Closed for vacation!

Dear reader!

There will be a two weeks “radio silence” on this blog as I am leaving for a two week vacation this evening. Going where? Crete, Greece. And hopefully with no access to internet, but lot of hot sun, beaches, great food and local wine. And some exciting crime books!

Hasta la vista, guys!

 

Try to do this with MS Outlook!

Have a look at what Chris Crummey and Ted Stanton do with an ordinary Lotus Notes client. Then try to do that with Microsoft Outlook. And then decide which one is a sosial collaboration tool and not just an ordinary email client.

Sorry about my “radio” silence, but there is a nice reason for it…

Dear reader;

I have to apologize to You for not being as active on my blog as I should have been lately. There is no excuse for this, but some positive explanations.

For the last month I have been fully booked with customer meeting, presentations, seminars, events and business travel. I have never in my whole professional life been so busy and had such a full calendar. For the last two weeks I have been constantly in and out of airplanes and hotels. I did not even have time to go to Madrid, Spain, with my colleagues to update at IBM software group’s spring kickoff and education event.

So why is it so busy? Social Business! Social Business! Social Business!

Norwegian customers are so curious on IBM’s Social Business concept, that they hardly can wait for meetings and workshops. Prospective customers I have hardly heard about now want to hear more about Social Business, event makers want IBM to talk about Social Business at their conferences, Established IBM Business Partners want IBM to join them i customer meetings. New Business Partners want to know more about Social Business.

And even wall-to-wall Microsoft customers wants to know more about IBM’s Social Business concept, business model and social collaboration solutions. Most of those Microsoft-customers I have met for a brief presentation wants to have a workshop for a deeper dive into IBM Connections and how our solution can improve their MS Office and MS Sharepoint solutions.

I have even heard about Microsoft customers moving from MS Outlook to IBM Notes these days!

So – there is certainly something going on in the collaboration market. IBM collaboration solutions grew by double-digit last quarter. Things are moving fast and the time window is wide open for us all to bring these fantastic solutions to the market.

Therefore I want every single one of you who find that IBM’s social collaboration solutions make a positive difference to your work day – to go out there an evangelize! There is more “food” than I can “chew” myself!

And if you are situated in Norway – contact me to book a meeting for a Social Business Model presentation, whether you are a IBM Business Partner or want to become a IBM Business Partner. Whether you are an existing or prospective customer. Do you want me to speak at a conference or a seminar, I’ll be there!

I am fully booked for May, but in June my calendar is open again!

Polycom video conferencing now on you iPhone!

Polycom’s video conferencing and collaboration app for the iPad and Android tablets is now heading to your phone, according to MacWorld.

The RealPresence app is a secure, high-quality HD video collaboration app that lets you meet with your coworkers no matter where you are. The app is now available for the iPhone 4S with other Android Ice Cream Sandwich phones to follow.

The RealPresence app works with any laptop or desktop computer and can connect over Wi-Fi, 3G or 4G LTE networks. The app features multiparty calling but you can do some other neat collaborative actions as well. For example, you can share presentations by swapping the view between the content and the people in the conference.

Polycom also added some features to the RealPresence app for the iPad 2. Now, you can share PDF files from the tablet to other conference members.

 

Iceland Government: Yes to Open Source!

The Government of Iceland has decided to go for Open Source within the administration, according to the European Comission. All governmental departments an offices, the city of Reykjavik and the national hospital, Rikshospitalet, will within a year start the migration to Open Source software.

A project that will end up in a common infrastructure is already started with Mr. Tryggvi Björgvinsson as the project manager. All alternative open source based software will be documented and described in the project, and all governmental managers will be educated on open source alternatives to proprietary software.

Open Source software will also be adapted in the countrys educational system. Access to Open Source will not be restricted for schools.

Björgvinsson says that governmental institutions and officed already has been migrating to Open Source for the four last years. Five out of 32 schools has already made the move. 

The government of Iceland has had a clear policy on Open Source since 2008. The policy says that Open Source based software should be considered equal to other proprietary software to make sure that one alsways does the best buy – based on price and functionality.

The event you should not miss: LSBG Spring Seminar in Norway!

Ever been to Norway in the spring? It’s about time! The Norwegian LUG (Lotus User Group) named LSBG (Lotus Software User Group) have their yearly and very popular Spring Seminar at the southern waterfront in the small city of Larvik 23. – 24. May.

Ron Sebastian is back again!

There are lot’s of interesting stuff on the agenda and Ron Sebastian from IBM, well know from many enthusiastic and perfect demo’s at Lotusphere for many years, is back again. Ron is a true LSBG-friend and will present a lot of news from this years Lotusphere.

Another exciting speaker is Brian R. Sherwood from GBS. He will show you how to use existing Domino applications on an iPad. The German company Panagenda will demonstrate applications that give you full control of your Lotus Notes clients and Domino servers.

If you register before 4th April you are eligible to Early Bird pricing. And if you are one of the 20 first to register, you will get a very special LSBG T-shirt!

Register here (in Norwegian). If other language, please contact Mr. Øistein Tidemand-Johannessen on phone: 00 47  90118596.

