Lotus Business Partner Sales and Technical Update
Category IBM
I attended a day-long technical update and tech/sales session on Workplace Services Express in Waltham, MA at the Business Partner Innovation Center co-housed by IBM and Principle Software, an IBM Business Partner. It was a very nice facility, and the presentations throughout the day were very good. Since I had set up WSE six weeks ago, I spent the afternoon in the sales session with a few other partners, sharing experiences in an interactive session with IBM. To be honest, I haven't seen the type of energy and excitement from IBMers about a single product launch in a long time.
So, it appears that Workplace Services Express is a big deal, folks. It's IBM's answer to Sharepoint, with quite a bit more to offer, for quite a bit less money. My favorite bullet point? The Microsoft Office integration with the document management facility in WSE - right on the menus, and right in Windows Explorer! Oh, and it works with Office 2000, XP and 2003 - you aren't forced to upgrade to Office 2003 like with Sharepoint. Not only that, but you get full WebSphere Portal licenses - so custom apps are easy to deploy. The web site has more demos and product information...lots of it. I am very impressed with this product, so I'm going to write about it and do sessions in Cannes, France and Las Vegas this year. Oh, yeah, I might even want to sell it and provide some services <g>. Of course, customers can get 20 licenses for free. Check out the page linked above for details.
With the ease of install and out of the box features, the only issue I'll have is convincing business people that services associated with the product have a high ROI. This has always been a challenge with QuickPlace, where you get a finished product, and it takes considerable thought to break out of the box with it as a development platform. My customers who have gone down this road have gained so much more out of QuickPlace, making it an indispensable part of their business with incredible returns. I'm anticipating the same will apply for our WSE clients, where development of new components, portlets, and customized UI are viewed as clear investment choices.
I attended a day-long technical update and tech/sales session on Workplace Services Express in Waltham, MA at the Business Partner Innovation Center co-housed by IBM and Principle Software, an IBM Business Partner. It was a very nice facility, and the presentations throughout the day were very good. Since I had set up WSE six weeks ago, I spent the afternoon in the sales session with a few other partners, sharing experiences in an interactive session with IBM. To be honest, I haven't seen the type of energy and excitement from IBMers about a single product launch in a long time.
So, it appears that Workplace Services Express is a big deal, folks. It's IBM's answer to Sharepoint, with quite a bit more to offer, for quite a bit less money. My favorite bullet point? The Microsoft Office integration with the document management facility in WSE - right on the menus, and right in Windows Explorer! Oh, and it works with Office 2000, XP and 2003 - you aren't forced to upgrade to Office 2003 like with Sharepoint. Not only that, but you get full WebSphere Portal licenses - so custom apps are easy to deploy. The web site has more demos and product information...lots of it. I am very impressed with this product, so I'm going to write about it and do sessions in Cannes, France and Las Vegas this year. Oh, yeah, I might even want to sell it and provide some services <g>. Of course, customers can get 20 licenses for free. Check out the page linked above for details.
With the ease of install and out of the box features, the only issue I'll have is convincing business people that services associated with the product have a high ROI. This has always been a challenge with QuickPlace, where you get a finished product, and it takes considerable thought to break out of the box with it as a development platform. My customers who have gone down this road have gained so much more out of QuickPlace, making it an indispensable part of their business with incredible returns. I'm anticipating the same will apply for our WSE clients, where development of new components, portlets, and customized UI are viewed as clear investment choices.
If you think this is hard stuff, check this out. I installed the Document Manager Desktop Components in about 15 seconds, after downloading the control from my WSE server in about 3 seconds. After installation, I got a new network resource, Document Manager, on the left side of Windows Explorer. For fun, I did what it said and right-clicked to add my WSE server as a data store. I typed in my host name, and gave it a user ID and password. Since I haven't had time to run the LDAP integration yet, I used the wpsadmin user. Then I got a list of document libraries that were already there, so I could choose one. Then, I choose a directory where files can be transferred to and from the library on the WSE server. The container is built in Windows Explorer, so I can start storing files that are automatically locked or are pending drafts!
I have a lot of exploring to do with this product...I see new menus in Microsoft Office, options to add comments, version documents, more later....
