This is the first of my posts from the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston. I plan to do small, summary style posts with my opinion. I will also provide links that point back to the core content on the conference website.
There’s a backchannel that everyone can participate in, whether or not they are at the conference. Just choose the session you’re interested in and join the chat.
The first session today was a joint presentation from IBM and Microsoft to showcase their respective collaboration platforms. Let’s get this straight from the get go – both platforms, deployed and tuned well, will make collaboration easier in your organisation. Cultural issues notwithstanding (and they are by far the most critical issue).
IBM led off and showed off their Lotus Connections platform first. Compelling presenter. Nice organisation. Sweet looking tools – especially the functional social graph.
Microsoft followed after the break with SharePoint. First three slides… text. Presenters… technical and not compelling. The whole presentation was very email-centric and heavy lifting. No wonder people complain about SharePoint.
Microsoft lost audience during their presentation, which is a shame. SharePoint is powerful, but like a lot of other products from the company, it’s heavy-lifting and will be hard for regular, non-technical users to adopt without massive customisation by skilled technical implementers. I have no doubt that Connections is no different, but it didn’t feel that way.
The backchannel for this session is here.
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I have often asked the question whether the big boys even get it. I don’t understand how you can have a product that requires a large install and has a lot of ‘must have’ complicated layers and then call yourself Enterprise 2.0 or even Web 2.0
But I think they are an evolution for companies to other products. You get some comfort with having MS and Big Blue under your belt; this will get more people familiar with the concepts and reasoning for Web & Enterprise 2.0, and then we will see more adoption of the lightweight products. Its inevitable….
Great summary! As an IBMer I get excited when non-IBMers find our tools so easy to use! I’ll stay in touch!