Ed Brill, Director, Product Line Management at IBM Collaboration Solutions (Notes and Domino, IBM Docs, SmartCloud Notes, and more), is presenting the messaging and collaboration strategy session. There’s a lot of people in this room – Ed has about 60% of the original space of the keynote session from this morning, and it looks about 50% full.

Here are my notes:
– 2011 in review – notable growth areas (Domino Express, Domino Servers, and deployments of Notes/Domino >100,000 seats), high adoption rate of 8.5.2, Notes Traveler (expanded devices, more management capabilities, more user capabilities, support for Sametime and Connections), XPages, and more.
– … shipped Notes/Domino 8.5.3 – improvements in mail, calendar, designer, and Traveler. Shipped in October 2011. New entitlement to IBM Connections Files and Profiles.
– … introduced IBM XWork Server – a new way of making it possible for ISVs and business partners to get XPages offerings to market easier. Has a new pricing and licensing model. Ed is happy to take input into other pricing/licensing mixes.
– … Example: ABB using an XPages application for risk based inspection – for capturing asset-based knowledge.

– Customer story: Petrobras – an integrated energy company from Brazil, but with operations in almost every country in the world.
– … talking about the adoption of Notes – has 120,000 IBM Lotus Notes users.
– … in 2009, with the GFC in full swing, Petrobras started a project for optimizing the environment. Wanted to reduce the TCO of the mail service. Tactics – upgraded from Domino 7 to 8.5, consolidated servers, centralized Domino administration, and more. On the client side, introduced local replicas, instead of users accessing the servers directly.
– … results – saved about $1 million per year (traffic reduction, less storage requirements, backup cycle reduced, etc.).
– … strategy for 2012 – new AIX hardware, further reduction of mail clusters, acquiring 6,000 new tablets, and more.

– LotusLive Notes:
– … five major releases in 17 months.
– … Domino Utility Server for LotusLive, introduced in March 2011
– … true hybrid architecture, for having some people served onsite vs. some in the cloud.
– … SmartCloud Notes – in 2012 (new branding for 2012)
– … … new features coming – password expiration, IMAP access, detailed metrics, etc.

– For Symphony, moving away from a separate version compared to the other open source edition. In 2012, it will be a version of the Apache OpenOffice, supported by IBM.

– IBM Docs, formerly known as LotusLive Symphony
– … it’s in beta today, and you can access it via Greenhouse.
– … real-time co-editing, author presence awareness, live sections, commenting and discussions, task management, and more.

– Notes and Domino in 2012:
– … more XPages in 2012
– … high availability for Notes Traveler
– … feature pack, Notes/Domino Social Edition – not going to be called “9.0.”
– … … client interface improvements. Eg., can click on URLs in edit mode, rolling calendar views, etc.
– … … using a social application container, using OpenSocial. Able to bring in the Activity Stream.
– … … bringing in gadgets
– … … web and mobile interface improvements
– … Traveler Social Edition – huge investment in the tablet space. Let Apple do it for iOS, but are building an Android client to unify the capabilities. Also support for Windows Mobile, especially Nokia and HTC devices.
– … iNotes Social Edition – theme updates, calendar and meeting notices, integration with Connection Files and IBM Docs, and more.
– … there is a Notes Application Plug-in for browers in Windows.

– The future of mail is social – eg., bringing mail into IBM Connections, and Notes Social Edition. Trying to bring social and mail together. The current differentiation will go away – it will bring current data together.
– … see also, The Future of Email is Social (on Ed’s blog)

– Beyond 2012:
– … A feature release beyond Social Edition.
– … More focus on server and user interface
– … Increased integration across IBM portfolio
– … Bringing social mail into iNotes.

And finally, thanks again to Ed for writing the Foreword for Collaboration Roadmap.