IBM and OpenOffice.org

I have been speaking to some of the guys working on getting Lotus Symphony launched and I must say I'm impressed. Just a little bit anyway. Symphony is still build on the old OpenOffice.org 1.1.3 but that is actually not the most important thing. The application has been enhanged dramatically and what you first find, is that extra pane to the right. The pane shows you tools that are relevant to what ever you are doing. Very much like the context sensitive right-click. The difference is, that the pane is there when you need it without having to call it.

Besides, Lotus Symphony can be extended with Eclipse plugins and soon you can write macros using Lotus Script. Lotus Script can be initiated from within Lotus Notes or from the Office application. And with access to the UNO api from Lotus Script, you can really get a long way.

Lotus Symphony can be used in composite applications and with that method, you can join data fra Lotus Notes, web pages etc. and wotk with data e.g. in a spreadsheet.

Some time ago, my advise to Lotus Notes customer was to use OpenOffice.org 3.0 for naw but wait and see about Lotus Symphony. I must say that this advise might fall soon. Lotus Notes user: Try Symphony. Its really a cool suite and you can taka advantage of some of the stuff right now, even if you are not on the brand new Lotus Notes 8.5. Lotus Symphony can be extended to wotk with data from older versions of Notes too.

My first day af my first LotusPhere

Ok. Here I am.

LotusPhere 2009, Orlando, Florida!

This is my first LotusPhere and the first day (Business Development Day) is almost over. My impresison?

Perfect arrangement. Even considering that we are about one hour late and that the last slot is cancelled, I guess thats what to expect, when you gather all business partners on one spot. Transportation and logistics are perfect and the hotel facilities are working fine. The delay wwas caused by presentations that were too long.

I'm really looking forward to the upcomming days in the labs. I expect to see much more of Lotus Expeditor, Lotus Symphony and Lotus Sametime. Thats what I'm hooked up with. I don't think I get much time doing development stuff. There are five tracks, and I just have to jump my way though the most interesting things.

Its a wonderfull place here at the Swan and Dolphin resort. It's about 24 degrees celsius outside and the ait condition in the small rooms are not cappale of keeping up with the warm weather.

LotusPhere - Here I come

I've been looking forward to my trip to Orlando, Florida for months.

Tomorrow morning (early), I'll leave Copenhagen - going to Disney World and LotusPhere.

What will be my scope ?

First of all, I'll try to find as many sessions about Lotus Symphony as possible. I hope to see some examples with Lotus Symphony binded up with Lotus Notes as Composite. I really hope to see how to merge Notes data in spreadsheets/charts and text documents.

Also I will try to find further business opportunities in Lotus Sametime.

Social networking perhaps? If I get the time.

Why not Lotus Symphony right away ?

As I often advocate for OpenOffice.org in both private and business societies, I get questions about Lotus Symphony and Lotus Notes 8 from time to time. My advise to companies that are already using Lotus Notes is, to take Lotus Symphony serious as a future possibility. Right now I say: "Use Openoffice.org 3.0".

The reason for not advocating Lotus Symphony at the present time is, that the application is basically build on old code. If you look at it from a functions- and features perspective, the Lotus Symphony is not as rich as OpenOffice.org. At the same tim IBM has been very closed when it comes to information about the actual plans. Last autumn I asked IBM if there where plans to move from OOo 1.x code base to 3.x code base. I also asked if IBM had plans to implement support for extensions. No reply. During this years OpenOffice.org Conference IBM announced that there are plans to elevate the application to OOo 3 code base but still no time frame for the plans (did I miss something?). That is the reason why I put Lotus Symphony 'on hold' as the best alternative for the moment. I hope IBM will show me that they can do better, but at the time that happens, a lot of customers will be using OpenOffice.org. With a clear and accurate time plan for the development of Lotus Symphony, lots of customers might be able to make another decision.

I see a lot of good perspective in Lotus Notes in the future. It give meaning to build productivity tools on the same (eclipse) platform and the screencasts I have seen so far from Notes 8.5 looks nice. Imaging composite applications with Lotus Notes, Websites and a spreadsheet or text document ? It gives very good meaning.

Lotus Notes integration

I've been working with system integration with Lotus Notes and Office for several years now and I have been looking forward to see how IBM Lotus would take advantage of Lotus Symphony and Lotus Notes. Both applications are build on the same Eclipse platform and I have talked to lots of customers about how IBM could take advantage of this.

Here it is. And I hope that this is only the beginning.

Bob Balfe writes on his blog how Lotus Symphony can be 'composite' in the future: http://blog.balfes.net/index.php?entry=entry080910-110959

Watch the demo video here: http://blog.balfes.net/files/ntosin6/Notes2SymphonyIn6Minutes.html and see how selecting documents in a view can update a spreadsheet chart. Woow.

