM iPhone Development for Business seminar http://iphone.snapps.com being held on April 16.

Anyone fancy some Kansas City barbecue?

Posted by Rob Novak At 10:44 AM Location SNAPPS Glactic Headquarters | Permalink | Comments (0)

02/19/2010

As our SnappFiles press release hits the street, planning more fun stuff for Monday and Tuesday

Category Quickr SnappFiles iPhone iPad MacWorld
Here's the full text of the Press Release we issued earlier today, and is making its way across the Apple and Web-centric online publications. Those who have been following me on Twitter have heard about the soft launch after Lotusphere, this is the official release of SnappFiles, the story of how it was born and an announcement of support for Filenet P8 ECM in addition to both flavors of Lotus Quickr! Oh yeah, and it's free. More coming soon (Monday and Tuesday)...

SNAPPS and IBM Work Together to Bring IBM Lotus Quickr and Enterprise Content Management Products to iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad

OVERLAND PARK, Kan., Feb. 19 /PRNewswire/ -- SNAPPS, a long-time IBM Advanced Business Partner and new Apple Development Partner, identified an opportunity for synergy between the enterprise business software giant IBM and the hip, cool consumer-focused Apple and decided to actively link them together. The first offering, SnappFiles, demonstrated by IBM at MacWorld in San Francisco last week, is a free app available on the Apple App Store that delivers secure access to and collaboration on corporate documents stored in IBM Lotus Quickr or Filenet P8 ECM systems. With work underway to support other IBM ECM systems such as IBM Content Manager and Lotus Connections Files next month, SnappFiles is designed to be a single point of entry into corporate document management systems.

"We've designed complex business systems, workflows, and critical customer-facing applications in our tenure working with IBM products," said Rob Novak, president of SNAPPS. "Bringing these processes outside the corporate firewall and into the hands of Apple customers is a natural progression. We have several applications in development, and plan to bring our years of experience to bear on real business solutions for Apple customers."

Inspiration for SnappFiles came from the most unlikely place - unless you happen to have a teenager. Novak explains: "I was helping my 14-year-old son set up his new iPod touch six months ago and noticed he had a mesmerizing game called Paper Toss - the objective of which is to toss a crumpled piece of paper into an office trash bin. It occurred to me that if you could throw away paper on this cool device, why couldn't you retrieve documents securely?" The next day, SNAPPS joined the Apple Developer Program and started work on SnappFiles. Work on an iPad-optimized version is underway, since the form factor of the iPad will, according to Novak, make "corporate document management the killer business app for the iPad."

"SNAPPS' work with our open APIs has produced some very timely and astounding results for the iPhone and iPod touch," said Jeff Schick, Vice President of Social Software, IBM Lotus. "We're convinced that IBM's social software solutions and SNAPPS' innovation will produce some impressive apps for all the Apple devices."

SnappFiles is available now in the Apple App Store, free of charge. A professional version with enhanced capabilities is in the works, as are several other apps linking IBM's Lotus software to Apple devices. SNAPPS also develops custom solutions for Lotus Quickr applications and makes free templates available. For more information about SnappFiles, visit http://snappfiles.snapps.com, and for information about SNAPPS, visit http://www.snapps.com.

About SNAPPS

SNAPPS, an IBM Business Partner since 1997, has long focused on high-end collaboration strategy, development, and education. The company has advised progressive-thinking enterprises on deployment and design of collaborative business processes. SnappFiles is the first of many planned efforts to empower iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad users with access to their business resources.

Posted by Rob Novak At 5:09 PM Location SNAPPS Glactic Headquarters | Permalink | Comments (0)

01/28/2010

SNAPPS Announces SnappFiles: Native iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad client for Lotus Quickr

Category Quickr iPhone iPod iPad
Last night, amidst the buzz in Cupertino about the launch of the iPad, we at SNAPPS quietly got an email notification that the fruits of Julian's labor for the past few months, SnappFiles^TM, is now available for sale on the Apple app store. "Sale" is a bit of a misnomer, since like many of our other "SNAPPS Labs" efforts, the inaugural version of SnappFiles is free. Yep, free. Can't think of a better price.

So what is SnappFiles? It's fairly easy to grok. Start it up, point it to a Lotus Quickr server (Domino or J2EE), and browse for your files. If there's a viewer, open and read them on the device. Or, send a link to the page and file to anyone with one click. That's it. Pretty easy, huh?

Here are a few screenshots. Because it's a native app (vs. a browser app, which Julian also developed when he was getting started), it looks amazing, flows very smoothly, is very responsive, and follows all the Apple human interface standards. It's really slick, works great with PDFs, Office docs, images and anything else with a viewer. It even works with several of the Quickr Templates including QPhotos.

And, it will work straight away on the iPad when it's released. In fact, I think it will be a killer app for iPad in business - ECM integration - as the format is so good for reading documents.

Enjoy, folks. We'll issue a press release later today. Movies and more coming over the next couple days. And of course, we'll be doing more of this with Domino and the iProducts...it's fun! Go get it, or read more about it here: http://snappfiles.snapps.com

Posted by Rob Novak At 10:04 AM Location SNAPPS Glactic Headquarters | Permalink | Comments (12)

Lotus Rock Star

Advanced Collaboration with Lotus Quickr, Sametime, Connections, and Domino

03/11/2010

What a little point release can do...

03/05/2010

Down to eight seats left. Maybe we'll play musical chairs.

02/19/2010

As our SnappFiles press release hits the street, planning more fun stuff for Monday and Tuesday

01/28/2010

SNAPPS Announces SnappFiles: Native iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad client for Lotus Quickr

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