IBM Verse On-Premises Coming Soon

Bill Malchisky  July 18 2016 07:00:00 PM

Today, IBM's VP - Offering Management and Design for IBM Collaboration Solutions (ICS), Ed Brill announced that select customer sites are using the Verse on-premises beta. This shows that since announced at Social Connections 10 in Toronto (Jun '16), they made adjustments to the 2016 calendar release schedule to better focus on priorities with a defined plan. The previous few years, it became painfully clear to business partners and some customers that the development team lost focus, impacting quality. Since the tenure of Inhi Cho Suh as the ICS General Manager in January '16, things are definitely different for the better. Despite Notes Domino 9.0.2 being delayed (again) til 2017, the on-premises version of Verse is a welcome piece in the ICS puzzle of innovation. In my opinion, this shows that despite some frustration with previous delays, IBM is keeping its word now and is focused on delivering quality products to its customers. The targeted release for Verse on-premises is December 2016; so with a customer beta now, IBM would appear to be on-track to make that milestone.

Additionally, I also learned at the Social Connections 10 Ask IBM session that the installation for IBM Verse on-premise is easy. "Very easy," as one product manager offered, and told me that he tested it himself. That is a nice change from what we learned a year ago in Boston for Social Connections 8, when IBM stated the installation would deviate from the normal Domino upgrade administrators preferred, and move into the IBM Connections/Sametime installation camp--in-terms of complexity. Great to see that IBM also evolved this part of the release model. To be fair, I do not have particulars on whether the test was on a plain vanilla environment or a more complex infrastructure when upgrading, but the installation message is more zealous than a year ago: a good sign.

All in all, I would say good news on two counts. Good luck to IBM on making the year-end release with easy installation and upgrade paths.

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