NotesBerry

Category Lotusphere
So now its the run up to Lotusphere 2010 and once again I'm pleased to see that RIM are a major sponsor, and that the Lotus Quickr and Lotus Connections Clients we saw at UKLUG have now been launched. For me this all reflects a continuing partnership between Lotus and RIM around the mobilisation of Lotus-based business enterprise apps.  

Checking through the agenda and Lotusphere has some interesting sessions on mobilisation, and here are a couple I plan to catch:

ID618 'Lotus + BlackBerry = Enterprise Mobility', an overview of Lotus and RIM's partnership, the new Lotus Clients and how they are looking to provide a mobilisation infrastructure. This sessions is presented by Jen Stevenson, Enterprise Technologies Manager for IBM Technologies at RIM.

BP212 'Delivering IBM Lotus Domino to Mobile Devices: Top 10 Mobile Browser Dev Tricks - and More!' with Rob Wunderlich and John Wargo (who's book on BB development Jason Hook previously reviewed on this site).

SHOW113 My colleague here at The Turtle Partnership - Tim Davis - is presenting again on 'Integrating IBM Lotus Domino Data and Applications on Smartphones, BlackBerry's and Apple iPhones'. "If you’re an Admin who needs to understand how to work with Lotus Domino data on a variety of mobile devices or a developer who needs to know how to code a "one size fits all" design re-usable for multiple user interfaces, then don't miss this session!"

We have also issued our BlackBerry Lotusphere sessions app again - and its also now available on BB App World too. IBM Lotus have also produced a Lotusphere sessions app and you can find it over at Lotusphere Online.

It seems to have been a good time for RIM, their last quarterly profits are way up, they shipped a record 10m devices in a single quarter and their share of the critical smartphone sector has increased. Looking ahead its likely that the competition in the smartphone sector will ramp up even more 2010 - its the big growth area in an otherwise moribund mobile market. Well at least in the mature Western markets, I see that China Mobile is now the world's biggest mobile operator but it only has 37% penetration of the vast Chinese rural market. The rise and rise of the mobile phone is pretty awe-inspiring.

And finally......

Does your BlackBerry need spiritual uplift? Well at a special service at St Lawrence Jewry church in London BlackBerrys were blessed as 'a daily working tool', along with laptops and other devices. Its based on an old ceremony where a village's ploughs would be blessed each year.

Posted by Mike Smith At 12:36:10 Location London | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Category Mobile development

If you are a regular subscriber of planetlotus.org you will have seen a new blogger John Wargo start to post some good stuff.  You may have also picked up that publishers Addison Wesley are a week away from publishing his second book "BlackBerry Development Fundamentals".

I'm pleased to have a review copy in advance of the official publication date.  Before I go on If you are based in the UK, deciding whether to buy this book or not is simple if you have any more than a passing interest in the subject. I've just looked at Amazon and they are retailing this book at slightly less than 15 quid.  At that price you really don't need to listen to me waffle on any more.  For it's overview of the platform, the information about push, and the many many tips it offers you should just go ahead and order the book before Amazon discovers it's worth more!

Like many I am a self taught BlackBerry developer who has made good use of the example code and white papers R|M publishes. Up to now there have been few published books for the platform, less that are terribly useful.

Given the reasonably good official and unofficial online resources why would you need a book?  To be honest there's no shortage of stuff to read but what should you read to give you a foundation to build upon? Who is there to guide you through the chaff and point you in the right direction?  That is where this book, which solidly covers the fundamentals new BlackBerry developers should know, comes in.

My draft copy has sixteen chapters and covers:

• A brief introduction to mobile applications, the technologies and capabilities of the BlackBerry Platform;
• A tour of the various various ways the BlackBerry device can reach the outside world, understanding and configuring the Mobile Data Service*;
• Extensive coverage of the various kinds of push application and how to use them;
• The BlackBerry Browser, and it's special features and some tips on setting up a development environment in Eclipse (I'm wondering if the BlackBerry Web Development Plugin for Eclipse is relevant to the 8.5.1 designer client) or Visual Studio;
• The second half of the book is given over to Java development and the various tooling options including RIM's own IDE, Eclipse and Visual Studio;
• Other technologies like the Plazmic Content Development Kit.

