Websphere News & Articles

IBM is like a weather vane; it points the way the wind is blowing, at least in information management. For that reason, its financial results are important. Q4 results released late last night, showing an increase of revenues by 2% to US$ 29.5 billion, are no exception, especially when its CFO Mark Loughbirdge indicated that 2012 looks like it will produce a Big Blue buying spree, just like 2010.

The rise in demand for mobile applications and web applications can put a strain on data centers and bandwidth. To address the need to improve performance in cloud computing, IBM (news, site) and Akamai (news, site) have developed the WebSphere Application Accelerator, which will improve performance of web and cloud applications through distributed computing.

Depending on where you go, the release date is either in June, or in late July. But let’s just stick for the moment with IBM’s (news, site) own version of things, which says the release of Java application server WebSphere 8 (WAS) will be soon.

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 all know that SharePoint (MOSS) is being heavily used for basic document management and collaboration services. We also know that the software is often deployed in an environment where it must be integrated with other technologies like content management systems and portals — why else would so many Enterprise CMS vendors cooking-up nifty connectors and building repository bridges?

The message is clear: Knowledge workers the world over are putting a lot of digital stuff into MOSS and if your tech can’t talk MOSS, you’re liable to be left out in the cold.

IBM recently announced plans to bring some nifty Google Gadgetry into their rather stodgy sounding commercial portal software. Free to WebSphere Portal and WebSphere Portal Express v6.0+ users, customers will now have the ability to create, customize and use Rich Internet Applications (RIA) with Google Gadgets directly from within Portal framework.

Sorry, thought I'd try my hand at catchy titles. Was that catchy? Anyhow, I've long wondered how long the Lotus Domino platform would survive. Here's a definitive answer: its being phased out and migrated towards WebSphere/Java/DB2.

The future of Lotus software is to be the user interface to IBM's software technologies.

No surprises here. But a deep install base, developer and customer loyalty, and massive pre-existing investments require slow, steady, and cost-effective migrations. The end of life for Domino is sure to be a ways out.