No sooner do I file a column (coming soon) on the clash between IT-driven and user-driven computing than IBM decides to make two announcements which, between them, more or less address the issues I raised.
In what looks like a pincer movement, IBM has extended Lotus Notes into the Web 2.0 world. It has also announced an alpha program called QEDwiki, which is providing a Web 2.0 environment for the enterprise.
IWR's editor, Mark Chillingworth, has already blogged about the Notes extensions, so I'll cover QEDwiki. It's partly a tool for creating lightweight applications on the fly out of readily available or home-grown program components (widgets) and information sources. It's also a typical wiki environment in which users can cooperate and share information.
IBM has been participating in the Web 2.0 world from the beginning and understands its potential as well as the need to adhere to corporate security standards. It is well poised to take the existing (and maybe new) Notes users into this world as well as encouraging and facilitating new developments at the edge of the organisation.
However, It's early days for QEDwiki. Many potential information and program code sources have not yet been opened up by organisations using Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) methods, although there are plenty available on the web. And most regular users will steer clear of scripting their own widgets using PHP. But this won't prevent them creating simple mashups from others' work.
IBM has shown that it is possible to create a working environment which may, one day, satisfy the desires of the organisation, IT and the users. That would be quite an achievement.
Here's a slightly cheesy and occasionally techie YouTube demo from IBM.
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