* The MDS Runtime is not covered in the book except to say that RIM have chosen to discontinue support for it.  I'm hoping the final version of the book has a bit more information about the new BlackBerry Widgets but I don't know if it will.

It's a very easy read, and that's a good thing.  Wargo's background in teaching budding developers around the US shines through in the clear and concise way it tackles each topic. The content is relevant and appropriate for it's target audience and there are many asides that will interest more experienced developers.  Time and time again I found myself saying ah that's how that works (the MDS broken down in it's component parts, BlackBerry security, and how to compile Java apps for multiple devices to name just three).

I doubt you will find as much essential information together in one place and written in such an informative and accessible way. It is aimed at the beginning developer and complements RIM's many good resources. What it does really well, I feel, is give you a solid basis on which to progress.  You will read this book and come out confident that you understand how things hang together, what the platform has to offer you  and which of the many options you want to pursue in more detail. It's also a book that you'll find yourself returning to as a handy reference.  Each chapter also contains links to other relevant resources which will save you time finding the best further examples.

There's something for developers who have gone beyond the basics too, as the book is littered with little pieces of useful information I haven't spotted anywhere else.

Without doubt this is a useful book but it is not a cookbook, there are code examples which are welcome but it is more of comprehensive backgrounder than a plethora of lengthy examples and fully worked projects. You will look other online resources to deepen your knowledge at least until John's next book Also there's no Domino specific information here either.

John is working on a companion website for the book: www.bbdevfundamentals.com and runs a personal blog at www.johnwargo.com

To pre-order BlackBerry Development Fundamentals Amazon (US) or BlackBerry Development Fundamentals Amazon (UK).

John Wargo has submitted one or two sessions for LS2010 and based on what's in this book and how it's delivered I'd bet they'd be good.  If I can persuade my wife and the boss of my boss to let me go (the one at work, not my mother-in-law) you'll find me somewhere near the front row.

Posted by Jason Hook At 15:14:02 Location | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Category RIM

Following on my last post about the new Lotus Clients RIM have posted a web page on mobilizing IBM Lotus software on BlackBerry Smartphones. You can find it here http://www.blackberry.com/go/ibm

There is a whole bunch of pages linked to the site with more info including details of the new clients:

New BlackBerry client for IBM Lotus Connections 2.01
"Activities: Users can organize their work, plan next steps, and invite members of their networks to perform everyday tasks faster
Blogs: Users can connect with other employees, customers and partners inside or outside the enterprise
Communities: People who share a common interest can collaborate by exchanging and sharing information
Profiles: Users can quickly find the people they need by searching across the organization, using keywords to identify expertise, current projects and responsibilities
Dogear: Users can save, organize and share bookmarks and discover bookmarks that have been qualified by others with similar interests and expertise"

New BlackBerry Client for IBM Lotus Sametime v2.1
New features include "improved address book integration, the ability to communicate with Emoticons, presence management from the BlackBerry smartphone home screen, voice integration with ‘Click-to-Call’ Sametime Buddy and Sametime Chat 'Convert-to-Call'"

New BlackBerry client for IBM Lotus Quickr client 1.0
"BlackBerry smartphone users will soon be able to keep projects moving while mobile through the ability to download, review and upload documents, photos, audio and videos to IBM Lotus Quickr team spaces"

And usefully you can also register to be notified by RIM about the latest on Lotus developments - such as the Connections 2.01 client release date or more detail on the Quickr client here.

Posted by Mike Smith At 13:13:40 Location London | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Category UKLUG

Jen Stevenson, RIM Enterprise Product Manager IBM Technologies, presented a session on 'Leveraging the power of BlackBerry Mobility' at the UK Lotus User Group 2009 in Edinburgh. Jen's session focused on the new range of Lotus Clients for the BlackBerry that are coming in Q4.

However before we move on to them its worth noting that underpinning those new Clients is RIM's close relationship with Lotus. As Jen emphasised their development teams interact together across the whole range of Lotus products. This relationship has not come overnight but is the result of a sustained effort on both sides - and I for one think this is great given the rise of mobilisation as an emerging need for business applications. RIM do appear to have a more committed and fruitful relationship with IBM than other mobile device providers I could mention.

