On December 4th 2019, HCL launched Notes/Domino V11, Sametime V11 and HCL Connections 6.5 with a worldwide launch party. This was done with the help of business partners having their own local launch parties. This is a report from my employer iSi’s event.
The event
I arranged one of the two Norwegian launch parties via my employer, iSi AS. We are an HCL business partner. We invited both our Notes/Domino and web based Domino customers.
First I held a presentation about the story of Notes, Domino and Sametime, and told about the takeover. I also talked about the relationship we have with our customers.
We are located in a small village in a small municipality in Norway, and are very close to our customers, on all levels.
We then saw the video from Tokyo, and had a discussion afterwards, where I gave a demo of some of the details that wasn’t covered by the webcast from Tokyo.
We finished off by showing V2 of our Domino module based product called iBricks 2.0. This is a system for managing projects, archiving files (integrated with Office 365), archiving of mail, managing mailing lists, administering your homepage and several other functions.
In the next version we are moving out of the Notes client, completely, apart from the integration with the email template.
Main points
Here are the main points about Notes/Domino:
- Notes/Domino V11 og Sametime V11 will be released December 20th
- The first release will not be in Norwegian (and that’s all I’m gonna say about that, for the time being)
- It will be possible to integrate Sametime V11 several third party video conferencing systems. Teams support is expected in V12 in late 2020
- The Notes client has been re-designed with new colors, a new design and with new forms for email and calendar
- The Notes client will be released in the following editions:
- Full version
- A lightweight version running in the browser, as if it was a full Notes client, without you needing to change a single thing in your Notes apps
- An email and calendar only client
- A mobile client called Nomad, where you can run your Notes apps without a single code or design change
- You will from now on be able to create users in Windows Active Directory and then sync those to the Domino server, no longer will you need to create the same user twice
- The internet password can be set to follow the Notes id, meaning only one password
- V11 is the last version with iNotes as webmail. From V12 webmail will be HCL Verse, which shares the name with the mobile app for email and calendar
- Sametime now has persistent chat so that you can have a continuous conversation across several devices
HCL also announced new changes to Connections. See the video below.
The biggest news was probably Volt. This is a product that makes it possible for you to create your own web and mobile based applications, very fast. You can even connect it to third party systems, as long as they have an API. See the video below.
Videos
Presentation of Domino V11
Here’s the Domino portion of the launch:
Demo of Sametime V11
Here’s the demo of the new version of Sametime. This was not shown during the launch:
Demo of Nomad
Here is a demo on how you can run your applications directly on a pad or cellphone, without any need for redesign or code changes. This demo was not shown during the launch:
Domino Volt
This is a demo of Volt, which makes it easy to create your own apps on Domino. This is a video that expands upon the demo from the launch:
New email experience on Domino V11:
Denne videoen viser alle ulike måter du bruker e-post og kalender på i V11. Du får også se det nye designet i Notes V11. Dessverre ligger ikke videoen på Youtube enda, men du kan se den her etter å ha skrevet inn navn og e-post.
HCL Connections 6.5
Here’s the presentation of Connections:
After the event
After the launch from Tokyo, we had a good discussion with our customers, before we demoed iBricks V2.
The feedback from the customers after the event was very good, and several of them said they were reassured about HCL’s commitment.
I’ll put it on the list of successes, this one!