SharePoint has been a $1 Billion success for Microsoft although the platform is still struggling with enterprise-wide adoption due to integration and scalability issues. IBM Lotus is hoping to stop/slow SharePoint’s growth with Quickr’s enterprise grade scale (J2EE, WebSphere, DB2) and attractive web 2.0 features that tightly integrate not only with Lotus Notes 8 but also with Microsoft Office.

Enterprise customers will certainly benefit as this competition heats up.

Technorati Tags: quickr, sharepoint, content integration

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QPresent is a workflow driven Quickr template that enables multiple users to review and comment on presentations, such as PowerPoint, all through a web browser.

“… you can collect comments from your team on every single slide in a presentation, without ever having to email the big bloated PPT file around, and you never have to worry about merging random comments sent in email or versions of a file. And because it’s all in a Lotus Quickr place, there’s only one copy to worry about. Oh, and it’s secure. “

What got my attention and seems to set Quickr and QPresent apart from other existing solutions is the ability to annotate individual slides as well as the easy configuration of an approval workflow.

Many IT departments don’t realize how much PowerPoint email “ping-pong” is contributing to the overall email traffic and storage demands. Web based collaboration tools, such as Quickr, can help in removing that load from the mail system. Employees will likely embrace this solution, as it makes their lives easier by eliminating the tedious task of soliciting and consolidating feedback via email.

Technorati Tags: Rob Novak, Lotus Quickr, QPresent

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As a refresher: Lotus Quickr is positioned as the natural evolution of Lotus QuickPlace. By tightly integrating the existing document management capabilities of QuickPlace with the realtime collaboration features of Sametime and Notes, IBM is aiming to bring the product on par with archrival Microsoft SharePoint.

Lotus Connections aims to set the standard for a completely new class of solutions. Branded as: “The Industry’s First Ready-For-Business Social Software”, Connections is bringing behind-the-firewall a compelling mix of Web 2.0 apps found on the web as the likes of: LinkedIn, Blogger and del.icio.us.

Technorati Tags: lotus, quickplace, quickr, sametime, notes, sharepoint

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As Stuart points out:

“Of course there have been many attempted solutions to this, from formal document management or content management products at the high-end through to document libraries or fileshares at the low end, companies have tried really hard to deal with this issue. However, for many, the stumbing block has always been how to make the solution intuitive and easy to use for users in the context of their daily tasks.”

The Quickr / Notes connector will automatically prompt users to post the email attachment to a Quickr place while simply sending a link in the actual email. It is worth mentioning that Microsoft Outlook offers a similar feature for posting email attachments to SharePoint document workspace sites. This seemingly simple integration is the key to user adoption of these collaborative solutions.

Both IT and users win as storage demands for email will slow and users gain access to the features of a real document sharing system.

However, don’t forget that Quickr and SharePoint will require pro-active monitoring and management as well, as users can more easily create ad-hoc document sharing places. Usage monitoring combined with a sound document retention and archiving policy should be put in place right away to avoid the cost and headaches of a “clean-up” project later on.

Technorati Tags: quickr, quickplace, outlook, sharepoint, lotus, notes, email attachments

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