The event is held at the modern and beautiful Spa Hotel “Farris Bad”. Check it out here in English or Norwegian.

Polycom and IBM gives You the Social Business Experience

Want to experience how social networks are changing the way people connect and communicate? Then register for a complimentary event ” The Social Business Experience” by Polycom and IBM.

• Learn how to schedule high definition video calls from within email and social business interfaces via IBM Sametime^® and the Polycom^® RealPresence™ Platform
• See how companies are using social networking tools to communicate with people internally and externally via messaging, video and social media
• Understand the time and cost savings as demonstrated by industry experts

Helsinki, Oslo, Stockholm & Brøndby, 18th April 2012

More info and registration here!

Microsoft does not succeed as expected in enterprise: Lowering prices on cloud solution!

In a recent blog entry Kirk Koenigsbauer from Microsoft wrote that the company will be lowering their prices on most of their Office 365 for Enterprise up to 20 % immediately. 

Normally lowering their prices is a signal that a company either has problems getting into the market or that the competition is too rough. In this case it could be both. Microsoft meets heavly face wind from both Google and IBM. Both these giants in software and online services offers very competitive solutions to both lower and higher segments in the market.

The thing with Microsoft is that they already have a gigantic installed base on their Office platform and their customers do not see what a cloud solution could offer them that they don’t already have. It is a known fact that if you want full functionality of your Microsoft cloud solutions you still have to install software on your PC – AND – have licences for both.

Not enough business value

Lowering the prices means the customer do not find enough business value to defend the cost. According to ZDNet Microsoft official has been defensive towards the enterprise market. They have not succeded in gaining traction among enterprise users. More than 90 % of their cloud customers comes from small businesses.

The Microsoft Office 365 E1 Plan is now lowered from 10 USD to 8 USD and includes access to Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and Lync Online. Desktop clients has to be bought separately.

The Microsoft Office 365 E3 Plan is now lowered from 24 USD to 20 USD and includes Office desktop clients to access Office 365 services, Web Apps and archiving.

Their penetration of the education market is also diappointing, so here Microsoft is now more or less giving their cloud solution away for free, seeding the market. Just like drug dealers do…

Still a vertical silo solution

One of the problems with Microsoft’s solutions is that it is still not a horisontal solution where all functionalities are seamlessly integrated with each other. They are still silos and unless you have the full desktop installed you still have to download and install a small desktop app to coordinate the login to these silos.

This is the opposite with IBM’s solution, IBM SmarterCloud for Social Business. Everything is integrated and cooperates seamlessly. All you need is a browser. And if you want a desktop solution for email – choose whatever client you want, Outlook, Thunderbird, Lotus Notes etc.

More for your money with IBM

If the customer choose IBM or Googles solutions they need nothing more than a browser, which also means a lower administration cost. IBM even deliver their solution with free Apps for iOs and Android and could be run on any OS or device. Besides, IBM gives each user 5 GB of file storage. That is 500 % more than Microsoft’s 1 GB.

What Microsofts cloud solution does very well is defending their installed base on the desktop, like making SharePoint “free of charge” with the Core CAL. But there is not such a thing like a free lunch. If you want full use and full functionality you have to buy the desktop licences too. Do not be fooled!

Read more on ZDNet!

Soon in your city: Social Business Roadshow

 

Business Gets Social! That is the title of next weeks roadshow to three of Norways main cities, Stavanger, Bergen and Oslo. 

I will be doing three stunts at each of these all day seminars; 

1 ) Have a dialogue with the participants on how to improve their business processes and get better results. Dialogues and thoughts around how to work socially in companies and organzations.

2 ) The future of email is social! I will demo how email integrates with other social collaboration tools, make more value and make you get control of you everyday business.

3 ) Live demo! How to handle your workday with handheld devices. This demo I will do in true collaboration  with my colleague Emmar Hoel. Tip: Bring Your own device and check it out!

This is where and when:

27th March – Stavanger

28th March – Bergen

29th March – Oslo

For more details and registration – use this link! (In Norwegian)

Bayer Medical Science choose IBM Connections for 15.000 employees

It’s not only the German company Bosch that chooses IBM Connections to go social within their firewalls. Now also the world known chemical company Bayer Medical Science (BMS) implements IBM Connections for their 15.000 employees.

At the start of this year, BMS had more than 500 active groups, co-called communities, that the employees had created out of their own initiative. Be it for departments such as IT, Accounting, Marketing or topics such as sustainability or women in the company, there are no limits to the imagination. Similarly to Xing groups, the initiators lay down the rules for access to the groups. These range from open communities that anyone can take part in and where everything is visible to closed invitation-only user groups that are invisible to non-members. That’s not all that difficult either, explains De Ruwe. “Starting a community takes 30 seconds and setting up the rules takes ten.”

The CIO himself sets a good example. He is now a member of 30 communities. And they don’t necessarily have anything to do with IT. What’s more, he has got used to hardly ever writing e-mails, instead posting many communications through Connections. “E-mails always go to a closed circle of recipients”, he says according to an article in CIO.de.