Understanding Lotus Connections, IBM's Version of Web 2.0 F. CIO — Though IBM might not be on par with the Twitters and Facebooks of the world when it comes to social networking, analysts say the company has kept its hands on the pulse of Web 2.0 with its Lotus Connections — a social software suite that includes blogs and social networking profiles, all made for the enterprise.
Since launching last year, Lotus Connections entered a crowded market of enterprise 2.0 vendors, companies that had taken popular Web 2.0 technologies in the consumer space like blogs, wikis and social networks and repurposed them for businesses. IBM found familiar foes as well, including Microsoft, who added social software features to its SharePoint platform.
Couple that with competition from Google, whose cheap enterprise version of Google Apps allows workers to collaborate on the Web and build shared workspaces with no programming experience, Lotus Connections represents IBM's response to a Web 2.0 world. IBM has taken a different approach than Microsoft. Ed Brill. As first reported on the Quickr Blog and the Connections Blog, both products are now available for download. There's also a great writeup about Quickr out today on CMSWire: IBM Drops an 'e', Goes Web 2.0 with Lotus Quickr (Thanks, Ed). An extensive view of the new release: The Quickr Blog.