Greetings from Lotusphere!
Yes, as the team releases the beta of 2007 tools, I am here in Orlando suffering through all the sunlight and warmth...
I've been attending Lotusphere since it started 14 years ago, but only as a Microsoft employee for the last two. Last year was shortly after I joined Microsoft, so I was pretty nervous about how people would approach me, but this year, I'm not nervous at all! (Also, no one has thrown anything at me....yet.) This has been a really good conference so far - John Glenn Neil Armstrong was the opening speaker at the Keynote yesterday morning and I got to learn and see the upcoming Lotus products and hear IBM declare that Lotus Notes is now the official email product from IBM.
What's been different this year from a Microsoft perspective is the number of people approaching me and telling me that they are changing their business model to incorporate SharePoint 2007 into their business plans and practices. A couple of business partners mentioned to me that they are really impressed with it and are beginning to develop and work with SharePoint as a new part of their business. This reinforces my belief that the new version of SharePoint really is well thought out and makes sense for any collaborative environment - and to hear others who have been involved in collaborative technology agreeing with me always makes me happy (anyone agreeing with me generally makes me happy, by the way). I'd recommend anyone that is considering IBM Websphere Portal to take a look at what Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 , Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (aka "MOSS") and Office 2007 have to offer. (You can use earlier versions of Office as the fat client for SharePoint, but you don't get all of the kewl features unless you're using the latest and greatest, of course).
Also, I've noticed a bunch of people are posting questions and issues with the beta on here as comments. You'll get a lot quicker and better response if you post them in the Feedback mechanism on the Connect site where you downloaded the software from. That automatically generates tracking issues\bugs that get routed to the appropriate folks to investigate.
If you're at Lotusphere and have any questions about SharePoint or the beta tools, feel free to grab me!
Later,
Amy
Edited 2/3 cause I mixed up my astronauts.
Comments
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
The comment has been removedAnonymous
January 01, 2003
I mixed up my astronauts. I was definitely there though...Here's my haiku I gave to Rocky Oliver when we were talking in the Developers Lab: http://lotusgeek.com/SapphireOak/LotusGeekBlog.nsf/d6plinks/ROLR-6XQPHS#comments Lotusphere is fun! It's all different now; my badge says Microsoft Or, you can check with some of the folks I was hanging out with - you know, like Ed Brill (http://www.edbrill.com) or Alan Lepofksy (http://www.alanlepofsky.com)... :-)Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Amy, I would really like to talk to you while you're at Lotusphere! Where can I find you? My e-mail address is on my blog. -- CharlesAnonymous
January 01, 2003
Hi Amy, You have finally beaten my record! I had attended the last 13 Lotuspheres in a row, but this year I have stayed home to keep working on Proposion Portal Adapter 2.0 for Lotus Notes and SharePoint 2007 (only three weeks to the European SharePoint Conference in Berlin!). Peter and Tim have gone to Lotusphere in my place and are showing five products for integrating Notes and SharePoint. Please visit them at pedestal #727 and say hi for me. I am excited about your new generation of tools. This is clearly a platform that we as ISVs will want to plug our technologies into. Congrats to Erik, Ed and the team. -Steve Walch Proposion Software