Engage 2025: Lotus is back?!?!?

And a new Notes client is coming?!?! Read my report from this year’s Engage conference, where I also explain why HCL has a golden opportunity now that Microsoft are showing that they can lock you out from your own data whenever they want.

Wow, there’s life again on this blog! And that’s not the only note(s)worthy news: I’ve been doing more Domino related work in the past five months than I have in the past five years. You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave, eh?

We do have a Domino server at work in my day job, but I’m not really doing much work on it. Most of the work is done for other customers in the evenings and weekends as part of my side gig through my one-man company. And because of that, I decided to go to Engage again this year. I’ve been home for a week now, but unfortunately, I was struck down by a cold even before I had returned home, so it has taken me a bit long to write this summary.

I hadn’t really planned to go this year, but since I for the foreseeable future will be doing quite a bit of Domino work in my consultancy side gig, I decided to take a trip to the new Engage.

Last year Theo Heselmans, the founder and organiser for many, many years, stepped down as the organiser of Engage. He passed on the mantel to Kris De Bisschop and Tom Van Aken. Both are well known within the Domino community, and we were all convinced Theo did the right thing choosing them as heirs.

I did two presentations myself:

Richard Jefts, who is the head of everyone working on Notes/Domino, Connections, Sametime, Leap, Volt MX etc, did a short but to the point keynote. I liked the length of it and what he presented.

HCL Domino 14.5

HCL Domino 14.5 will be released on June 17^th (in the same timespan they’ve done four new versions, IBM didn’t do a single one)

Domino IQ will be an important element in this release. It’s a built-in local processing engine for language learning (AI, if you want to call it that). You can customize this language model or even use one of your own choosing. It provides LotusScript, Java and Rest APIs for developers.

You will also get better product accessibility, a better integration with Verse, Nomad, Sametime and Connections, collaborative file editing via DRAPI and fully automated server upgrades.

Here’s an example of what Domino IQ can do. This is a summary of a long email:

Domino License Dashboard is an app that will make it easier for you to have control over what types of licenses your organisation have (I hope it also will show what versions people are running):

There was also a lot of talk about Nomad, a product which makes it possible to run your Notes applications in the web browser or directly on your mobile device. Here are some of the things that were presented:

There was also an announcement of updates to HCL Verse Mobile, the email and calendaring app for Domino:

And then this was teased:

Yup. The Project Name is NotesNext, and that was the only screenshot we were shown in public. Some of us attended a “secret” session where the designer, S Schaedler, and product manager Tim Clark, showed us more details. However, we had to leave our cell phones by the door. In short: A better designed, lightweight Notes client may be on its way, most likely running on web technology. I’ve been under the impression that Nomad would be the Notes replacement, so I’m not sure how this will affect that client.

This is also the third time such a client has been teased, so I’m not holding my breath.

Sametime and Connections

I must admit that I’m surprised that these two products still exist, because nothing much has happened on the development front for a long time. And you don’t hear much about them from HCL anymore. Through the years I’ve helped many companies in Norway introduce Connections into their organisations, but none of them are using it anymore. A missed opportunity, which I will get more into towards the end of this posting.

Sametime V12.0.3 will be released in June and new features include:

Meeting transcripts
Mobile chat search
Reader receipts
Non-containerized chat

Connections V8 CR 10 is out now:

UI enhancements
API Modernisation
New engagement center

Lotus Workspace

And then this was announced:

Yes, it seems like the Lotus name is coming back. But this time as a cloud platform. I didn’t attend the session myself, but you can see what it’s about in this presentation.

HCL Digital have always given you the possibility to install their software on either your own private cloud solution, or on a cloud solution in your own country. From what I understand, Lotus Workspace will be their own cloud service (note: I might be mistaken about this), which I think is very smart. Remember, HCL isn’t an American company, it’s an Indian company. And considering that Microsoft has now shown that neither your personal data, nor your company’s data, are safe on their systems, this might be just what the market needs!

HCL have a golden opportunity here! Especially in the EU, Asia and Africa. In Germany, the authorities are going for Open Source alternatives. Imagine if HCL came to them and told them that they could have email, conference and collaboration software, running in a cloud in their own country or in the EU? This is possible for you to offer them!

At Engage, I spoke to someone who works with people from several African countries. He told me many of them were using HCL Notes/Domino. And this was for two reasons: 1. HCL aren’t a French company (which is very important for countries who suffered under French colonialism). 2. HCL aren’t from the West. Once again, HCL Digital: Strike now, while the iron’s hot!

There have been many of us who have been skeptical to trusting our data with Microsoft and Google. Their assurances that our data is stored in the EU, or Norway, rings very hollow after recent events.

If the US authorities command Microsoft to shut all Norwegian organisations out from their cloud solutions, my country would be screwed. Microsoft practically have a monopoly in Norway, so the government, defense, municipalities, media, banks and even private people would lose access to their data. And considering what Microsoft did to one of the prosecutors of the International Criminal Court, that is certainly not a fantasy scenario.

And with HCL Connections, HCL have a product where they can offer:

A social intranet with a news feed
Communities (as replacement for SharePoint sites)
Forums
Wikis
Integration with Office products (which I really hope they will extend to Libre Office as well)
File sharing with version control

The rest of it

One of the most important things about Engage is to meet up with old friends, and while there were fewer familiar faces this year, I got to hang out with a bunch of them. I also got to go to the beach, take trams, walk in beautiful parks, eats lots of good food and give my two presentations.

I also managed to get to know some new friends, which is always nice. Congratulations to Kris and Tom for a job well done! And thank you to my good friend Roberto for the incredible cool mug he had custom made for me: