The Whole Lotus Enchilada

We currently run Lotus Notes/Domino, Sametime and Quickplace in our environment.  We do not run Websphere, but we don’t have any other portal software either.  We are in the middle of a project to switch our email to Outlook/Exchange.  We have been told that “as long as we have workflow, we’ll have Notes/Domino” (with the implication that we’ll always have the product).  OTOH, Quickplace (soon to be Quickr) has been under pressure both from Sharepoint and E-Room, and there are rumours that we are going to be moving from Sametime to the Microsoft instant messenger product.

Here is my question:  from a developer perspective, how much should I worry about losing Sametime from the product lineup?  I’ve done some Quickplace work, so I worry a bit about losing that.  If I thought Microsoft had a viable workflow option for Notes, I would also be worried about that.  But while I know that Sametime is (particularly now) an extensible platform, the fact is that I (and my fellow developers) don’t do any Sametime development.  Part of me says that it is just a tool that happens to be from Lotus (like our document managment system is just a tool that happens to be from Interwoven).  Another part of me says that anytime Lotus is removed from our environment that my job as it currently stands is one step closer to vanishing.  I have every reason to believe my company would retrain me, but that is beside the point I’m wondering about.

So, what do any of you think?  In my situation, would you consider the loss of Sametime to be a threat?

Conversation with Mike Rhodin

This morning, I came across this interview with Mike Rhodin.  If you were at Lotusphere, there is nothing new here, but it is nice to know that Lotus is trying to maintain momentum by making the rounds of the press.  They have some work to do.  This article at Information Week seems to think that Quickplace and Quickr are separate products rather than a rebranding of the product line.  Of course the product line seems confusing when you don’t bother to figure out what is an upgrade and what is a new product!

Back from Lotusphere 2007

I’m just back from Lotusphere 2007, and I’m as excited as I can be about the future of Notes and Domino (and especially Quickr). I’m so excited, in fact, that I decided to take the plunge and join the blogging community. It will take me a few days to get going, put up a blogroll and generally start looking like a “real” blog, but I hope in some small way I can help contribute to the use and future of Lotus Notes and Domino!