Thoughts on Lotus INsight 2005

I enjoyed the show yesterday, although trying to shoehorn Lotusphere into 5 hours was never likely to happen.

I liked the way some presenters showed off by using the the office document 'editors' built into Workplace (based on the OpenOffice tools) rather that running full-on powerpoint.

IBM announced that all (I think) Passport clients would receive a 20 users license for Workplace Services Express on March 15. One year of support/upgrades woudl be included with perpetual licenses, but you'd have to pay support after the first year.

I now know who Pooter is - and, talking to him after his presentation, he said the Workplace client technology was capable of dealing with, or connecting to different Workplace environments at different times. This means you could run a Workplace client in much the same way as many people run the Notes client now - different 'locations' for different clients or situations. He didn't make any commitments on shipping in a particular version, but they did recognise the need for this capability. Interesting times ahead.

I'll also have to find out about BPEL and JSR 170.

All the talk about linux workplace clients and server managed services, along with the fact that IBM has sold off its PC manufacturing business got me thinking. Imagine an organisation with PowerPC linux boxen - think Mac Mini - running a Workplace Client on everyone's desks. Nice....

Update: The next person that tells me about a Services Orientated, rather than Oriented, Architecture is in for it. Words are important, people!