Tomorrow sees the first unveiling of IBM Notes/Domino V10. Personally I’m really looking forward to it and on October 23rd we will have our own unveiling in Norway, arranged by us in the Norwegian IBM Collaboration Software Group (ISBG). Now that HCL has taken over the development of the the IBM Collaboration Software portfolio, they have started slowly revealing their plans for the Domino platform.
A lot of people are wondering why IBM Connections wasn’t part of the deal between IBM and HCL when the two companies agreed on the future of the IBM Domino product family. Personally, I think HCL Places is why they didn’t also take Connections.
HCL only teased us with HCL Places at the Engage user group meeting in May. At ICON UK in September, they showed us a full-fledged demo. The demo, which was made in cooperation with Red Pill Now, looked like this:
In short: HCL Places lets you access your newsfeed, email, calendar, chat, files, and so on. The product will also be very easy to integrate with all third-party platforms and apps that have an API.
While HCL says HCL Places is not intended to replace the Notes client, everything about it screams that’s just what such a product will do.