Lotus Notes - the best decision maker

Lotus Notes 8.01 has a lot of new features that helps you in your daily work. I've been using and teaching Notes for several years and I'm looking forward to my next user course.

I can tell the students that Lotus Notes is the best decision maker ever.

Should I go to the golf court or not ?

First, take a look at the local weather forecast and if you are still in doubt; flip a coin. Both features can now be integrated directly into your Notes environment.

How ?
You can install almost any Google Gadget in the sidebar in the Notes client.

Openoffice.org as integrated format in Lotus Notes

Yesterday and the day before I have been writing about how we have implemented OpenOffice.org text documents in our product eOffice.

Today we did the same in Symfoni QMS Quality Manager.

http://www.symfonisoftware.com/symfoniweb/sym010.nsf/pages/produktspek.html?open&prodkey=reportingofaccidents/deviations

So far we have implemented the document format successfully in the editorial process but there is still a few problems when publishing to public. I expect that we will finish this by tomorrow.

Successfully mailmerge

Yesterday I got our mailmerge template ready. Today I found some additional issues, thus I needed to find out if my colleges could find out how to use it.

I found out that IBM made a serious mistake when they first implemented ODF file format in Lotus Notes. I hope to see 8.01 tomorrow.

The problem is, that if you ever try to open any ODF document with Lotus Notes (productivity tool or Lotus Symphony), the Eclipse framework takes over all (amd I meen all) the ODF file types. It's easy to change this back, by selecting the file, right-click, and select open with etc. So far it's all right. But it took me some time to figure out that Lotus Notes also takes the ODB (Database) file type as hostage. You must remember, that IBM has nothing to do with such file, because there is no ODB database thing in the application.

So, in case the user has ever opened a ODF file with Lotus Notes (approx: 100%), the mailmerge didn't work, because the mail merge wizard creates an ODB file to hold the connection from Lotus Notes to OpenOffice.org.

But Lotus Notes couldn't create such file, because the file type registration was corrupted - byt Lotus Notes.

Well, I learned that lesson today.

The result ?

I made a mailmerge letter based on a search query (32.000 adresses). Search time was about 20 minutes and the merge it self was about the double.

Busy monday

First day at the office after a week on vacation. And a busy day too.

My company has decided to introduce common layout on our letter stationaries. Huh ?

So my job was to consolidate all the individual letter templates, contract templates etc. to a common company layout. Fantastic decision. The rest of the world did this in the late 80's I think.

OK now, we are using Lotus Notes in several versions and OpenOffice.org. We have decided to use the Swing Integrator from Swing Software (http://swingsoftware.com) and I can only recommend this solution.

Well, I started out making the blank letter template and decided to do some house keeping also, so I cleared all the data fields that was transfered, but not in use. Fascinating how little effort it takes to speed up a computer system. I also decided to improve the layout by removing (hiding) the field labels in case the field doesn't receive any data.

After that i was asked to look into the mail merge template to see if I could figure out what was wrong with it. I found out, that the data exchange wasn't very accurate, because about half the mapped data fields actually missed the target. No wonder why it didn't work. Ok, now it actually works, but I still have an error message on the screen, but I don't have the right (skills) to debug the thing.

I actually made it work, and tomorrow I'll try to run a massive test and see if its possible to mail merge several hundred (or 1,000) letters.

Se how easy it is to set up the field mapping (from Notes field to OpenOffice.org field):

Lotus Notes to OpenOffice,.org integration

I was trying to help my Norwegian colleges find out why our Lotus Notes to OpenOffice.org integration didn't work properly. I have used several hours figuring out what the problem was.

Of cause field mapping must be accurate and in this case it's also case sensitive. And of cause: all required data must be available in the Notes-document.

Hokus pokus. It works.


Here is a movie that shows how it works

Questions for IBM

In the late summer IBM announced their support to the OpenOffice.org community and about a week later, they announced a new free (of charge) product, IBM Lotus Symphony. The new product is basically a stand-alone version of the productivity tools in Lotus Notes 8.

If you ask me, I think it's great that IBM is now standing up behind OpenOffice.org together with other large companies and I think it looks great that IBM will contribute with better acceptability and usability, I'm sure that OpenOffice.org can take advantage of that. Just have a look at the work IBM did to make Symphony look that nice.

I'm using Lotus Notes 8 from IBM and I think it shows that IBM Lotus is going in the right direction. But I still need answers for two questions:

1. Will IBM Lotus productivity tools (in whatever product package you get them) follow the OpenOffice.org code line in the future ?
   The version we use now is a very old OpenOffice.org
   
2. Will IBM Lotus productivity tools support OpenOffice.org extensions (oxt-files) ?

I would very much like to tell customers that the IBM Lotus product line is on the right track, but I can't do this as long as the code is more than two years old and doesn't support one of the most important and most significant improvements in OpenOffice.org.