The new BlackBerry Clients on parade were:

The new Sametime 2.5 Client which will push presence further and have a richer and 'globalised' functionality. Release is due in November.

Connections 2.3 Client has added functionality with easier 'more fluid' use and is more integrated into the BlackBerry device. This will work with 4.6/4.7/5.0 on the device. Release is due in December.

The new Quickr 1.0 Client which has focused on easy and intuitive use. Its J2EE based and will work with 4.6/4.7/5.0 on the device. Release is due in December.  

Jen also mentioned that the focus at Lotusphere 2010 would be on taking BlackBerry applications 'to the next level', moving beyond web applications.

Standing back from UKLUG I had a meeting this week with a major UK comms service provider and they told me that their mobile business is now focusing on smartphones as the market-leading sector. Basically its the hot area of an otherwise flat market. Unsurprisingly they said that this 'hot' smartphone sector is led by RIM and Apple, with only a small percentage for MS.

Posted by Mike Smith At 12:03:07 Location London | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Category LoLA

Back from the Lotus Leadership Alliance 2009 in Boston where selected customers and Business Partners get together to discuss future strategy and share feedback on real-life experience. So it was interesting to see a good turnout there from RIM, both Jen Stevenson - RIM Enterprise Product Manager IBM Technologies - and Neil Saungikar - RIM Product Manager, Software Product Management Group - were at LoLA.

Neil has come in to take over from Valerie Wang who has been promoted within RIM, and can I just say here that in my opinion Valerie did a great job in helping build bridges between the Lotus and RIM teams.

Having Jen and Neil there does emphasise the ongoing close relationship between Lotus and RIM. I have said this before but RIM's continuing commitment to working with Lotus on mobility and smartphones impresses me. Its worth noting that smartphones are the fastest growing sector of a mobile device market that is pretty flat elsewhere, and the only two players there are BlackBerry and iPhone.

A further example of that relationship was earlier this week when Jen Stevenson gave the attendees at Collaboration University London a sneak peek at the BlackBerry Quickr Client. I hear it went down well!

Posted by Mike Smith At 14:24:12 Location London | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Category Books BlackBerry Development
If you are a developer and interested in mobilizing applications or if your organization is looking to mobilize applications on the BlackBerry platform keep your eyes open for "BlackBerry Development Fundementals" by John Wargo
to be published in November.

The book is still a work in progress available via Safari Books Online Rough Cuts: http://my.safaribooksonline.com/9780321647610

RIM already do a fairly good job providing sample code for developers wanting to learn the various pillars of BB programming, the Java Application, Browser based apps and the soon to be no more MDS.  However what John's book will, I hope, give you over and above RIM's free resources is the benefit of someone who has been down that road before you and can give you the right amount of background, best practice, and code samples all in one place to get you started.

I'm a bit of a lapsed BlackBerry developer of late owning an iPod touch hasn't helped me maintain an interest in RIM's platform but I have a couple of ideas for applications that colleagues might benefit from.  I suspect John's book might be as useful to me as I get started again as it might to you if you are developing for the first time.

As far as I know the book is back-end agnostic favoring neither Domino or Exchange but that shouldn't discourage you if you are coming at BB development as a Domino developer.  You'll already know how to make data available via Views, Agents and Web Services or Web pages.  Fundementals should be able to give you the tools to present that information to your colleagues on the road.

I'm looking forward to reading this book and doing a little BlackBerry development again. If you've already bought this book from Rough Cuts I'd be interested in what you think of it.  I'll tell you what I think when I've had a chance to read the whole thing.

Anyone interested in the idea of a BlackBerry and Domino Cookbook?

Posted by Jason Hook At 01:15:29 Location | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Category Smartphone

A little while ago Rudi Knegt at RKJ-Soft kindly agreed to let us link up to his notes.ini database. We ported it to the BlackBerry platform so you can search through all of the thousands of current entries using any part of the notes.ini setting or its description.

Well Tim Davis has now produced a specialised version of the Notes INI specifically for the BlackBerry Storm. You can install the Storm version OTA by going to http://lotusphere.turtleweb.com/notesini2.jad

You can still download the app if you have a different BlackBerry device than a Storm, to install the standard BB notes.ini application OTA go to http://lotusphere.turtleweb.com/notesini.jad

The initial load of data can take a couple of minutes and you will see it updating the record count as it goes. Any problems or suggested enhancements please let me know.

