Lotusphere 2008 wrap up

What a week, it flew by so fast, I can’t believe it was really a whole week.  I flew home Friday morning, and slept eleven hours Friday night which probably exceeded my total for the previous week.  Here are some random observations from the week

  • iPhones were everywhere, I was surprised by how many of them I saw over the course of the week
  • I saw more MacBooks then I expected to, I know they have picked up in popularity, but did not realize how many people are using them.
  • Sessions in general were packed, especially the “Sametime all the time” room, I only made it to two sessions there, but both were packed and overflowed.
  • Even Thursday morning sessions were crowded, I attended a 7 AM BOF that had a great turnout considering the time slot.
  • People got really bent out of shape over the use of RFID technology to track session attendance. Here are some release dates I captured from the week (don’t hold me to them)
  • Notes/Domino 8.0.1 – March
  • Quickr  8.1 March
  • Connections R2 – June
  • Sametime Advanced – I thought I had written something down on this one – anyone?
  • Sametime Unified Telephony – I believe this is second half of the year.
  • Atlantic” (SAP integration) – Q4 While Mac has definitely become more popular, the announcement that Ubuntu linux support is coming in 8.5 is great news, which even made it to Slashdot, where I rarely see any Notes related articles.  Will be interesting to see next year how many more Macs there are, and how many more people will be running Linux. It will definitely be an interesting year as all of the products start to ship, will have to watch and see how the SMB market is won over with the release of Foundations and Bluehouse. I came away from Lotusphere with two products of interest one being Lotus Mashups, and the other being Lotus Forms, I think these two would fit in nicely with all the other products I am already using (Notes/Domino, Sametime, Quickr, Connections). On a personal note, over the course of the week I got to catch up in person with old friends, and meet in person many people who I had previously only been in touch with online.   There were other people I really wanted to meet in person, some of them I even know I was in the same room as on different occasions, but never caught up with them. Finally I just want to say thank you to those of you who stopped me and told me you read my blog, and also to those of you who stopped me and told me I did a great job in my speaking, it was really greatly appreciated.  Of course there was the one person who threatened to stop reading my blog if it became all about the Giants for the next week :).   So one week from now I will be watching the Giants beating the Patriots in the Superbowl, three weeks the Mets report to spring training, and in 357 days Lotusphere 2009 gets underway, see you there. You can find my pictures from the week on Flickr, I will be adding some more this week
3 Responses to Lotusphere 2008 wrap up
  1. Chris Miller
    January 27, 2008 | 9:49 pm

    The Connectiosn date kept floating all week on 2.0 and Advanced is first half of 08 at last statement from anyone.

    Tons of rooms were overflowed, it was amazing to see it once again.

  2. Roger Lim
    January 28, 2008 | 11:38 am

    If any IPhones were missing, remember I wasn’t there.

    RFIDs at the conference sounds like a great touch. Wonder if it was over the air or did people have to touch their badge to a scanner near the door.

    Did anyone pick up the latest Red Books CD at their kiosk?

    I’m not much of a sports fan but wouldn’t hurt to see a Giants win. It’ll put a nice dent in the Patriot’s record.

  3. Chris Whisonant
    January 28, 2008 | 9:29 pm

    There weren’t a lot of iphones – you were just around me too much!! Emoticon <br /><br />Great summary!