I have tried to ask around at IBM in Denmark without luck. If anyone here can find out who can answer these question, please let me know.

Open source is not about cutting down expenses

The general discussion about the use of open source software like OpenOffice.org very often comes around talking about money. And most people expect that cheap (in this case very cheap) software is poor software. In some cases this is actually true, but not in all cases. There are lots of software projects that serves high quality applications for you.

Open source is not about cutting down expenses but about spending money where you get value.

Lets take a look at one of the most popular open source projects, OpenOffice.org. Compared to Microsoft Office, this project is a little bit less feature rich. But what's the difference, when your employees haven't learned how to use the application that you bought so expensive ? Nothing. A much more valuable choice could be to implement OpenOffice.org and I say implement. Not just install it, but actually make sure that everybody who needs to know, will know. Teach them how to use it. And you will find that the actual result will be, that OpenOffice.org will increase productivity, because the number of usable features is higher. You have gained more value.

Another thing to consider is, to begin thinking about collaborative software. Take the Office thought a little bit further. How about spending money on collaboration instead of fancy features in desktop applications. Features that we use because they are there - not because we need them. If you implement OpenOffice.org and spend the license fee to buy good and solid software like Software from IBM Lotus, you will see your employees work together and find them think as a team instead of individual pieces. The jigsaw will soon show a very pretty picture: Pieces will come together.

Open source software is not about cutting down, but about spending differently.

Summary from OOoCon2007 in Barcelona (I)

The conference in general
I participated in the conference on behalf of the Danish OpenOffice.org community http://da.openffice.org and my journey was sponsored by
Sun
Symfoni Software Denmark
DOSS

I was invited to the conference to speak about the political process in Denmark regarding the Parliament resolution B103 and the implementation of the resolution.

The conference was held at the Barcelona University right in the middle of Barcelona. It couldn't be more central and the University gave us a perfect frame for both formal and unformal meetings. The conference was arranged by the Catalonian language project and SoftCatala http://www.softcatala.org .

The conference program was very tight and it was impossible to find the time for everything. Four tracks of presentations all day long. The most important thing for me was actually to meet all the people that I only knew from emails and blogposts. To meet these people face to face was very important and I got an impression of how huge and complex the organization behind an open source project like OpenOffice.org is.

Overview of available information
All presentations are available under each day: http://marketing.openoffice.org/ooocon2007/programme.html

I will emphasize the Keynote speak of Louis Suárez-Potts, the community manager for OpenOffice.org: http://marketing.openoffice.org/ooocon2007/programme/wednesday_186.pdf

Here is film recording of some of the sessions: http://ooocon.kiberpipa.org/ with photos.

Here is a subset of the pictures taken:: http://flickr.com/photos/tags/ooocon2007/show/

Here is my own presentation from the conference: http://marketing.openoffice.org/ooocon2007/programme/wednesday_79.pdf

I also participated in a debate on the subject ODF Impact on Industry and Governments: http://marketing.openoffice.org/ooocon2007/programme/friday_179.pdf arranged by Donald Harbison (Program Director, ODF Initiative / IBM ).

IBM Symphony - is it out of date ?

John McCreesh writes about IBM Symphony on his blog today here in Barcelona. He discovered that IBM Lotus Symphony, which is a very new product, is actually a modified version af OpenOffice.org 1.1.4. See http://www.mealldubh.org/index.php/2007/09/20/legal-but/.

IBM Lotus Symphony is exactly the same implementation as in Lotus Notes 8.

IBM Lotus Notes 8

...or ND8 as we prefer to call it, was released last Friday. I've been trying it out for some time now, and I must say that it looks great. I am looking forward to go deeper into the designer client as soon as I get some time.

I have already looked at two parts:

1. composite applications
2. productivity tools

The ability to create composite applications will be a very strong feature some day. The problem is, that Lotus Notes is no longer a so called rapid development environment. To create composite applications, you actually must be a hardcore programmer.

And I am very happy that Lotus Notes now comes with productivity tools and support for ODF (open document format).

Some day I hope to be able to ask IBM a few questions:

1. When can we expect Lotus Notes rich text to be native stored as ODF ?
2. Is it possible to import ODF documents into a Notes rich text field ?
3. Why wont IBM Lotus say, that productivity tools is actually a clone/fork of OpenOffice.org ?
   Please see my blogpost here
   
4. When can expect IBM staff to use their own applications at work, e.g. product presentations and text documents ?
   I'm tired of seeing IBM staff do presentations with an application like You-know-who Powerpoint. When are you ready to take your own medicine ?

