IBM's enviable social pedigree

The company that invented the PC is pioneering social computing too

Can you believe that IBM started a formal social computing research initiative back in 1998? It was partly born out of work by David N Smith on a persistent, chat-like environment called Babble. By 2002, it had been deployed to a couple of dozen groups within IBM. At that time, a web-based successor called Loops was created.

In its first web page, IBM’s Social Computing Group said: “Our initial explorations have been embodied in online environments aimed at supporting communication among work groups.”

Unlike many, who like rewriting history, the group’s introduction page has barely changed since.

It all goes a long way towards explaining the phenomenon that was the Lotusphere conference in January. It showed how hundreds of different initiatives can eventually arrive at a point where they are part of a cohesive whole. No doubt some of the slick demonstrations owed something to the smoke and mirrors school of presenting, but the emphasis and direction was clear enough.

Most importantly, the user is destined to be the beneficiary through the pursuit of a common interface. Use one product and you have a good idea of how to use another. Not only this, but remixing different software elements does not jar with the user’s experience.

The Lotusphere delegates were primarily large organisations with a commitment to Lotus Notes and Lotus Domino. You could hear the relief as they applauded every new announcement. Far from being pushed to the sidelines, the products on which they had built their collaboration activities were clearly integral to IBM’s vision. The company was cheered to the rafters when it announced that it had booked the Lotusphere venue for the next 15 years.

But the gig was not just about Notes and Domino. IBM has gathered all manner of software under the Lotus label. You may have heard that it has brought back the Symphony name and slapped it on its own version of OpenOffice, which you can pick up free from the Lotus website, by the way.

IBM made a big fuss of the 10th birthday of its instant messaging (and much more) Lotus Sametime application. Lotus Quickr is a collection of collaboration and document tools.

It’s not an IBM world out there, so Sametime and Quickr can integrate with third-party software such as that, inevitably, supplied by Microsoft. Finally, Lotus Connections is a behind-the-firewall social computing suite with blogging, people profiles, communities, activities and bookmarking.

A couple of other things before moving on to some conclusions. Mashups offer a self-service way of reaching out to internal and external data and mixing it to suit local needs without bothering IT. Well, not too much anyway.

Lotus Foundations is a collaboration and productivity suite delivered in a tiny server box. Lotus Bluehouse will be a collaboration suite delivered as a service. Both products are an attempt to get into the small business space.

Whether users are greybeards or millennials, with command-and-control or trust-focused bosses, IBM seems to have constructed a collection of tools to support any approach.

If social computing is where you hang out, you still need access to corporate information and applications. Conversely if you’re a business application user, you need access to the collaboration stuff.

This way, companies can strike their own balance, knowing they can shift emphasis as their needs change or their company culture evolves.

IBM hasn't just grafted the latest fashionable thinking onto its products and services. Its 10-year-plus pedigree of thinking social looks as if it might pay dividends.