 "IBM Accelerates Cloud Computing With LotusLive")
IBM has announced the technology and business expansion of its LotusLive cloud collaboration platform through a new R&D pipeline from IBM Research and plans to open the LotusLive suite to new partners. LotusLive cloud services provide integrated e-mail, Web conferencing, social networking and collaboration with IBM’s focus on security and enterprise integration.
IBM Research and Lotus are joining forces to deliver new innovation on the Web through the creation of LotusLive Labs – a proving ground for advances in business-driven collaboration in the cloud.
At Lotusphere 2010 this week, a range of LotusLive Labs technology previews are being unveiled including Slide Library, a collaborative way to build and share presentations; Collaborative Recorded Meetings, a service that records and instantly transcribes meeting presentations and audio/video for searching and tagging; Event Maps, an interactive way to visualise and interact with conference schedules; and, Composer, the ability to create LotusLive mash-ups through the combination of LotusLive services.
Expected in second quarter of 2010 via LotusLive Labs, Project Concord is a new Web-based document editor for creating and sharing documents, presentations and spreadsheets.
A Platform for Integration
IBM has also announced the extension of the core collaboration services of LotusLive to third-party applications and business processes. Previously available only through the LotusLive Design Partner program, IBM will make application programming interfaces (APIs) for LotusLive services available to any IBM business partner in the second half of 2010. In addition, three LotusLive Design Partners are scheduled to bring their solutions to market in Q2 including:
• Silanis Technology: electronic signature process management integrated with LotusLive Files and Activities
• Skype: voice and video calling integrated with LotusLive Contacts
• Prolifiq: one to one branded sales messaging platform integrated with LotusLive Contacts and Files
New Service Enhancements
The next version of LotusLive Notes will provide e-mail, calendar, contact management and instant messaging capabilities to customers in a multi-tenant environment. The LotusLive Notes service will be optimised to support hybrid on-premise and cloud deployments with standard support for directory synchronisation between on-premise directories and the cloud, access to application and mail workflows that remain on-premise, and entitlement for every user to use either a browser or the Lotus Notes client to access their e-mail.
New services and options will include a reduction in the minimum number of users for a LotusLive Notes subscription from 1,000 to 25, IBM Lotus Sametime instant messaging support and a 5GB standard mailbox quota. IBM is now accepting requests to participate in the LotusLive Notes managed beta program at www.lotuslive.com/en/services/notes .