April 17th, 2006
Back in Black... I mean Yellow
So my entry
last week generated some interesting
reactions in both the blog's comments section as well as several emails
and instant messages! My apologies for being cryptic at the time.
Honestly, I was really busy with work and the holidays, plus it was
fun to generate some mystery! ;-)
I'm happy to report beginning today I am returning to the Lotus division
of the IBM Software Group. This may not sound like a change to many
of you, as you may not have realized that I hadn't previously been working
for Lotus. Truth is, for about the last two years, I've been working
in IBM's Business Partner (Channel Marketing) organization. Efforts
such as writing this blog and answering questions in various Lotus related
forums has actually been "outside of the duties of my day job"
and were driven solely by my passion for all things Lotus, not by my IBM
pay cheque! So to me (and hopefully the Lotus community and our customers)
this announcement is important, and something I am very excited about,
and yet another indication of the good things happening at Lotus.
What will I be doing? Well, I am going to be performing a mishmash
of duties. I'll be helping with product and marketing strategies,
gathering intelligence about our competition (Lepo... Alan Lepo), keeping
up with industry analysis, reading the latest market research, and hopefully
working closely with my colleagues in business development. This
new roll allows me straddle the line between "developer techy"
and "marketing guy". I'll be diving deeply into areas such
as Hannover, as well as our Application Development products such as Workplace
Forms. I'll be paying close attention to things going on at companies
such as Google and Microsoft, along with all the "cool new web 2.0
companies".
Of course there are dozens of people within IBM already working in each
of the areas, so how do I fit in? My goal is to provide some "glue"
between the various groups such as Product Management, Development, Marketing,
Sales, Research, and many more. One day I may be working on a detailed
product comparison for the sales force, the next helping justify a business
decision using market data, the next helping highlight weaknesses in the
competition's roadmap, and the day after that making suggestions on acquisitions
we should investigate. I'll be offering my opinion and making recommendations
on things I think Lotus is doing well, and more importantly things we are
not! I hope to speak with customers, press, and analysts to help
demonstrate and articulate the Lotus mission of "Making more people…
more productive… in the context of what they do… everyday".
So why the change? Simple. Lotus is great place to be.
Executives such as Mike Rhodin, Surjit Chana, Ken Bisconti, Larry Bowden,
and Craig Hayman have Lotus moving in an incredibly positive direction.
Lotusphere 2006 kicked off the year with an amazing event. Customers
and Business Partners can't wait to install Hannover, Domino.Next, and
Sametime 7.5. Announcements were made around Notes running on Thumb-drives,
Domino based blogging, and seamless Notes and SAP integration. Portal
is blowing away the competition, and has just launched version 6. IBM's
acquisition of companies such as PureEdge and Bowstreet are examples of
IBM strengthening the Lotus portfolio. Workplace Collaboration Services,
Workplace Services Express, and the Workplace Managed client are driving
creativity, innovation, and adoption of standards across all the products
in the Lotus portfolio. For example: Activity Explorer, Open Document
Format (ODF), XForms, Role-based provisioning, and Composite Applications.
IBM Workplace solutions such as Business Controls and Reporting and
Business Strategy Execution are providing customers applications for solving
specific critical business needs. On the marketing side, Lotus is
"taking the gloves off" with more aggressive tactics against
the competition. Outside the walls of IBM, the Lotus community itself
is helping drive success with initiatives such as OpenNTF, Taking Notes,
Show and Tell Thursdays, and LotusUserGroups. In short, Lotus is
hot.
I'm very excited. I think this is a perfect fit for my skills and
experience. Additionally, now I don't have to feel guilty about blogging
during work hours, as I think it will I can justify it as part of my job!
So please don't be shy. Feel free to share your opinions and ideas
with me, and together let's help the next decade of Lotus be the best ever.
P.S. Hi Gus! ;-)
