Lotusphere Café

Martin Hewitt

The Business Partner Competitive table will provide you the opportunity to talk to an IBM Competitive Specialist and discuss strategies for defending against and attacking Microsoft technologies, especially Exchange/Outlook and Sharepoint. We will share tips and techniques, best practices, and how IBM resources can assist you with your competitive opportunities.

Gale Taylor

Find out why many Business Partners are using an appliance strategy to simplify deployment and configuration of their solutions and to expand their business into new markets. If you are not familiar with the spectrum of software delivery appliance options IBM has to offer, we suggest you stop by and learn how you can use these various kinds of hardware, software and virtual appliances to make your solutions simpler to sell and faster to deploy, as well as to dramatically lower support and maintenance and increase profits. Join Gale Taylor, Global Business Development Manager for Linux Software Appliances, to learn about IBM's appliance development toolkit and marketing programs. Gale will share a view of the marketplace, how IBM helps Business Partners assemble individual components into a complete platform, and the spectrum of business models and applications available.

Martha Mealy

Mashups are a exciting new way for IT and business to come together in more productive ways. To build a successful strategy for how to introduce and sell Mashups to your clients - you need a compelling case for IT to reuse and easily create mashable assets while also helping IT explain the value for business. Come to this session to learn about the successful patterns and plays that the IBM Mashup Center team has available for you to craft an effective strategy for talking to clients about the exciting potential of mashups for speed, simplicity, and agility!

Kris Seewaldt

Stop by the café to hear more about WebSphere Portal/IBM Accelerators and IBM Mashup Center. Join Kris Seewaldt, Program Director, Worldwide Channel Marketing, to discuss these products and learn how you can use our marketing tools to your benefit. If you are not familiar with the U-Pick Web site, we suggest you stop by and learn how you can use this resource to your benefit, to enable your company technical, sales, and marketing staffs, and to help build effective marketing campaigns.

Bob Alexander

Get-to-market, fast with tailored technology assistance as you architect, develop, port and test your solutions to IBM software and hardware platforms - all with peace of mind. The IBM PartnerWorld program provides information on how you can enhance your technical skills, design better solutions and grow your business locally and globally. Bring faster time-to-value to your customers while enhancing your profitability. Get hands-on training at one of our international IBM Innovation Centers or take it online at our Virtual Innovation Center. Hear directly from IBM experts and participate in live or online education, skills certification. See how you can enhance your skills, expand your opportunities so you can make more money with the IBM Software Value Package, the IBM Software Access Option and through IBM technical accreditations.

Ross Klisart

Want to learn more about the core marketing programs IBM/Lotus will be running in 2009? Do you have questions about Empowering People that we can answer to help you as you build out your marketing plans for 2009? If so, then stop by the Empowering People Program table to find out what the program is all about, learn what marketing assets you can leverage in your own sales efforts, and get answers to your pressing questions. From Lotusphere Comes to You.... to customer-facing marketing materials.... to program enablement resources. Come down and have a coffee and speak with one of our marketing program professionals to learn about the materials you can leverage and discuss how they can help you drive increased sales in 2009!

Carla Collopy

Grow your marketplace footprint and be profitable. Take advantage of a robust set of sales and marketing resources available to you through IBM PartnerWorld. Review demos, talk to IBM experts, gain access to best practice tools and learn about IBM Business Partner communities. Get the latest information about market trends and product innovations. Build awareness so that your prospects can find you! Participate in IBM - and Business Partner-sponsored events or leverage IBM advertising efforts. Innovate and collaborate with fellow Business Partners through Value Net Connections. Get found and be known by using net new Internet marketing benefits from IBM like Web content syndication and search engine optimization. Best of all, enhance your profitability by leveraging compelling incentives and rebates!

William Freiwah

The Software Acquisition and Channels program is a unique Global telemarketing lead generation engine focused primarily on providing outbound calls to generate demand for Business Partner solutions, but also on IBM software and proactive LiveChat. This team runs various tele tactics from IBM brands, cross-brand IBM marketing programs, Business Partners, and Value Added Distributors to reach out to potential prospects using skilled lead generation sales reps.

Cindy Jenkins

Grow your business by adding IBM Information Management software to your solution portfolio. Information On Demand helps clients optimize their businesses for sustained competitive advantage - a huge long term opportunity for you, our Business Partners. Come learn about the programs and benefits available to you when skilled in aspects of our Information Management portfolio.

Bob Alexander

It's all about building awareness, driving demand so that you can convert viable prospects into loyal customers! Be at a competitive advantage and use the latest innovative sales and marketing resources, tools, incentives, and rebates available to you through IBM PartnerWorld. Learn how to sell successfully in industry-specific markets through PartnerWorld Industry Networks. Execute effective campaigns with pre-designed templates in Campaign Designer. Learn how to be financially rewarded based on your role in a given sales cycle with Software Value Incentive (SVI). Contact members of the global IBM sales team through Sales Connections. Get quick access to a network of consultants to help you plan and execute your marketing campaigns with Marketing Consultants. Find out how you can make more money with IBM by becoming an OEM Partner. Or, simply talk with one of our on-site experts who can help you address specific business needs and questions about any of our other programs.

