IBM Lotus Quickr

At Enterprise 2.0, IBM today announced the availability of IBM Lotus Quickr, team collaboration software that includes IBM's first commercially available wiki and integration with everyday office applications from Lotus and Microsoft.

A common challenge among business computer users is that they are forced to leave their favorite application environment to collaborate with users inside or outside their company. Although new social computing tools are making collaboration easier than before, wikis and blogs are often used as standalone applications, making software integration and team productivity difficult.

Lotus Quickr offers a simple team collaboration model with a shared content library, team workspaces, wikis, blogs and business templates that are easy to use and can be extended to include other new social networking elements such as bookmarking and tagging.

A recent Forrester survey of 119 CIOs stated a "strong desire to purchase Web 2.0 technologies -- blogs, wikis, podcasts, RSS, social networking and tagging -- as a suite, as well as an equally strong desire to purchase these technologies from large, incumbent software vendors. Overall, 61% of respondents indicated that they would prefer both a suite solution and a large, incumbent vendor."

At the heart of Lotus Quickr are connectors, mini-applications that integrate Quickr capabilities with other everyday applications. For example, users can easily access designated content directly from IBM Lotus Notes, Lotus Sametime, Microsoft Windows Explorer and Microsoft Office software and store it within a Quickr shared library. Additionally, IBM plans to expand Lotus Quickr's interoperability by providing a connector to Microsoft Outlook email software later this year.

"Lotus Quickr is an extremely competitive content and collaboration product that can be extended and customized to meet specific business and industry needs," said Daniel Lieber, president of Innovative Ideas Unlimited, Inc, an IBM Business Partner. "The Lotus Quickr interface is clean, consistent, and straight-forward. We found it to be very efficient for working with collaborative content and accomplishing tasks in a personal, workgroup, departmental, or enterprise environment."

"Lotus Quickr integrates key Web 2.0 components, offering businesses new ways to collaborate and easily access the content they need," said Ken Bisconti, vice president of Lotus messaging and collaboration software, IBM. "Lotus Quickr can be used by teams with varied working styles and different levels of technical expertise. It appeals to both workers ready to embrace new Web 2.0 content tools as well as those who are more comfortable working with content within the familiar Microsoft Windows Explorer interface."

Key benefits of Lotus Quickr include:

• Web 2.0 features that enhance usability: IBM has incorporated Web 2.0 technologies such as AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) into Lotus Quickr to deliver a high performing, graphical, Web-based user interface that is easily customizable by the average user. This Web 2.0 interface includes popular Web features such as right-click dynamic action menus and easy drag and drop options to help move documents in and out of team spaces. Lotus Quickr provides the ability to publish team blogs, use the built-in wiki technology for creating content, and assign tags and permalinks for archiving. A key Web 2.0 feature is the use of an advanced content syndication tool to both publish and consume Atom-based news feeds.
• Support for open standards that provide choice and flexibility: Lotus Quickr integrates with Microsoft Office 2003 and 2007, Microsoft Windows Explorer on Windows XP and Windows Vista, IBM Lotus Notes 7 and 8 (with planned support for Lotus Notes 6.5) and Lotus Sametime 7.5. Lotus Quickr supports Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari browsers, providing Web access from Windows, Linux, and Macintosh desktops. IBM plans to release migration and coexistence tools that will allow users to access content in existing Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange public folders. Additionally, users will be able to move the same content out of Microsoft repositories into Lotus Quickr where it can be easily accessed and widely shared.
• Business application templates that support business processes: Lotus Quickr includes out-of-the-box business templates such as project management, image repository, dynamic surveys and more. All templates are customizable, allowing users to easily change the look and feel and add pre- built components, such as a team blog, a project calendar or announcement page.
• Enhancements to help maintain the integrity of shared documents: When documents are sent from a single user to a group for feedback, the process of tracking edits and changes over email can be inefficient and prone to error. Document and application templates allow users to share ideas as they collaborate, tracking changes as they take place. Lotus Quickr software's wiki technology provides an in-line web editing option that allows a user to revert back to an earlier version of a page.
• Quick start and help features: Lotus Quickr makes it easy for any team member to get up and running with simple instructions on how to get started and tutorial style wizards that guide the user. Lotus Quickr also features helpful pop-ups that remind the user when they can opt to put a document inside a shared place rather than send it as an attachment.

Future planned enhancements to Lotus Quickr include integration with IBM's enterprise content management (ECM) systems. Customers will be able to use Lotus Quickr to collaborate on content and leverage IBM FileNet P8 and IBM DB2 Content Manager information management capabilities.

Suggested retail price for Lotus Quickr is USD $70 per user. The IBM Lotus CEO (Complete Enterprise Option) Community Collaboration bundle that includes Lotus Quickr, Lotus Connections, and Lotus Sametime is available at a suggested retail price of USD $195 per user.

Source: IBM