Last month, there was a press release announcing the new version (2.0) of the BlackBerry Client for Lotus Connections. While the press release was a bit confusing, it announced that the new client would be available on May 8th. What wasn't clear is that it was only going to be available to select customers.
Earlier today, I stumbled upon this great demo by Fred Clarke which gives a tour of the new client capabilities.
One of the most distinctive changes in this new client is that we now have native applications for all of the Lotus Connections modules. In the 1.x version of the client, only Profiles and Dogear had native applications, the rest required you to launch the browser, which was, at times, slow.
From the looks of the demo, the interaction is extermely fast. I believe this new client will be very powerful for our customers and their mobile workforce. This is definitely going to enhance Enterprise2.0 for the mobile world, something that I haven't seen any other Enterprise2.0 vendors doing. And this is a nice complement to the new mobile interface for iPhone users.
Enjoy! (and thanks to RIM for doing this for us!)
Luis - looks great, but why is this not an app that I can get from Blackberry App World TODAY - this limited release stuff is crap
ReplyDeleteI agree with what John said above. This 'limited' release to special clients is a joke. I think IBM should be rewarding ALL of it's Lotus Connections clients who have had to suffer with a crummy 1.0 Blackberry Lotus Connections software with the new release. Hmmm...I wonder if Jive would do this?
ReplyDeleteSince IBM doesn't have any control over this.. I hope someone from RIM is reading your comments.
ReplyDeleteThanks Luis...I did not realize that Blackberry made this decision. I read the press release on the IBM site and since it was for Lotus Connections I thought IBM would have some say. I guess not.
ReplyDeleteLooks like I will have to look for a RIM blog on this topic.
Thanks for responding.
I talked to the RIM folks to get the details. Key points are:
ReplyDelete1. The solution requires the SNAPS server to manage the data connection between Connections and the client through BES, so this can't just be a Apps World or client-only deployment.
2. The SNAPS server is a lightweight Tomcat based solution and will be sold through IBM and should have a regular part number, assuming IBM doesn't just provide it as an entitlement.
Hey! That's my buddy Fred Clarke! Nice job as always Fred!
ReplyDelete