Any way: congratulations. I believe that Notes 8 will be a success.

Symfoni integrates OpenOffice with Lotus Notes

I recently wrote about integration of OpenOff.org (ODF) in Lotus Notes. Now I have made a few screen shuts to give you an idea of how it works.




This is a good example that shows that ODF-integration is possible and we will probably see more examples in the futire.

In the coming weeks I'll try to make some screen shots of how the templates and field mapping works.

Here is a single image:

Arrgh... problems with my calendar sync again

I'm using the Mozilla Lightning plug-in for Thunderbird for calendaring. This, together with Google calendar has been a very fine solution for me for a long time. Specially after I found a small sync application called GCALDaemon to sync my local calendar with Google.

Yesterday, I upgraded my Lightning plug-in to version 0.5 and at the same time I installed another plug-in called 'Provider for Google Calendar'. This plug-in should be the native Google sync application in the future. So far so good. Upgrade and install and restarted Thunderbird. I also removed the GCALDaemon from my computer.

This is where Arrgh comes in to the picture. It didn't work. I could see my calendar entries for about five seconds, and then the calendar view was empty. I tried to remove both the provider-plug-in and my calendar accounts from Lightning and then installed it again. The funny thing was, that I couldn't remove the Provider thing . I gave up after about an hour and started to plan how to reinstall GCALDaemon.

Then today, when I started my computer, I got some weird warnings from Thunderbird. I found that my calendar accounts had reappeared and I could actually see my appointments ....for about five seconds.

I tried to remove that Provider thing again. No luck. After restarting Thunderbird, Provider was still there. Double arrgh.

Then I came to remember, that Thunderbird has an irritating problem, that when you close the program, it actually continues to run as a hidden service. Yes, Thunderbird was still running, even after I closed it. Kill Thunderbird. Start Thunderbird again. The provider thing was removed. Yes !

I installed Provider again and now I could see all my accounts and appointments. I can create appointments in Lightning and they are synchronized to Google. Fantastic.

Morale: Remember to close the application and kill the process in the process window. Closing and starting is not always a complete restart. Maybe some of the Mozilla guys could look into this problem one day ? Okay, I know that I'm a part of the problem, because I'm running Microsoft Windows. Bare with me.

Anyway, I must say that the Mozilla guys has done a great job this time. Bidirectional sync works fine and the layout has got a huge improvement. And now i can print my weekly and monthly calendar and put it on the refrigerator door together with the rest of my family plans.

I have been working with calendaring in Lotus applications for about ten years now. And I know how difficult it can be to visualize a calendar on a computer screen. Do you remember Organizer ? One of the first applications, that tried to visualize a calendar by copying the design from a manual calendar. I still think that concept could win awards today.

But still, the hard thing is to keep the environment running. I remember one of my customers, who wanted to keep half the staff on Lotus Notes and the other half on Microsoft Exchange. Imagine the question: Can we get an overview of all employee calendars ? Will it be possible to invite to a meeting across the applications ?

Converters and integration ended up being a nightmare. When we solved one problem, another fire new problems occurred. That was about four years ago.

Open standards could solve the problem today. With iCal and WebDAW it would be quite easy to establish a common platform for both Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange calendars.

Integrating OpenOffice.org in Lotus Notes ...

One of the objections from Microsoft, against ODF as a single document standard, isthat ODF doesn't support what they call smart fields for data transmission and calculations. Well, we know that this is just another lie from the Microsoft FUD machine. We, from the Danish community made a very clear complaint to the Parliament about this.

Now is one of the first proves on the way from a Scandinavian software company: Symfoni Software.

Next release of Symfoni eOffice is planned in June 2007 and here you will see one of the first implementations of complete integration of ODF in a Notes based document management system.

ODF support will be a native part of other applications from Symfoni in the future, e.g. a quality management system, called QMS.

This is the prove of the fact, that ODF can easily be integrated in other applications like Notes based applications.

The product
http://www.symfoni.no/symfoniweb/sym001.nsf/$all/5C4B3E03969A0F98C1257300005A587A
http://www.symfonisoftware.com/symfoniweb/sym010.nsf/pages/produktspek.html?open&prodkey=eoffice.

EOffice is a Lotus Notes based collaboration platform, witch gives you the opportunity to work together on correspondence and documents in the center, and work from you customer database, employee database or whatever. Create documents and store them in a centralized container and still keep track of your work.

I'll come up with some screen shots as soon as possible.

The company
The company I work for is Symfoni Software.

http://www.symfonisoftware.com Symfoni is a Scandinavian IBM Business Partner and we are working with Lotus Notes/IBM Rational development and education. One of our standard Lotus Notes products is eOffice.