SharePoint & Lotus

Prominent technology scholars have recently been debating the contribution of the Internet to our society. For Nicholas Carr, the Web with its searches, constant interruptions, and hyperlinks is diminishing “our capacity to engage in the quieter, attentive modes of thought that underpin contemplation, reflection, and introspection. The Web never encourages us to slow down. It keeps us in a state of perpetual mental locomotion.

 I have met several IT executives leading Notes shops telling me that they have selected Lotus Connections as their social software platform and Microsoft SharePoint for document collaboration. Their motivation is quite straightforward: as Office users, SharePoint is a natural Office server for document collaboration however they prefer Lotus Connections over SharePoint 2010 for its social features  e.g. Activities, bookmarks sharing. But is this a sound, long-term strategy? 

We hope you enjoyed yesterday’s popular webinar, with a record-breaking 189 online attendees!

Yaacov Cohen, CEO of Mainsoft, presented the business case of integrating SharePoint with your e-mail application, be it Lotus Notes or Microsoft Outlook. I also had the opportunity to show a product demo with use-cases of how SharePoint and e-mail go hand-in-hand. At the end there was a lively Q&A session with really great questions from the audience.

Join our upcoming live webinar on SharePoint 2010 and Lotus Notes integration. It takes place on Tuesday, June 15, 2010 at 2:00 PM ET / 11:00 AM PT / 6:00 PM GMT. Here’s the blurb:

Getting employees to adopt Microsoft SharePoint is a challenge. According to industry analysts, only 38% of employees who have access to SharePoint use it on a daily basis.  And the challenge is even greater in shops that use IBM Lotus Notes for email.

Today, we are excited to release the public 2.5 beta of Mainsoft SharePoint Integrator for Lotus Notes, now supporting social features, views, and SharePoint 2010.

Last week, Mainsoft welcomed Rob Koplowitz, principal analyst at Forrester Research to speak with more than 150 Lotus customers that have adopted Microsoft SharePoint and want to promote end user adoption by integrating it with email.

Today, at the Lotusphere 2010 conference in Orlando, Mainsoft announced the upcoming 2.5 release of SharePoint Integrator for Lotus Notes. The 2.5 release will pack some exciting new features, bound to turn heads. Read this post to find out the contents of the release and watch the video showing off some of the upcoming social features.

developerWorks editor Scott Laningham just posted an interview with Chris Lamb, Senior Marketing Manager for IBM Lotus Connections, and Yaacov Cohen, Mainsoft's CEO.  They talk about the benefits of integrating IBM Lotus Connections with IBM Rational Team Concert to expand communications about software deliveries to include business stakeholders and end users, in addition to technical teams worldwide.
 

Mainsoft today released a technology preview of Lotus Connections social software integration with Rational Team Concert.
 

According to a recent study conducted by Infotrends, SharePoint adoption falls far short of SharePoint deployment. Today, of the 62.2% of employees who now have access to SharePoint, only 23.8% access it at least once daily.