Lotus Quickr itself represents a set of capabilities allowing end users to effectively drive team based collaboration, both internally and externally, to the corporate network. These capabilities include the following:

• Team places to allow groups of end users to share information
• Templates for the quick creation of new team places
• Document and content library management services
• Integration with Enterprise Content Management services
• Connectors to provide desktop integration with existing productivity tools

Beyond the preceding list, is a set of various other features to meet the needs of a collaborative work environment such as calendaring, task management, and so on. Additionally, Lotus Quickr can be viewed as a solution, a platform allowing customers to define and address business challenges either directly or with a range of extendable development services. Additional information sources for the customization of Lotus Quickr are available on the Lotus Quickr product wiki site: http://www.lotus.com/ldd/lqwiki.nsf.

IBM Lotus Quickr services architectures

The Lotus Quickr product itself is a common set of services that are built on top of two very different product architectures. When you buy Lotus Quickr you get both. These foundation level deployment architectures are Lotus Domino and WebSphere Portal. There are a host of reasons for this type of product design, but the key is that customers have different requirements and it is not practical to build a “one size fits all” solution. Each of the deployment platforms provide capabilities that can be leveraged to build enterprise class collaboration solutions.

A common question that comes up is ‘What is the right deployment platform for a given situation?’ Well, the answer for that will depend on many key areas. That said, in some cases either of them, can just as effectively meet your needs.

• Do you already have one of the original products such as Lotus QuickPlace?
• What existing products are deployed within your environment? For example, WebSphere Portal or Lotus Domino.
• What skills sets exist within your environment? For example, Java/J2EE or Lotus Domino.
• Do you need to have geographically distributed server deployments that share data and/or offline support?

For example, if your environment only contains Lotus Domino servers and your staff possess deep Lotus Domino-based skills then leveraging Lotus Quickr for Domino is likely to be the best option. Likewise, if you have existing WebSphere application services such as WebSphere Portal or similar WebSphere Application Server-based applications, then Lotus Quickr for WebSphere Portal is likely to be the best option. However, this is not set in stone, but is intended as general deployment guidance. There are situations such as strategic technology changes or if one of the Lotus Quickr platforms provides key functions, that can drive changes to this pattern.

IBM Lotus Quickr for Domino

The Lotus Domino-based product has the longest history. It dates back to the Lotus QuickPlace v1.0 product. Since then, the core set of capabilities available to end users has grown significantly. While it has seen extensive changes over the years, the core DNA still exists.

The deployment architecture of this product is based on Lotus Domino. This means that out of the box it has a wide range of enterprise class services such as security, directory services, content storage, and replication, to name a few. For customers who already have an established Lotus Domino environment this product is a natural fit into that infrastructure. It can easily co-exist within the Lotus Domino administrative domain. The existing skill sets of the Lotus Domino administrators can directly be applied to managing the server. There are some additional skills required that are specific to Lotus Quickr, but they can be easily picked up. By leveraging the very powerful replication services natively available in Lotus Domino, the servers can be distributed widely across the world while still sharing content. Speaking of deployments, the Lotus Quickr for Domino release is wide and represents a majority of the Lotus Quickr seats today.

A broad business partner community exists for Lotus Quickr for Domino which provides custom data migration solutions, as well as, packaged business solutions that can readily be deployed. If a Lotus Domino-based environment will work for you, Lotus Quickr for Domino would be a solid technology investment.

The following screenshot provides a look at a Lotus Quickr for Domino 8.5 team place rendered in Microsoft Internet Explorer 8:

This image displays a user’s team place contains most of the available elements. The active component is the Library feature. This provides structured content management. The primary use of this feature is to manage file attachments.

The user interface itself has been modernized with the latest version 8.5 release and heavily utilizes Web 2.0 technologies. This interface can be adjusted through customization features available to a place owner, as shown in the following screenshot:

IBM Lotus Quickr for WebSphere Portal

The following screenshot provides a look at a Lotus Quickr for WebSphere Portal 8.5 team place, rendered in Firefox 3.5, running on Linux to demonstrate workstation diversity:

The preceding screenshot shows a typical project team place and has some similar elements that the earlier Lotus Domino-based image contained also. The Library is shown in the previous screenshots, but this place was customized to contain project tasks, a calendar, a discussion forum, a blog, and a wiki. These elements can very easily be added or removed by a place owner, using the customize functions shown in the following screenshot: