Al Zollar, President and CEO of IBM`s Lotus Development Corp., today opened Lotusphere 2001 to 10,000 of the company`s customers and business partners. Zollar articulated Lotus` vision of next-generation collaborative solutions that help businesses and communities close the gaps between people and knowledge. Lotus made announcements today with several customers, including Philips International, Research in Motion (RIM) and Telstra Corporation.
"Customers need greater speed, enhanced agility and better ways to share their knowledge assets," said Zollar. "By providing our customers with solutions that allow them to close the gap between what they know, and what they need to know in order to be successful and act on that knowledge, we`re helping them achieve what I call `knowledge transparency.`"
Citing a broad range of new Lotus technologies and services that extend the category of collaboration software, including Lotus Collaboration Services, the Domino Everyplace Server family, the Lotus Knowledge Discovery System and IBM Mindspan e-learning solutions, Zollar said that Lotus is singularly focused on providing ubiquitous, transparent and synchronous access to corporate knowledge, enabling individuals to stay "in the know" and "work with the mind of the many."
The Lotus Knowledge Discovery System, a solution that combines the Lotus Discovery Server and Lotus K-station, allows organizations to discover, classify and manage knowledge and transform information into valuable assets. e-learning solutions from the IBM Mindspan Solutions unit have helped organizations accelerate their rate of learning. The addition of the wireless Internet to this mix is key to bringing knowledge transparency to a global scale. With its introduction today of the Domino Everyplace Server family, Lotus has delivered a set of wireless content solutions that extend critical information to mobile devices, connecting organizations, customers and partners on an anytime, anywhere basis. Lotus` wireless initiative was highlighted by a RIM announcement of the first availability of Mobile Notes on a wireless device, the RIM Blackberry pager.
Lotus is announcing its own hosted service, Lotus Collaboration Services, direct to customers and business partners. For enterprise customers, the service will offer a choice of two methods by which organizations may subscribe to hosted collaborative services directly from Lotus. The first will allow organizations to subscribe to a single, integrated hosted solution which provides secure instant messaging, e-meetings and virtual workspace capabilities. The second, Lotus embedded collaboration modules, will allow customers and Lotus Business Partners to subscribe to specific hosted functionality - such as instant messaging or instant e-meetings - as links to embed within the context of a Web page or within a solution such as customer relationship management or supply chain management.
Lotus reinforced its leadership in the knowledge management area with its delivery of Lotus K-station and the Lotus Discovery Server, integral components of the Lotus Knowledge Discovery System. These technologies enable users to collaborate with experts and quickly locate information relevant to a specific task or project, ensuring that the relevant knowledge base is shared and made transparent to the right people, at the right time. Philips International is the latest customer to announce its plans to leverage Lotus` complete knowledge management solution to build the backbone of the company`s next generation knowledge management infrastructure. Lotus also assisted Philips in completely redesigning its messaging and collaboration infrastructure, using Lotus Notes and Domino, QuickPlace and Sametime technologies and its internal education system, using Lotus` e-learning solution, LearningSpace.
Lotusphere 2001, which runs through January 18th, provides attendees with a forum for sharing technical and business knowledge about successful implementations of solutions from Lotus and its partners around the world. The conference also showcases hundreds of Lotus and Lotus Alliance Partners` solutions for e-business and collaborative commerce in the Lotusphere 2001 Exhibition Hall.
Share
Lotus Development Corp.
Lotus Development Corporation, founded in 1982, is a subsidiary of IBM Corporation. Lotus sets the standard for truly innovative software products and services that reflect the company`s unique understanding of the new ways in which individuals and businesses must work together to achieve success. Lotus is redefining the concept of conducting business through practical knowledge management, e-business and other ground-breaking ways of connecting the world`s ideas, thinkers, buyers, sellers and communities via the Internet. Lotus markets its products in more than 80 countries worldwide through direct and extensive Business Partner channels. The company also provides numerous professional consulting, support and education services through the Lotus Professional Services organization.