By any measure last Friday was a very notable day in the History of Notes/Domino. Not only was it the 29th anniversary of the first release of Notes but we heard the news that HCL had acquired (or is acquiring) the full rights to Notes/Domino along with a number of products in the IBM portfolio. Perhaps the most notable of these being Connections.

One of the rumors making the rounds at Social Connections 12 was that IBM were getting ready to sell Notes. Today the story behind the rumor became clearer, with Ed Brill announcing that as part of its plans for extending the Notes/Domino platform beyond 2025 they are outsourcing the development for Notes/Domino to an Indian company HCL Technologies to jointly invest in the Notes, Domino, Verse, and SameTime.

Over the past 12 months Red Pill Now has continue to explore new and exciting ways in which we can exploit the potential of Graph Databases. The unique characteristics of Graph databases combined with REST APIs and the awesomeness that comes from Web Components and Material Design (via Polymer) is allowing us to transform Notes data in ways that was never possible until now.

While IBM didn’t say it, I couldn’t help but think that IBM Verse is in the process of being totally integrated into Connections, to the point in which I am not sure if it would make any sense to try and identify (or use) it as a separate product. It would be hard to have Connections without Verse,

Back in May of last year I shared my first impressions in using IBM’s new e-mail client Verse. After using Verse for seven months the trial in which I had been participating came to an end. It was an interesting time as my experience with Verse caused me to look very closely at the various email clients I have been using and challenge what really matters to me in my choice of an email client.