About IBM, Web 2.0 and Microsoft. Part I

January 28, 2008 IBM's Lotus Development Corp. unit has shifted its integration, social software and unified communications story into high gear as it prepares for a Web 2.0 scuffle that likely will dwarf its past e-mail clashes against Microsoft Corp.

The Web 2.0 battle will encompass many foes beyond Microsoft, including Cisco Systems Inc., and traditional telephony vendors and online giants such as Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. It will also produce product and vendor options that are sure to test the strategic investment skills of IT executives who told Network World in 2007 that they view collaboration technologies as "important" or "somewhat important" to their future productivity goals.

At its annual Lotusphere show, IBM hammered away at the way it will integrate its product portfolio that includes messaging, real-time communication, and new social software and rapid application-development tools.

But compared with past editions of the conference, in which Lotus seemed to be steering the course of collaboration evolution, the company now seems to be playing from behind in many areas, including messaging, Web conferencing, unified communications and software-as-a-service, while Microsoft, Cisco and others are grabbing headlines.

But IBM has its gems as well.

The company's move last year into social software with Lotus Connections and this year's expansion of the platform give it perhaps the strongest set of tools built for corporate users in comparison with those of competitors that are working with adaptations of consumer products.

In addition, the delivery with Notes 8 of the company's open-client framework built on Lotus Expeditor and Eclipse, a container for executing XML-based application components, provides client integration. This is designed for users who want to buy and run only the components they need, dictate the pace of their adoption, and retain options to fill in any gaps with homegrown software.

In addition to Notes 8, the framework is the front end for Sametime 8 and Lotus Symphony productivity applications. It will eventually front every back-end server and service so users can get functionality a la carte while maintaining a single interface.

In addition, IBM said that integrating those same servers with other clients, such as Microsoft Outlook and partner software such as Carestream Health Inc.'s imaging tools, won't lock users into the Lotus platform and will expand its range of potential sales.

Lotus last week also announced partnerships with SocialText Inc. and Atlassian Software Systems Pty. to integrate wiki technology from each vendor into Lotus Connections.

"The most beneficial part for customers is the integration," said Dwight Davis, an analyst at Ovum. "It's the fact I don't know that I am using Quickr [content management]; it's just a plug-in to my client."