I’m a bit surprised by all these excited comments on just announced IBM Lotus Connections from people that did not really use the product (I don’t consider playing with the demo at Lotusphere a real use). I guess it is just conditions are ripe and people have been waiting long enough for a Big Vendor like IBM to start pushing Web 2.0 software for enterprises. I’m not denying overall positive impact that this offering will have on future of social software in the enterprise. But I’m a little bit cautious about what the product will actually have to offer when it finally becomes generally available.

Lotus Connections is not a product built from ground up. It is a collection of independently developed components that are combined together to make “the sum greater than the parts”. Well, I’m afraid it may turn out to be just a great promise rather than reality. At least in the first incarnation.

How well will the components be integrated? Will they fit into existing infrastructure? I have worked with Roller which is a blogging component in Lotus Connections for quite a bit. In Roller, integration is one of the weakest points. At all levels: UI, content or identity management. Roller is in Apache incubation now and is seeing a lot of development activities. There are several developers from IBM working on the product but still it is long way to go until Roller is ready for prime time or be easily integrated into the application suite. I’m quite curious what Roller we will see in the final Connections release.

I just hope that other Connections components are at the much higher maturity level and much better integrated into the product. Well, I really want to see Lotus Connections team proving me wrong. After all, we’ve been waiting for a serious offering of Web 2.0 software for enterprises far too long.