Ed Brill came to New York City

Eugen Tarnow  April 24 2009 08:01:20 AM

IBM restarted the user group in New York (combined with NJ and CT).  It was a long time since the last meeting so the effort was appreciated.  Ed Brill and others flew in and presented on Notes 8.5, Symphony and Sametime which was appreciated as well.  New York City is not a back water but it seems to have been treated as such for some time.

IBM is pushing Symphony integration with Notes to stem the flow of defections to Exchange.  Many who consider moving to Exchange can save a lot of money by not renewing their Office licenses and using Symphony instead.  A show of hands suggested that Symphony works well with Notes though some basic components such as the mail merge is not yet implemented.  Symphony is one release of the OpenOffice application so you can get rid of your Office licenses even if you use Exchange.  The integration with Notes will be a crucial issue.

It is an interesting strategy.  The look of Symphony is oldish compared to Office 2007 BUT much less confusing.  Open up Word 2007 or Excel 2007 to get the headache from the rearranged menus and the multitude of menu items (though I do like the inclusion of the reference feature in Word 2007).

• Comments [0]