Web 2.0 and Cloud technologies are transforming the collaboration software market, with Lotus the latest major player to step into the game with recently announced Project Vulcan.
Vulcan is Lotus' vision for a platform of online and on-premises capabilities integrated via an open framework on the back end and by analytic software on the front end. Elements of Project Vulcan will first appear in LotusLive in late 2010. Other pieces will appear in future versions of IBM offerings, including LotusLive, Lotus Notes and Domino, Lotus Connections, Lotus Sametime, Quickr and WebSphere Portal.
Vulcan will provide user profiles; geographic location; awareness of users place in social networks; recommendations from colleagues; seamless connection among various modes of communication (such as e-mail, instant messaging and social applications) and relevant documents and data; and clustering of content for users, based on content, authors, relationships and activities.
Traditional rival Microsoft is headed toward a similar collaboration strategy as are Google and Cisco. There are also new entrants to the collaborative software market, such as VMware, which recently bought Zimbra from Yahoo or Salesforce.com with its Chatter Cloud offering.
Paradigms shifting?
So what are IBM/Lotus' prospects in this space? “We believe Vulcan presents a paradigm shift to supplement and maybe replace the old folder/document metaphor,” suggests David Mario Smith, senior research analyst at Gartner. “IBM envisions an environment, accessed through PCs, smart phones and other devices, which automatically categorizes, organizes, sequences, suggests and adapts to the user's needs. Vulcan would help users manage what they pay attention to by consolidating all information and process streams in the environment so that users can find what they need at their fingertips. These capabilities would allow Vulcan to sort out the flood of information that deluges users today so that they receive a complete picture of what they need to know in order to respond and add value.”
Gartner expects that the first complete instance of Vulcan will appear in the next major release of Lotus Notes in late 2011 or 2012. “IBM will likely eventually use it in all its user-oriented offerings, not just its Lotus products,” predicts Mario Smith. “IBM has many interesting technology pieces with which to form Vulcan, and multiple points of integration across its software portfolio to enable the different Vulcan components to work together. Nevertheless, we are not yet convinced that users will quickly adopt new ways of working. Also, IBM will need time to prepare some of the advanced contextual services for the market. We believe that IBM is soft-pedalling its Vulcan vision to Lotus customers so as not to upset its installed base. IBM needs to better articulate the benefits for users of this new paradigm.”
One reason for the IBM/Lotus push is an awareness that the enterprise collaboration market has evolved well beyond its on premise roots. “IBM's extensive range of collaboration offerings is becoming too complex for the Cloud Computing model and the traditional transactional sales channel,” notes Richard Edwards of research firm Ovum. “Despite leading the field in terms of functionality and technology capability, IBM is still punching way below its weight in terms of market impact, compared to the likes of Microsoft. Although user sentiment is picking up, the Lotus brand is still suffering from the perceived lack of investment and direction from IBM in the early part of the last decade.”
Upping the game
Edwards sees signs of IBM/Lotus upping its game with Vulcan. “After languishing in the doldrums for a number of years and leading some of its enterprise customers down a blind alley with its Workplace strategy, IBM has returned to the enterprise collaboration market with a formidable portfolio of products and services,” he argues. “Web-native collaboration solutions are continuing to grow in popularity among the twenty-something 'net generation', and these offerings are starting to cross over into the world of business. IBM's Cloud collaboration offering, LotusLive, has been developing steadily since its introduction last year, but the company has recognised that more urgency is needed, and so IBM Research (under the guise of LotusLive Labs) has been brought in to move things along.”
The Cloud Computing agenda is clearly a major influencer here. “In a move designed to meet the threat of Google and Microsoft head-on in the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) market, the next version of the LotusLive Notes service will be optimised to support hybrid on-premise and Cloud deployment,” notes Edwards. “Established enterprise collaboration vendors face a tricky period as the market for Cloud-based solutions matures and expands, because the product portfolios of these vendors are comprised of software solutions written for an altogether different architectural model. Re-engineering these solutions to support Cloud and hybrid deployments is proving to be no mean feat. Ovum believes it will be another two years, at least, before existing offerings run natively in this complex environment.”
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