Click thru for details on this IBM event, scheduled for
June 9, 2010 @ 11AM Eastern!

I was contacted today by the team at Silanis who gave me a heads-up on their most recent product offering: e-SignDoc and e-SignRoom for IBM LotusLive.

Sean Poulley mentioned during an interview a while back that (I'm not quoting, since I lost my notes...) the strength of the LotusLive platform was both it's ability for the IBM Business Partner network to create awesome 3rd-party add-ons to the service and also to allow LotusLive to go behind the firewall and integrate with the in-house technology. He put it much more poetically than I just did, but that was the basic idea.

After just completing a project which required that I print a web-based form to sneakernet-style signatures... I can not stress the importance of e-signatures in web-based workflow applications! e-SignDoc and e-SignRoom services look like a decent solution to handle e-signatures in the LotusLive cloud!

For more information, check out eSignLive.Silanis.com.

Big news coming from IBM regarding Lotus Live:

IBM LotusLive Expands with Business Tools and Services from UPS, Skype, Salesforce.com and Silanis to Serve Growing Demand for Cloud Computing

April 14, 2010 -- ARMONK, NY -- IBM (NYSE:IBM) today announced it is addressing the growing demand for business-focused collaboration by adding new tools and services, language support and pricing to its LotusLive cloud services, including integrated business products and services from UPS, SkypeTM, salesforce.com and Silanis. IBM will also offer the first cloud service package combining social networking and email for business for $7.

Click thru for the complete press release and my thoughts on LotusLive!

Clint Boulton writes about IBM's latest cloud/SaaS offering -- LotusLive iNotes -- and how this new offering from IBM Lotus is "a blatant attack on Google's cloud computing-based messaging and collaboration applications". IBM, which the article reports, is setting the price at $3/User/Month ($36/User/Year) which does appear to not only directly compete with but undercut Google Premier pricing of $4.16^/User/Month ($50/User/Year). $14/User/Year in savings - and that can quickly add up when you understand that target audience for these services: the SMB and mom-and-pop-shop businesses. But I wonder -- what would really make LotusLive iNotes a killer solution?

Well, I've not been quiet regarding my recent epiphany in regards to the Apple iPhone/Touch -- in a numbers game where you're more than likely to only get single-digit percentages of the marketshare, it's just good business and simple math to go for the largest marketshare. In the case of the Apple iPhone/Touch, it's the platform - which is why you see so many applications being written for the Apple App Store: even if you only sell to 1% of the entire iPhone/Touch marketshare (something like 50 million), you're hitting over 500,000 consumers. So, take a $1.99 product and sell it to just 1%, and with the Apple App Store profit sharing model you're bringing in over $500,000USD!

With the release of Lotus Traveler 8.5.1, we now completely support the iPhone. Google Gmail Premier customers - while they have various options for accessing their email - are stuck with IMAP for the iPhone. If IBM wanted to make their LotusLive iNotes offering a truly killer solution, they would pitch this to the device that most consumers (who work for these SMB/mom-and-pop-shops) are using: the iPhone.

The competitive marketing material practically writes itself here. This isn't even considering that Traveler also supports S60 and Windows Mobile; it's BYO-mobile device, and you get out-of-the-box native support for your newly hosted LotusLive iNotes messaging and collaboration investment.

... and it shouldn't be that difficult, since Lotus Greenhouse - another Connections implementation - is now running Traveler 8.5.1 and thus supporting not only S60 and Windows Mobile, but also the iPhone!

I'm checking with a few people on the IBM side to see if this is even possible (I admittedly don't know everything!), but I have to image that the bolt-on of Traveler 8.5.1 would introduce such potential interest by consumers that it would be a no-brainer to implement this yesterday and get as much consumer-facing marketing around this offering.

You are cordially invited to the Lotus Technical Information and Education community kickoff!  Our community consists of IBMers, business partners and customers who contribute to or use technical information for Lotus & WebSphere Portal products, as well as those who have worked with the Lotus Information Development Center to provide feedback to help improve our offerings.

I believe I will be - despite all logic and good taste - speaking as the LTIEC Lead Advocate. So feel free to attend to hear about our community building strategy and learn how you can get involved, as well as listen to me stagger through being given the mic and trying not to sound too foolish!

Get more information on the LTIEC's team blog including the date, times, and call-in information!