MS TechEd - Day 1
June 12 2006 04:30:00 PM
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Today at MS TechEd I attended sessions on Office 2007, Exchange Unified Communications, and Live Communication Server. Here is a summary of my thoughts from the day.Today at MS TechEd I attended sessions
on Office 2007, Exchange Unified Communications, and Live Communication
Server. Here is a summary of my thoughts from the day.
Almost everything I've heard so far reminds me of the exact type of things Lotus has been providing customers for many (and in some situations many many many) years. However, while for the most part MS is not introducing anything innovative (love it or hate it, the new Office ribbon UI might be an exception), I will admit they are doing a good job at keeping their messages simple and saying the things that customers appear ready to hear.
Example 1: SharePoint is certainly getting a lot of attention. The demos all talk about sharing documents and working effectively as a team. The Lotus in me says "Ok we do that! TeamRoom, Document Libraries, Discussion Databases, etc" but apparently this is a new concept to many companies, and to their credit MS is effectively getting the story of sharing across to them.
Example 2: Sitting through the LCS session I swear I was in a Sametime session held in 1998. Instant messaging, web-conferencing, and live name awareness on web pages. The presenter was actually demoing how you can change your status from "Available" to "I am away". As anger crept up in me, I decided to take a deep breath and calm myself, accepting the fact that these real-time features are new to many companies. I hope customers take a look at the industry leader, Sametime, before writing MS a check.
In many cases MS seems to be blurring the lines (some might argue overstepping them) with respect to what they ship "in the box", and what areas they leave for Business Partners and 3rd party vendors to develop. Examples include integrated mobile features, unified communication, fax, anti-virus, anti-spam, and edge-security services. I can see how this might be appealing to a certain set of customers, but what if you want to use a different solution? Will it conflict with the integrated MS features? Are you paying more for features you don't want? Is MS hurting their own Partner ecosystem? If so, do they care?
The core Office 2007 applications provide a lot of nice eye-candy features, but are going to require a lot of retraining. For example, it took me a while to find Print - Preview, which used to just be sitting there in my Toolbar. The "ribbon" does expose some nice features for making objects look "professional without requiring a graphic artist", but I hope this does not drive a whole new level of "PowerPoint overkill", as presentations are often bad enough already.
An interesting Exchange 2007 feature was shown where you can call into your server via a normal phone. You can then use your voice to perform actions on your mail, calendar, and contacts. For example, call into the system, find out that you have a meeting in a few minutes on your calendar, tell the system you will be 10 minutes late, and it will email all the invitees letting then know.
The most interesting instant messaging feature I saw was that Communicator looks at your Outlook calendar to determine your availability. For example, if you are away at a conference, others will see that in your status.
I've not gone to the Partner Expo booths yet, but I have walked around what MS is calling the "Technical Learning Centers". This is where they have product demo booths, mini-presentation theatres, and hand-on labs. There is a great deal of content available, and the staff seems very approachable. It is AMAZING how much stuff MS gives away! There are trail/demo/beta CDs and DVDs of almost every product MS develops. One of the most impressive is a DVD with a Virtual PC image of Exchange 2007 Beta. I can't applaud them enough in this area.
So overall today was a good day, but a frustrating one because I think every customer there could benefit from Lotus solutions that are available today. I did not see anything very innovative from the new MS products, but as I indicated above, MS is doing a good job at showing customers what they can accomplish with their software. They have effectively wrapped their story around "People Ready", which I've already explained is an exact rip-off of the messages Lotus has delivered for years. I hope that customers take a look at IBM's offerings, and learn how Lotus can "Make more people, more productive, in the context of what they do everyday".
Almost everything I've heard so far reminds me of the exact type of things Lotus has been providing customers for many (and in some situations many many many) years. However, while for the most part MS is not introducing anything innovative (love it or hate it, the new Office ribbon UI might be an exception), I will admit they are doing a good job at keeping their messages simple and saying the things that customers appear ready to hear.
Example 1: SharePoint is certainly getting a lot of attention. The demos all talk about sharing documents and working effectively as a team. The Lotus in me says "Ok we do that! TeamRoom, Document Libraries, Discussion Databases, etc" but apparently this is a new concept to many companies, and to their credit MS is effectively getting the story of sharing across to them.
Example 2: Sitting through the LCS session I swear I was in a Sametime session held in 1998. Instant messaging, web-conferencing, and live name awareness on web pages. The presenter was actually demoing how you can change your status from "Available" to "I am away". As anger crept up in me, I decided to take a deep breath and calm myself, accepting the fact that these real-time features are new to many companies. I hope customers take a look at the industry leader, Sametime, before writing MS a check.
In many cases MS seems to be blurring the lines (some might argue overstepping them) with respect to what they ship "in the box", and what areas they leave for Business Partners and 3rd party vendors to develop. Examples include integrated mobile features, unified communication, fax, anti-virus, anti-spam, and edge-security services. I can see how this might be appealing to a certain set of customers, but what if you want to use a different solution? Will it conflict with the integrated MS features? Are you paying more for features you don't want? Is MS hurting their own Partner ecosystem? If so, do they care?
The core Office 2007 applications provide a lot of nice eye-candy features, but are going to require a lot of retraining. For example, it took me a while to find Print - Preview, which used to just be sitting there in my Toolbar. The "ribbon" does expose some nice features for making objects look "professional without requiring a graphic artist", but I hope this does not drive a whole new level of "PowerPoint overkill", as presentations are often bad enough already.
An interesting Exchange 2007 feature was shown where you can call into your server via a normal phone. You can then use your voice to perform actions on your mail, calendar, and contacts. For example, call into the system, find out that you have a meeting in a few minutes on your calendar, tell the system you will be 10 minutes late, and it will email all the invitees letting then know.
The most interesting instant messaging feature I saw was that Communicator looks at your Outlook calendar to determine your availability. For example, if you are away at a conference, others will see that in your status.
I've not gone to the Partner Expo booths yet, but I have walked around what MS is calling the "Technical Learning Centers". This is where they have product demo booths, mini-presentation theatres, and hand-on labs. There is a great deal of content available, and the staff seems very approachable. It is AMAZING how much stuff MS gives away! There are trail/demo/beta CDs and DVDs of almost every product MS develops. One of the most impressive is a DVD with a Virtual PC image of Exchange 2007 Beta. I can't applaud them enough in this area.
So overall today was a good day, but a frustrating one because I think every customer there could benefit from Lotus solutions that are available today. I did not see anything very innovative from the new MS products, but as I indicated above, MS is doing a good job at showing customers what they can accomplish with their software. They have effectively wrapped their story around "People Ready", which I've already explained is an exact rip-off of the messages Lotus has delivered for years. I hope that customers take a look at IBM's offerings, and learn how Lotus can "Make more people, more productive, in the context of what they do everyday".
