This is such a confusing product page. One of the email examples halfway down the page actually has Lorem Ipsum in it.
The first demo video, showing a "Client Meeting" at 10am, doesn't make any sense from a design perspective - a user taps on the meeting, only to receive a modal dialog that has no more information than what was already on screen. Worse yet, the "Options" button opens a nested modal with more options, on which the demo user taps "OK."
If IBM is trying to show their aptitude for designing frustrating user interfaces, they're doing a good job.
After looking at the IBM info, I've put some thoughts into what this product is about from two perspectives:
#1 technology and #2 comparison to older products (Lotus Notes, MS Outlook, etc)
Perspective #1: the tech. Sometimes a new product is driven by progress in technological gadgetry. In this case, I believe that gadgetry is the "analytics". The new algorithms (NLP natural language processing, semantics engine, etc) has a lot of overlap with the IBM Watson engine that beat humans at Jeopardy. Take this data analysis engine out of the R&D lab (Watson) and and apply it to email inboxes. Also leverage the engine in user queries searching for lost emails (possibly using English sentences instead of boolean logic). Presumably, IBM is enthusiastic enough about this analytics "secret sauce" that they'd rather not just add it to a stale brandname such as "Lotus Notes" which results in easily ignored press releases of "Lotus Notes v12" or "Lotus Notes NextGen". Therefore, you get a new product called "IBM Verse". There are other technologies such as integrating chat/social/cloud more tightly into the main screen but I believe it's the mostly the analytics that IBM thinks is the key differentiator. Others have already integrated mail+chat+social+sharing so in this area, IBM is catching up instead of breaking new ground.
Perspective #2: Comparison to old products -- the older well-known email clients such as Lotus Notes, Micrsoft Outlook were built before the prioritization of mobile devices, cloud infrastructure, and social such as Facebook. Task switching with Lotus Notes + Sametime Chat or MS Outlook + MSN Messenger + Sharepoint is the "old inefficient way". The old products also acted pretty much as "dumb pipes" or "dumb storage containers" of email text. The only "intelligence" in those enteprise email products was filtering for spam. I guess IBM is betting on a new email product that analyzes text in a deeper sense than just "spam keywords" and also gathering statistics on user behavior with clicking certain types of emails, certain senders, etc. The proposition is that it will dramatically reduce the cognitive workload in managing an overloaded inbox.
What's not clear is if IBM Verse requires an IBM datacenter to be in the loop (for cloud sync, sharing, etc), or if it can be deployed as a private cloud solution.
Looks like a managed enterprisey version of Google Inbox/Mailbox app/Evomail. Probably does some natural language processing and keeps track of appointments, due dates, action items, etc.
It isn't clear from that page, but this is actually the latest version of IBM Domino, i.e. the server for Lotus Notes.
IBM still have a large number of corporate customers on Notes/Domino and they've been talking for a while about how to integrate email with other "social" apps for file sharing etc.
This is obviously server-based and so means e-mail without the Notes client, but I believe that it's still built on a Domino server underneath.
My requirements for email are really simple.. NLP and analytics will probably just annoy me.
For example, when a calender invite arrives it should show up on my calender (and give 10 minute warnings, etc.) even if I did not accept it. Why? Notes makes me feel like an idiot when I miss a meeting just because I didn't look at the email.
Another: search should be instant, reliable and clear. In Notes, regular search doesn't cover the domain name.
Suppose I want to send mail to everyone on a calender invite. To do this I have to cut and paste the names from several fields and then delete my own name from the list.
This is aiming to be GMail + Google Now for the enterprise. Something that will parse your mail, schedule and contacts to generate suggestions or reminders and create an easily accessible "context" for each.
A workplace client that can generate 'cards', reminders and contextualize common bits of information (Think UPS tracking numbers in GMail - applied to support tickets, physical sites, projects, POs and budgets in an enterprise) with the creepy accuracy of Google Now would actually be interesting - yet another take on unified communications or a skin deep re-imagining of email would not.
1. I'm having flashbacks to Google (Apache) Wave. That is not a good thing.
2. How much would it cost to have a professional voice over artist record that spiel? Less than $500 right? That has to be better than the product manager using his laptop's microphone for the official YouTube video (or whatever it actually was.)
3. "Every decision in the design process was made with the user in mind." Way to meet the base-line requirement for user design: "Consider the fact that there is a user."
Maybe if they finally would be able to implement 30 year technology correctly or being really innovative and dump all the crud that accumulated over the years instead then I could maybe hope a little.
OTOH, it's from IBM. They know how to do e-mail. They have Lotus Notes.
[+] [-] psobot|11 years ago|reply
The first demo video, showing a "Client Meeting" at 10am, doesn't make any sense from a design perspective - a user taps on the meeting, only to receive a modal dialog that has no more information than what was already on screen. Worse yet, the "Options" button opens a nested modal with more options, on which the demo user taps "OK."