My colleague Gabriella has blogged about "an unpleasant bug from RIM for 4.1.6 Maintenance Release 5 which was new out at the end of April.  Basically if you attempt to move users from one BES to another with MR5 installed it may or may not work (with 10 people tested, 5 worked, 5 stopped working until they were moved back).  The servers in this case were 4.1.6 servers but the same applies to 5.0 servers." Gabriella says there is a private  hotfix and you can see her blog piece here.

It is interesting that BlackBerry and iPhone smartphones have bucked the worldwide market trend in the first quarter of 2009. According to Gartner they have both increased their sales in a falling mobile/cell phone market. The reasons for their sales success include the wider capability of smartphones, more aggressive pricing and their widespread use for social software. Interestingly use for social software is especially relevant for BlackBerrys rather than iPhones.

Its only over a single quarter but it reflects Tim Berners-Lee's view back in March that the future for the internet as we know it is in mobile/cell phones, and also IBM's prediction of one billion mobile Web users by 2011 and a significant shift in the way the majority of people will interact with the Web over the next decade.

Posted by Mike Smith At 14:56:36 Location London | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Category BES 5.0 Research in Motion

Hurrah! Finally! BES v5.0 has been released. Everywhere in BlackBerry land you can see impressions, download kits, get a hold of the documentation, etc.

But what you want to know is: Does it work?

• We have installed it on a live BES server, over the top of BES 4.1.6, running Domino 8.5. And - it does!
• One issue we had was being able to log into the administration screen afterwards. Its all web based now (hurrah!), and relies/requires SSL style certificate authentication. etc. On top of a Live domino server. This bit might get.. interesting..

. What else ? it looks pretty much like a BES 416 installer - so quite irritating, requires a reboot in the middle. Same old, same old.

We shall keep you posted on stability, etc, as it progresses.

Disclaimer> Do not try this on a live production server without backups, reading the documentation, trying it out on a test server, making sure all your third party applications work, etc. Remember: we cut corners so you dont have to.

Posted by Bill S Buchan At 17:28:06 Location | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

Category LCTY

Pleased to say that Notesberry bloggers and Lotusphere presenters Tim Davis and Paul Mooney will be at the Lotusphere Comes To You UK events in Manchester tomorrow 28/4 and in London on Thursday 30/4.

Paul will be on the BE Systems stand while Tim will be at the UK Lotus User Group stand in the techlab area. I will be helping out with the UK Lotus User Group as well. So please drop by to say hello or if you have a question.

Can I just add that there is still time to register for these LCTY UK events - just go here

Mike

Posted by Mike Smith At 10:36:39 Location London | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Category BlackBerry Blogging
I meant to open source the source code for bbMetaBlog a long time ago.  Sorry for the delay. If you're looking to integrate Domino and BlackBerry with a custom Java application I hope this is useful:

http://weblog.jasonhookonline.com/jho/blog.nsf/downloads/JHOK-7QZV43

Best regards,
Jason

Posted by Jason Hook At 00:30:28 Location | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Category BES

Well I suppose you could call this a back-handed compliment? Canadian Police are concerned, they say that criminals prefer using BlackBerrys because the devices are so secure they cant be tapped.

"The problem is that BlackBerry smartphones, designed by Waterloo, Ont.-based Research In Motion initially for corporate clients, run software called the BlackBerry Enterprise Server that creates a secure and private network and encrypts data."

A Canadian MP is asking that the government to force Smartphone manufacturers to provide ways to tap their phones and of course there is strong resistance on privacy grounds to that. Strikes me that making authorised 'back doors' into personal devices opens a huge can of worms, so I suspect this argument will run and run.

You can see the whole story over here.

Posted by Mike Smith At 10:00:24 Location London | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Category World

I have said this before but the potential for Smartphones is huge - 4 billion people on our planet have mobiles/cellphones while only around a paltry 2 billion have a PC, at the same time IBM's Institute for Business Value predicts a massive shift to internet access via mobile devices (they estimate 1 billion mobile web users by 2011). This move to mobile internet use also ties in with a change in people's internet usage - increasingly they are using online time to communicate using social software, not just to find info.

