IBM Workplace is a family of products and technologies from IBM for creating adaptive, unified, secure work environments that can be customized based on users' unique roles and/or skill levels in the organization.

IBM Workplace Client Technology is a client-side framework for creating server-managed business applications. It is built on open standards and can be used to create "rich client experiences" that can be centrally deployed and managed. IBM Workplace supports open standards including Java EE and Eclipse, and runs on multiple client and server operating systems (including Linux and Microsoft Windows).

The IBM Workplace family of products includes IBM Workplace Collaboration Services and IBM Workplace Managed Client.

Components

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IBM Workplace™ Collaboration Services

IBM Workplace Collaboration Services is a single product that provides a full range of integrated communication and collaboration tools such as e-mail, calendaring and scheduling, awareness, instant messaging, e-learning, team spaces, Web conferencing, and document and Web content management.

IBM Workplace Managed Client

IBM Workplace Managed Client is a server-managed, rich client which extends and enhances the capabilities of IBM Workplace Collaboration Services. IBM Workplace Managed Client offers offline support for email, calendaring, scheduling, and document management. IBM Workplace Managed Client includes an office productivity suite of applications for creating, editing, and sharing a variety of document types including: word processing, spreadsheet, presentations, and project management. The IBM productivity tools are compatible with OpenOffice applications and support the open standard OASIS open document format (ODF). The IBM Workplace Managed Client productivity tools can also be used to create, edit, and save documents in a variety of other formats – including Microsoft Office application formats. By supporting open standards document formats, IBM Workplace Managed Client ensures cross-platform and cross-application document exchange without being locked into the proprietary vendor formats.

IBM Workplace Managed Client also offers a new collaboration tool called “Activity Explorer”. Activity Explorer lets teams of users manage projects via an ad hoc workflow which groups together information objects that are related to an ongoing project and are shared among team members. The information objects can be documents, files, and notes. The ad hoc workflow is presented in graphical, hierarchal format and makes it easier to refer to past work, visualize project status, and discover opportunities for further progress.

For Lotus Notes 7 users, IBM Workplace Managed Client includes a plug-in which allows end users to run Notes applications from within the Workplace Managed Client.

IBM Workplace Client Technology

IBM provides a framework over the "Eclipse RCP 3.0" framework. Its name is "Workplace Client Technology". It aims at providing extended tools to manage rich client issues. For example, when working with a rich client on a client-server application, one can want to disconnect his client for mobile purposes. IBM WCT seems to allow that by replicating parts of the main database to the local machine, so that the user becomes mobile. WCT seems to provide synchronization services, as well as authentification of data source.

Here is the conceptual stack of the IBM WCT, according to IBM. Please consider that this comes from a promotionnal source and, in a few weeks, I will complete this vision.

1. Eclipse RCP
   1. Eclipse 3.0 framework
   2. Generic contributions : System tray integration, context-sensitive status bar, ...
2. IBM Workplace platform extensions
   1. IBM Extension services (non-business-oriented extensions):
      • SyncML for data synchronization
      • WebSphere Portal Integration
      • IBM Extension Services for Websphere Everyplace
      • IBM Cloudscape Local Datastore (DB2j) (since IBM bought Informix)
      • Enterprise JavaBeans Container
   2. IBM generic user interface components : rich text editors, live names, custom tables, WSRP...
3. Business-oriented components and applications:
   1. IBM Lotus Workplace shared application components: people finder, alerts and notification, search, mail, calendar...
   2. IBM Lotus Workplace
   3. Microsoft Office
   4. ...

IBM WCT includes both a Rich Edition (for connect platforms) and a Micro Edition (for mobile purposes).

External links

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• IBM Workplace (Main Page)
• IBM Workplace™ Collaboration Services
• IBM Workplace Managed Client

Groupware

IBM Workplace | Workplace