Quickr is team collaboration software that includes a wiki and integration with everyday office applications from Lotus and Microsoft. Lotus Quickr offers a simple team collaboration model with a shared content library, team workspaces, wikis, blogs, and business templates that can be extended to include other new social networking elements such as bookmarking and tagging.
At the heart of Quickr are "connectors" -- mini-applications that integrate Quickr capabilities with other everyday applications. For example, users can easily access designated content directly from IBM Lotus Notes, Lotus Sametime, Microsoft Windows Explorer, and Microsoft Office software and store it within a Quickr shared library. Additionally, IBM plans to expand Lotus Quickr's interoperability by providing a connector to Microsoft Outlook e-mail software later this year.
Benefits of Quickr include:
Web 2.0 technologies such as AJAX have been incorporated into Lotus Quickr to deliver a graphical, Web-based user interface customizable by average users. This Web 2.0 interface includes Web features such as right-click dynamic action menus and drag-and-drop options to help move documents in and out of team spaces. Lotus Quickr provides the ability to publish team blogs, use the built-in wiki technology for creating content, and assign tags and permalinks for archiving. A key Web 2.0 feature is the use of an advanced content syndication tool to both publish and consume Atom-based news feeds.
Support for open standards: Lotus Quickr integrates with Microsoft Office 2003 and 2007, Microsoft Windows Explorer on Windows XP and Windows Vista, IBM Lotus Notes 7 and 8 (with planned support for Lotus Notes 6.5) and Lotus Sametime 7.5. Lotus Quickr supports Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari browsers, providing Web access from Windows, Linux, and Macintosh desktops.
Lotus Quickr includes business templates such as project management, image repository, dynamic surveys, and more. All templates are customizable, letting users change the look-and-feel and add pre-built components, such as team blogs, project calendars, or announcement pages.
When documents are sent from a single user to a group for feedback, the process of tracking edits and changes over e-mail can be inefficient and prone to error. Document and application templates let users share ideas as they collaborate, tracking changes as they take place. Lotus Quickr software's wiki technology provides an in-line web editing option that allows a user to revert back to an earlier version of a page.
Planned enhancements to Lotus Quickr include integration with IBM's enterprise content management (ECM) systems. Customers will be able to use Lotus Quickr to collaborate on content and leverage IBM FileNet P8 and IBM DB2 Content Manager information management capabilities.
