On December 4, HCL Digital Solutions held its first Software Launch Event in Tokyo. They presented the new versions of Domino, Sametime and Connections, all of which will be released in December 2019, and surprised with new announcements.
We watched the broadcast from Tokyo as part of an Icon Switzerland event together with customers at the University of Zurich. We summarize a part of the announcements and highlight some favorites in the following post.
The keynote and the Offering Managers’ presentations
The overall announcement was somewhat shorter than expected. The aim was to give the participants an opportunity to inform themselves via the videos published shortly after the event, with product demos and further information.
Richard Jefts led through the keynote and emphasized again how important this launch is for HCL. The investment in products such as Domino and Connections is not a flash in the pan, but a long-term plan with a specified goal, which was also proven by the outlook on Domino v12 and Connections v7.
Andrew Manby presented the new features of Domino v11 and Sametime v11 and surprised with the announcement of HCL Domino Volt, a solution for low-code development, the extended version of HCL Nomad and new features of Domino v11, like the synchronization of the Domino Directory with Active Directory.
Another innovation was the announcement of new partnerships. On one hand with a long-time partner of ours, Intravision, and the OnTime solution for a cross-platform calendar overview, on the other hand with Panopta, for a native and integrated monitoring solution for Domino. The partnership with Panopta is also an important sign for the market, as a new and integrated solution for Domino is being developed for the first time in years. Panopta works directly with the HCL Domino team to bring resolution guidebooks and best practices to the customers.
Of course Notes v11 and Verses on Premises (VOP) 1.0.9 were a hot topic as well. More work was done on the user interface and the compatibility of mail and calendars with other products. The design of the different mail applications will be further modernized, tidied up and unified in versions to come.
An overview of the new mail experiences can be seen in the video below.
Finally we get the long-awaited revision of the Notes client’s integrated chat solution with Sametime v11. HCL did not only focus on the user interface but also on the simplification of the platform and the reduction of dependencies. 64bit as well as Docker support and the possible integration with 3rd party web conferencing solutions are certainly among the highlights.
HCL Domino Volt offers completely new ways to provide data from different sources in a simple and fast way in a Domino application. Volt will soon be available as beta and the interest amongst our customers is high. The following video will give you an insight about the solution.