The `Lotusphere 2006' conference at Orlando, U.S., brought together programmers, developers and partners.

`OUT OF the mouths of babes and sucklings!' we exclaim, when children say things that astonish adults — slightly distorting the meaning of Psalm 8 of the Bible. But the fact remains: the young often come up with insights that adults — like flickering tube lights — take their time to appreciate.

Things are not too different, it seems, in the world of high-tech Internet-based information sharing. Instant Messaging (IM) and `live' chat via the Web, became a huge commercial success, only due to the enthusiastic embrace of the `Young and Restless' generation.

Ditto, the web log — or blog — and its most recent technology driver: RSS or Really Simple Syndication, a lightweight format for distributing news, that has been used with great success, to create collaborative encyclopaedias or `wikipedias'.

Hardened versions

Yet, all these seemingly trivial tools of electronic `social networking', are being increasingly moulded into `hardened' versions by corporate collaboration-and-communication tools that are collectively known as `groupware'.

And unsurprisingly, the mother of all groupware solutions — the combo of the Lotus Notes messaging client and the Domino server — is today, the most mature corporate `avatar' of these mass consumer tools.

At the recent gathering in Orlando, U.S., of 6000 Lotus programmers, developers and partners, one could see why personal and business-driven communication seem to merge seamlessly into one environment; how Instant Messaging is the core driver, with live chat, blogs, `wikis', even the ubiquitous USB thumb drive, the mobile phone and the iPod, forming part of tomorrow's enterprise systems.

The venue — in the middle of the Disney World — seemed to underline the coming together of youthful tools and hardcore business objectives.

Iconic name

Even before it became part of IBM 16 years ago, Lotus was an iconic name in the industry — in the early 1980s as Lotus 1-2-3, the best known of the spread sheet programmes, then in 1985, as Lotus Notes, the world's first tool for collaboration via e-mail, with Domino being the complementary server component.

For a brief period, Lotus SmartSuite was the leading `office suite' — a bundle of office productivity tools — till Microsoft's `Office' snatched away most of this market, knocking over the Lotus spreadsheet with Excel.

Lotus lived on in its newer Notes-Domino `avatar' as an IBM offering for the emerging `groupware' market that has gone through seven versions or upgrades in less than a decade.

The next version 7.5 will be available by mid 2006 — and previews last week showcased its new real time collaborative features. Lotus is the first enterprise messaging client based on the Open Source Eclipse framework — the same code that the Internet telephone tool, Skype uses.

Tie-ups announced

Tie-ups announced at Lotusphere, include the ability to connect with leading (and competing) instant messaging platforms from AOL and Yahoo and shortly with Google's `Talk.' Mobile platforms like Nokia's Business Centre and Research in Motion's (RIM) environment, BlackBerry, will also work seamlessly with Notes.

Increasingly Lotus tools like `Sametime' and IBM's complementary Workplace solutions are being beefed up, for what is known as 'social networking': the ability of users to collaborate, find experts and share information, faster than ever.

This means being able to quickly create blogs and wikis; harness RSS feeds; extend real time chat with audio and video capability using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), quickly capture and send screen shots of word processing, presentation or spreadsheet files... and being able to do this under any operating system: Windows, Mac or Linux.

Later this year, users can also carry all their Lotus files on a thumb drive — and latch on to their company network by attaching it to the USB port of a laptop — or an iPod.

Not just `cool tools'

"These are not just `cool tools'; they are very robust business tools," Michael Rhodin, the General Manager for Lotus Software, explained to me, "But I don't want to make companies change their platforms — but to support what platforms they have... even as they use all these tools."

In the pipeline is a next generation Lotus codenamed `Hannover,' not due till 2007 that will subtly rework the product to be `activity-centric,' an ugly word that seemingly means, users can organize, navigate, manage and share information — emails, calendars, documents, chat — around a particular activity rather than regrouping them every time the collaborative task changes.

And it will surprise no one if many of the front line applications riding on this `next-gen' Lotus, bears a `made-in-India' or `made-by-Indians' tag.

The Chennai and US-based Cybernet Software Systems (CSS) group was one of the earliest application developers for Lotus Notes.

Serving a global clientele

Indeed, they had launched an instant messaging tool for Lotus, back in the days when Net visionary Ray Ozzie still owned the company, Iris Associates, where he created Lotus Notes.

Today, CSS-group companies like Synaptris, serve a global clientele with reporting and printing solutions for Notes-Domino, harnessing emerging open standards like X Forms and Open Document Format (ODF).

At Lotusphere, IBM researcher Shruti Gandhi showed me a work-in-progress: a new location-based messaging application that captures your current location and shows you services available locally such as weather, restaurants — or the nearest networked printer to download your files.

Here as everywhere in the emerging groupware arena, collaboration is the key and instant messaging by voice, video or data, the core technology. Not very different, really, from what the kids are doing right now.