LotusLive Notes

Within Lotusphere-2009 IBM announced new SaaS ("Software-as-a-Service") LotusLive service. LotusLive expands possibilities of joint work, connecting such popular functions as meetings, projects, conferences, the messenger, etc. Only the browser and Internet access is necessary for use of this convenient service allowing to create own business focused social network.

The principle of SaaS ("Software-as-a-Service") is based that the software is not a shrink-wrapped software product, and it is provided in lease, working at the party of provider. For access to providing which adapts to requirements of the specific user it is enough to use any browser. The beta of service is usually provided free of charge, and payment depends on number of users, volume of transactions and other quantitative indices.

SaaS-сервисы LotusLive are developed with the purpose to help the companies of any scale to work more productively, thanks to simplification of collective work and communications. LotusLive services give access to rich tool kit for working interaction without the need for preliminary investments into IT resources or infrastructure.

IBM simplifies to clients of any scale application of all opportunities of collective work given to LotusLive. The new packet of instruments of business cooperation and working interaction of LotusLive integrates possibilities of a corporate class for electronic mail services, the calendar, instant messaging, Web conferences, social networks and file sharing. All this functionality in the form of simple in deployment, the facilitated packet is offered on a monthly subscription worth 10 dollars counting on one user.

IBM also released LotusLive Notes cloud-service based on the flagman software of IBM for message exchange which is already used by millions of people around the world. Based on wide working experience of IBM on service of the enterprises, the LotusLive service provides advanced functionality of e-mail, shared calendar, instant messaging and personal contacts at the starting price for only 5 dollars a month counting on one user.

IBM also represents the functionality as a part of LotusLive which received the name Communities (Communities) which is designed to help to improve capability of the organizations to cooperation and working interaction as inside, and out of the enterprise. Within "community" his members can tag information, share and exchange files, monitor project implementation and also hold in a protect mode discussion forums between the organizations.

LotusLive services use an open business model and open web standards which allow to integrate with ease these services with third-party applications. In particular, partnership with the companies Skype, LinkedIn and Salesforce.com (suppliers of popular services of the same name), directed to development and delivery of joint integrated solutions is supposed.

The social network LinkedIn integrating more than 34 million business professionals announced the intention to cooperate with IBM on consolidation of the opportunities with LotusLive services. Users of LotusLive will be able to perform search of people in professionally focused public network LinkedIn and then quickly to interact with them by means of services LotusLive.

At the Lotusphere-2009 conference the Salesforce.com company showed examples of integration of LotusLive services into its CRM solutions. Similar integration is intended to simplify and improve interaction of business with clients and partners. The organizations will be able to expand abilities to manage with interrelations with clients in the application of Salesforce of CRM means of LotusLive for collective work.

The Skype company in turn also announced plans of integration of popular service IP-telefonii with LotusLive services for the purpose of formation of flexible unified communications. This integration project will allow users of LotusLive to execute calls by Skype network directly of the LotusLive environment using the contact list LotusLive.

Funkionalnost

The functionality of LotusLive Notes in many respects corresponds to the local client of Lotus Notes: there are e-mail, calendars, instant messages and contact lists. Users can set LotusLive both in the web version, and in the form of the client performed locally. There is no support of applications of Notes in LotusLive yet, but service can be integrated with the local systems of e-mail on the basis of Lotus Notes, getting access to the server of directories and support of single registration.

The LotusLive Communities service gives to users in the organizations the chance to interact with the help of online forums, instruments of monitoring of projects, tabs, file sharing and a marking of information tags. Service is very similar to software of corporate social networks IBM Lotus Connections, but does not support a possibility of creation of blogs and the Wiki (perhaps, these functions will appear later).

Besides, IBM integrated LotusLive with the calendar and the scheduler of Tungle company and with software of exchange, joint viewing and annotation of documents of Bricsys company.

The cost of all packet of LotusLive is 10 dollars counting on the user in a month^[1].

iNotes vs Notes

LotusLive Notespredstavlyaet itself multitenant SaaS the version of Lotus Domino (Domino is the name of the server in the traditional IBM Lotus Notes system).

• users will be able to work with mail and the calendar not only in the web interface (as in LotusLive iNotes), but also in usual Lotus Notes desktop client.
• the companies will be able to integrate SaaS LotusLive Notes service with the existing intallirovanny Lotus Notes system. At the same time it is possible to administer both servers using the single console of management Domino.
• in difference from iNotes, LotusLive Notes contains the built-in messenger with control of the status and supports synchronization with mobile devices (obviously with the mobile client of IBM Lotus Notes Traveler).

Demovideo LotusLive:

IBM LotusLive is integrated with SugarCRM and Ariba

In a corporate cloud packet for joint work of IBM LotusLive integration tools with the CRM system of SugarCRM and base of suppliers of Ariba Discovery Service are implemented. Thanks to it the staff of sales departments using LotusLive and SugarCRM will be able to organize the LotusLive web conferences directly from the SugarCRM interface and also to exchange documents. Integration with Ariba Discovery service will give the chance to communicate and conduct joint work with any of more than 300 thousand suppliers entered to Ariba base.

As LotusLive is focused on large-scale corporate users, and SugarCRM worked generally with the small and medium enterprises earlier, integration with LotusLive represents a quite good possibility of an exit to business market for the company, believe in SugarCRM. Observers note also importance of integration with SugarCRM for LotusLive. For many small companies use of CRM systems is the first step to transition to the centralized solutions for joint work and management.

Notes