IBM Outlines Ambitions for Project Vulcan

IBM has previewed Project Vulcan, a new loosely coupled architecture IBM calls a “blueprint for the future of collaboration.” Project Vulcan will build on existing IBM technology investments and capabilities to improve the flexibility and openness of future releases of products such as LotusLive, Lotus Notes and Domino, Lotus Connections, Quickr and WebSphere Portal.

IBM says Project Vulcan is designed to exploit the convergence of cloud and on-premise systems; collaborative services business applications and social networks; and desktops, netbooks and mobile devices to enable flexible, personalized collaboration.

For example, IBM will employ social analytics capabilities it has developed to allow collaborative applications to sift through large reams of personal data and provide recommendations to locate expertise, relevant content, and critical business events. IBM says Project Vulcan will work with existing open systems and provide users with solution flexibility and responsiveness needed to adapt to rapidly changing business requirements and personal preferences. Developers will be able to create new generations of applications with Project Vulcan capabilities.

IBM is being fairly vague about the details of Project Vulcan and exactly what features and functions it will entail. However, Project Vulcan is seen as a response to last fall’s release of the Google Wave collaboration and communications tool. Google Wave is a Web-based client that allows customers to invite other users, and to drag and drop documents as well as clients from other communications tools, including instant messaging and e-mail.

More recently, Google rolled out the ability for Google Apps users to upload and securely share any type of file internally and externally using Google Docs. This means a Google Docs user can access their files from any Web-connected computer and search all stored files from a single access point, as well as allow partners to access and edit the same files.

IBM plans to deliver a beta of a development environment in the second half of 2010 on LotusLive Labs.