Lotus Connections News & Articles

It has taken almost ten months to release, but IBM (news, site) has finally unveiled Lotus Connections v3.0, which includes advanced social media analytics and enhanced mobile access, as well as a number of new services that will help enterprises develop and deploy an effective social media presence.

Given that EntropySoft (news, site) has developed connectors for nearly all IBM (news, site) applications currently on the market, it was only a matter of time before the company released one for IBM’s social collaboration application Lotus Connections.

Oh to have been a fly on the wall at Lotusphere 2010 this past week. With what seemed like a never-ending ode to enterprise social computing, IBM (news, site) announced a number of updates and new projects that must have generated lots of excited whispers in the corners.

We know there's a growing need within organizations to provide collaboration tools to project teams and areas like marketing and sales. But development teams also want and need collaboration capabilities, just not in a separate tool, but rather in the tools they already use daily.

And Mainsoft has striven to provide those collaboration capabilities to development teams using Rational Jazz. In the past, they have connected SharePoint and Lotus Quickr to Rational Jazz for document collaboration.

Now they add new social capabilities to the development platform from IBM Lotus Connections. Currently a technology preview and developed in collaboration with IBM Lotus and IBM Rational, users of Rational Jazz now have direct access to Lotus Connections capabilities like blogs, wikis, profiles, activities and more.

Team Concert and Lotus Connections Integration

The integration also enables Team Concert users to directly micro-blog, provide status updates and search profiles.

Says Michael Loria, vice president of business development, IBM Rational Software:

By working closely with Mainsoft, IBM Rational and IBM Lotus are making it easy for developers to exchange experiences, thoughts, and ideas with technical and business experts throughout the enterprise – boosting collaboration and agility in the software delivery process.

And there you have it. Developers go forth and collaborate.

Lotus (news, site) updates its Connections software, adding more community features and collaboration tools. This new version looks primed to take on Microsoft SharePoint in the enterprise.

You may think they are coming from behind, but if the product demonstrations that occurred at Lotusphere are any indication, IBM is in the fast lane of Web 2.0 tools and technologies and must have been there for while.

From updates to Lotus Notes and Domino, to new versions of Lotus Connections and new products like Lotus Mashups, IBM is approaching Web 2.0 not from a cool technology standpoint – but from a business needs standpoint.

IBM has announced Lotus Connections, and makes claim that its the industry’s first platform for business social computing.

By providing a portal for users to gather and exchange information, Lotus Connections has a dashboard-like eye on current projects and aims to bring together users from the same communities, eliminating the need for multiple social software and collaboration applications.