Ron Furmaniuk

The Lotus Business Solutions Catalogs are a key web-based vehicle for promoting Business Partner "production ready" Business Solutions. They offer the ability for customers, IBM sellers, and other Business Partners to search hundreds of IBM and Business Partner solutions that have been technically validated. There's no charge to participate. Business Partners with validated solutions receive free 90-day technical support and more. In 2007, over 149,000 unique visitors drove 56,000 referrals to partners. Find out how your solution can obtain this kind of visibility!

Mike Johnson

The software appliance designed to run your IT so you don't have to.

IBM Lotus Foundations is a family of software appliances that provide the essential software that businesses need to focus on running their business, not managing computer systems. Foundations Start provides e-mail, calendars, office productivity, file management, backup and recovery, network security, remote access and more - all in a single package at an affordable price. The offering is targeted at small businesses (5 to 500 employees), can deploy in as little as 30 minutes, and also features self-managing, self-healing properties. If you're an IT Consultant, small businesses rely on you! Foundations offerings can help you spend more time and energy on extending the business use and productivity of IT to their customers, and less on resolving IT problems and applying fixes and patches.

Stacey Miller

Are you forced to do more with fewer resources? The Software as a Service (SaaS) market is booming as companies scramble to reduce costs and increase productivity. Let "Bluehouse" help. "Bluehouse" is a suite of hosted online technologies that combines social networking and online collaboration tools for businesses. You spend time focusing on innovation while "Bluehouse" handles the rest. Come see "Bluehouse" in action at the Lotusphere 2009 Sales and Marketing café. Whether you are thinking about entering the SaaS market, want to learn about "Bluehouse", or explore integrating your SaaS applications with "Bluehouse", our team of experts can help.

Gina Agee

SOA is undergoing rapid adoption in the marketplace. Don't miss this great business opportunity to work with the SOA market leader. Build and sell your SOA portfolio with tools and resources just for IBM Business Partners. Get started today and generate customer awareness by promoting your validated SOA solutions in the SOA Business Catalog. Visit SOAsocial.com to share your experience with other partners and customers. Learn how you can be part of the SOA Specialty to receive even more benefits from IBM. Stop by today to hear about these resources and more!

Brandon Smith

Social computing innovations developed in our own lab have enabled us to adopt and evolve social computing tools and models across our entire business environment. This has led to one of the industry's first integrated social computing software offerings that every business can take advantage of now. Benefits delivered by IBM social computing technology includes: more easily capture and preserve tacit information, help leverage information more effectively, enable expertise to be delivered within the organization, and use it to help speed completion of tasks. Learn how your business can capitalize on the power of Web 2.0 and social computing technology to help maximize market opportunities. Come by the Social Software table and speak with Brandon Smith, Worldwide Lotus Channels Marketing Manager for Social Software, to hear more about IBM's current social software products and technologies, including Lotus Quickr & Lotus Connections. In addition to information about the products, come by and discuss what you can do to become a business partner in this new and exciting business area. Excellent opportunities exist for all types of business partners - SIs, VARs, ISVs, VADs.

Shawn Gavin

Enhance and expand the contribution of IBM Software Subscription & Support to your business. Topics will include: maximizing Subscription and Support revenue, driving new license Opportunity Identification (OI) from cross-selling / upselling relevant products , enablement support (including ROI) around the value of Subscriptioning and Support, and interlocking with IBM "reachback" activities to improve reinstatement revenue.

Sean Flanagan

Beyond simply combining communications channels, the IBM Unified Communications and Collaboration (IBM UC²_™ ) vision is to add the power of collaboration to the equation and foster innovation and business agility by making it easier for people to find, reach and collaborate with one another through a unified communications experience. Integrating communications and collaboration in a rich, multimedia experience - one that can include unified telephony, voice, video, instant messaging, Web conferencing, e-mail, voice mail, and business processes and applications - enables a whole new way for people, teams and communities to find experts and make faster, better decisions. The IBM UC² strategy is to deliver - in partnership with the leading telephony, audio, and video vendors - complete software, services and hardware solutions for unified communications and collaboration. These solutions, which include IBM Lotus® Sametime® software and services from IBM and partners, offer a simple, unified user experience that seamlessly integrates with multivendor environments.

Michael Harer

IBM offers an extensive set of solutions across the three areas that make up Web 2.0 - Social Computing, Application Development, and Web as a Platform (which includes cloud computing). IBM's deep experience delivering enterprise solutions means that we are moving Web 2.0 beyond a simple consumer play to one that is ready for business. Talk to our staff and learn how IBM's 'Web 2.0 Goes to Work' initiative can provide new business opportunities for your organization, and how IBM's set of offerings take advantage of Web 2.0 technology to help companies deliver better business results through employees, customers, suppliers and partners.

Jon Raslawski

Many customers (specifically their IT staff) spend significant amounts of time building the SOA back-end and invest very little time in showcasing or showing-off their work to the LOB and end-users. WebSphere Portal, combinedwith some of the new Web 2.0 initiatives, provides the perfect vehicle for exposing this. The "people" aspect is key - add to it all the added value features of collaboration, process, information, and mashups (all available through the IBM Accelerators) and you have a complete SOA solution. Working examples include the successes at Austin Energy (with Ascendant's assistance) and Cashman (with PSC's assistance). The goal is to teach the BP community to speak the language of SOA and Business Flexibility when working with their clients. Our BPs are in the best position to blend cross-IBM-brand solutions that meet the client's needs, and we can teach them what to listen for, what to say, and what to propose with their clients.