Ken sent me

by Volker Weber

Does anybody remember that passphrase from Leisure Suit Larry? :-)

Anyway, Ken Bisconti said:

You will see the name Workplace being pulled from products and being shown as a strategy and direction.

I would go a bit further. Try to find Workplace Messaging under any name for instance. Look for Collaboration Services under WebSphere Portal.

Comments

Wasn't it "Ken sent me" ?

Chris Coates, 2006-09-29

Chis, I admit this was a trick question. :-)

Volker Weber, 2006-09-29

The shame is that Workplace isn't a bad product/brand name per se. I really thought it summed up the idea of a multi-faceted desktop app that would be the main interface into the tasks that a user needed to get done in their job context.

However, the execution of this has been bungled (LWM 1.1 "lightweight messaging" through to WCS 2.6 "so heavyweight you'll need a 2GB laptop to run it", Lotus Workplace product vs. IBM Workplace brand etc. etc.) to such an extent that maybe the only answer is to kill it off or do as IBM seem to be doing and just let it die a slow and quiet death...

So do we know what WCS and WSE will now be known as?

Stuart McIntyre, 2006-09-29

Well, "Ken sent me" sounds familiar. Wow, that was quite a long time ago...

Jean Pierre Wenzel, 2006-09-29

I don't remember the passphrase, but for some reason or another I do remember the grotesque gulp, the full-body wax and the queues at the airport that never reaches the front...

Adeleida Bingham, 2006-09-29

Related to the Ken Bisconti quote, here's an article from CRN where Mike Rhodin is quoted as saying the same thing.

Any bets as to whether they rename the division from WPLC back to Lotus?

Bob Congdon, 2006-09-30

I doubt it. There is an urge to say "more than Lotus". And Workplace is now a "strategy".

I still remember when OS/2 was declared a strategy. That was after Warp 4 was released.

Volker Weber, 2006-09-30

I don't really expect a name change either but, then again, I didn't expect that they'd declare that Workplace to be a strategy and not a brand. (Apparently not everyone got the memo, IBM still refers to the "Workplace brand" here.

Bob Congdon, 2006-09-30

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