So there is a lot to play for and thus a lot of new Smartphones aimed right at that market.

With all this activity it is worth considering that in this sector BlackBerry is still the one to beat. According to ITProPortal there are over 21 million BlackBerry users worldwide which means that RIM's back-end infrastructure is dealing with 4 terabytes of data every hour - that's an impressive proven user base.  

More than that in my view BlackBerry still leads the pack of Smartphones when it comes to corporate use. The reason? Well we can talk about the pros and cons of individual devices but for corporate use the key for me is administration. BlackBerry gives you the ability to centrally administer your BlackBerrys right down to functionality on an individual device. I know - admin is dull - but when you run a stable of devices day-in day-out then effective admin is vital.

Posted by Mike Smith At 10:59:41 Location London | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Category Lotusphere

Our own Tim Davis has blogged about his Show and Tell session with Jason Hook at Lotusphere 2009 - 'SHOW109 Developing Mobile Applications - Techniques for Running Big Applications on Small Devices'. This session focused primarily on BlackBerry development with a small segment on the iPhone. You can see Tim's blog entry and get copies of his slides here.

Jason has told me that he will also be blogging about this session shortly.

To give you some background 'Show and Tell' was a new track at Lotusphere which replaced the 'Hands On' track by producing presentations with step-by-step screen-by-screen documentation on a particular subject. Feedback on this new track has been positive, certainly there was a pretty good turnout for Tim and Jason's session despite it starting very early in the morning.

Posted by Mike Smith At 12:17:09 Location London | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Category Lotusphere

If there is one thing that I took away from Lotusphere 2009 its the change in the relationship between BlackBerry and Lotus. Its much closer at all levels - and the best example was that this year RIM was literally centre stage at the Lotusphere Opening General Session. Jim Balsillie, Co-CEO of RIM, stood on the stage at Orlando and pledged support for Lotus software - including Quickr, Symphony and Connections.

As I see it a couple of underlying currents emerged at Lotusphere 2009.

The need to mobilise business applications had long been a theme at RIM's own Lotusphere sessions - but now it was a major Lotus theme at the OGS. As Bob Picciano, General Manager at IBM Lotus Software, said 'new Lotus collaboration features and developer tools on the BlackBerry platform will deliver productivity beyond the office extending IBM software and services so that individuals can access all of the resources they need to keep their business moving, anytime, anywhere.' That's very publicly stated proof that Lotus are strongly behind the concept of apps mobilisation - and a public acknowledgement of RIM as a partner to deliver it.

Meanwhile RIM has continued to evolve its strategic view of the BlackBerry as a flexible software platform. This is reflected in their new dedicated software team, their continuing investment in product development (interesting to hear that RIM are hiring despite the current economic climate) and their ongoing work with Lotus. Of course Lotus and RIM have worked together for some time but now its at a whole new level, with the BlackBerry software team talking direct with the Lotus developers.

The fruits of this investment and of closer ties to Lotus were clear at the show. To take some examples - extending X-pages to the BB platform, support for Lotus Symphony docs (from BES 5.0 which is due in March), the new enhanced Lotus Connections Client announced at Lotusphere, a new Quickr Client (due 3rd quarter 2009), new Sametime for the BB (with better address book integration, ability to send chats as email, emoticons and presence on the home screen). And there is more in the pipeline.

So its been good to see RIM and Lotus getting closer, and showing public commitment to their partnership.

Posted by Mike Smith At 12:49:05 Location London | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Category Lotusphere

Once again this year you can download our free BlackBerry version of Genii's Lotusphere 2009 Sessions database.

To download simply browse on your BlackBerry to http://lotusphere.turtleweb.com/bb

After you install the app just click on "Load Data" to get all the Sessions info.

The Sessions database does have a few gaps left as certain times are finalised. However you can fill them in after you install - just  choose "Load Data' again from the app main menu anytime to get an update directly from the Sessions database itself.

Besides the ability to add sessions to your Calendar on the BlackBerry we have also included Genii's 'Feedback' form this year. This allows you to post questions and comments in response to a Session.

Hope you find our Sessions app useful and please let me know how you get on with it.

Posted by Mike Smith At 16:27:57 Location London | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)