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IBM unveils new WebSphere Portal and Workplace products at Lotusphere 2005

IBM unveils new WebSphere Portal and Workplace products at Lotusphere 2005 IBM announced new WebSphere Portal and Workplace products, as well as upgrades to Lotus Notes and Domino, at Lotusphere 2005 in Orlando, Fla., this past week.

The new version of Lotus Notes and Domino, WebSphere Portal and the Workplace platform are designed to help organizations extend the reach of back-end systems, according to Lotusphere announcements. These products are designed for organizations seeking to increase collaboration among knowledge workers, customers and partners, IBM said.

Big Blue also introduced new Workplace development tools and a new hosted solution that allows customers to use IBM collaborative software on demand.

New products introduced at Lotusphere 2005, which coincided with the 20th anniversary of Lotus Notes, include:

Workplace Developer Tools
New upgrades, tools and resources announced at Lotusphere are designed to make developing J2EE apps and components easier for Domino coders as well as those familiar with Visual Basic, according to the IBM announcements. The new tools are designed to provide Domino developers tools for building applications on the IBM Workplace platform, the company said.

Notes and Domino 7
Internal NotesBench testing in Notes and Domino 7 has shown as much as a 70 percent improvement in server performance, according to IBM. Improved integration with the IBM Workplace platform will allow customers to extend more Domino investments to IBM Workplace through normal Notes Domino product upgrades. The new Domino Domain Monitoring tools are designed to help consolidate and maintain the health of Lotus Domino servers. IBM said it plans to make Notes and Domino 7 available in this summer.

Workplace Collaborative Services
IBM Workplace Collaboration Services, a single, integrated environment, includes collaborative capabilities such as e-mail, calendaring, instant messaging, electronic learning, Web conferencing, and document and Web content management, according to the Lotusphere announcements. Built on a service-oriented architecture, IBM Workplace Collaboration Services provides organizations with pre-built, reusable collaborative services, IBM said.

WebSphere Portal
Web Services for Remote Portlets (WSRP) Self-Service Validation Site is available now, according to IBM. It is designed to give business partners the ability to validate, test, and ensure their WSRP services integrate with IBM’s WebSphere Portal, the company said. IBM also added functionality to WebSphere Portal including single sign-on functionality, increased support for industry standards such as WSRP and JSR 168, and upgraded collaborative capabilities through IBM Workplace client support.