If IBM is trying to show their aptitude for designing frustrating user interfaces, they're doing a good job.
[+] [-] omh|11 years ago|reply
This is basically the latest version of Lotus Notes. The UI might not be great, but anything is an improvement over the old versions.
[+] [-] jasode|11 years ago|reply
Perspective #1: the tech. Sometimes a new product is driven by progress in technological gadgetry. In this case, I believe that gadgetry is the "analytics". The new algorithms (NLP natural language processing, semantics engine, etc) has a lot of overlap with the IBM Watson engine that beat humans at Jeopardy. Take this data analysis engine out of the R&D lab (Watson) and and apply it to email inboxes. Also leverage the engine in user queries searching for lost emails (possibly using English sentences instead of boolean logic). Presumably, IBM is enthusiastic enough about this analytics "secret sauce" that they'd rather not just add it to a stale brandname such as "Lotus Notes" which results in easily ignored press releases of "Lotus Notes v12" or "Lotus Notes NextGen". Therefore, you get a new product called "IBM Verse". There are other technologies such as integrating chat/social/cloud more tightly into the main screen but I believe it's the mostly the analytics that IBM thinks is the key differentiator. Others have already integrated mail+chat+social+sharing so in this area, IBM is catching up instead of breaking new ground.
Perspective #2: Comparison to old products -- the older well-known email clients such as Lotus Notes, Micrsoft Outlook were built before the prioritization of mobile devices, cloud infrastructure, and social such as Facebook. Task switching with Lotus Notes + Sametime Chat or MS Outlook + MSN Messenger + Sharepoint is the "old inefficient way". The old products also acted pretty much as "dumb pipes" or "dumb storage containers" of email text. The only "intelligence" in those enteprise email products was filtering for spam. I guess IBM is betting on a new email product that analyzes text in a deeper sense than just "spam keywords" and also gathering statistics on user behavior with clicking certain types of emails, certain senders, etc. The proposition is that it will dramatically reduce the cognitive workload in managing an overloaded inbox.
What's not clear is if IBM Verse requires an IBM datacenter to be in the loop (for cloud sync, sharing, etc), or if it can be deployed as a private cloud solution.
[+] [-] DarthBender|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smacktoward|11 years ago|reply
I've just spent five minutes clicking around the web site and I still haven't got the foggiest idea.
[+] [-] rscott|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jcfrei|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] omh|11 years ago|reply
IBM still have a large number of corporate customers on Notes/Domino and they've been talking for a while about how to integrate email with other "social" apps for file sharing etc.
This is obviously server-based and so means e-mail without the Notes client, but I believe that it's still built on a Domino server underneath.
[+] [-] jhallenworld|11 years ago|reply
For example, when a calender invite arrives it should show up on my calender (and give 10 minute warnings, etc.) even if I did not accept it. Why? Notes makes me feel like an idiot when I miss a meeting just because I didn't look at the email.
Another: search should be instant, reliable and clear. In Notes, regular search doesn't cover the domain name.
Suppose I want to send mail to everyone on a calender invite. To do this I have to cut and paste the names from several fields and then delete my own name from the list.
They should address every single issue on http://www.ihatelotusnotes.com/ before worrying about analytics.
[+] [-] PeterWhittaker|11 years ago|reply
At least with Google's Inbox there is enough actual information for me to evaluate, consider, and eventually arrive at a considered "no, thank you".
With Verse, well, I don't know why I've even devoted the cycles it took to write this, let alone why I would evaluate Verse.
Maybe next time.
[+] [-] derwiki|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] incision|11 years ago|reply
My guess/hope...
This is aiming to be GMail + Google Now for the enterprise. Something that will parse your mail, schedule and contacts to generate suggestions or reminders and create an easily accessible "context" for each.
A workplace client that can generate 'cards', reminders and contextualize common bits of information (Think UPS tracking numbers in GMail - applied to support tickets, physical sites, projects, POs and budgets in an enterprise) with the creepy accuracy of Google Now would actually be interesting - yet another take on unified communications or a skin deep re-imagining of email would not.
[+] [-] JoblessWonder|11 years ago|reply
2. How much would it cost to have a professional voice over artist record that spiel? Less than $500 right? That has to be better than the product manager using his laptop's microphone for the official YouTube video (or whatever it actually was.)
3. "Every decision in the design process was made with the user in mind." Way to meet the base-line requirement for user design: "Consider the fact that there is a user."
[+] [-] throwawayaway|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kevinmcf|11 years ago|reply
I am an IBMer (no affiliation with this product) and am actually excited to give this a try.
[+] [-] bitwize|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] VeryVito|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wmf|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] bhaak|11 years ago|reply
I'm so excited ... not.
Maybe if they finally would be able to implement 30 year technology correctly or being really innovative and dump all the crud that accumulated over the years instead then I could maybe hope a little.
OTOH, it's from IBM. They know how to do e-mail. They have Lotus Notes.
[+] [-] cfontes|11 years ago|reply