What happened to Connections Pink?
by Volker Weber
In 2017 there had been lots of talk about modernizing IBM Connections by moving it from IBM Websphere to a Docker container architecture that would allow for rapid updates of components. Then the lead develeoper left IBM for HCL with the Domino franchise and the lead designer left the company for good. HCL bought Domino and Sametime, but shows no interest in buying Connections. [They have acquired other software assets that would regularly show up in Lotusphere keynotes, but issued no formal announcement].
Wikipedia says "needs update". I agree.
Comments
I guess/hope we will know more after Social Connections in Berlin 16 & 17 October. Seeing as Danielle Baptiste (Connections Product Manager) is doing the Keynote, you'd expect some value from that session.
Truly, this is one of the distinctions that gives me great hope for HCL's approach.
In a world of a zillion choices, discerning what you *should* be doing is core.
Connections idea is great
But websphere and the quality of the code kill the products!
I have decompile the code and the code is horrible! Many fragment and separate application that was used internally.
Websphere is a bad application server.
But the really problem is the code under connections...
@John Sauder
When you realise that Connections is a 'mashup' of about 11 totally different pieces of software, it's a wonder it ever works at all!
The great hope was that the Connections Pink effort would take it all and re-write it all as a cohesive group of parts to the same coding standards and ideals.
I had high hopes for Pink.
One of the primary reasons I looked elsewhere for solutions in this space was the complexity and high cost of implementing/managing/customising the Websphere stack under Connections.
When Jason Roy Gary spoke so passionately about his intentions for Pink, and particularly the switch to an automatically-updated set of OpenSource components available in the Cloud or On-Prem, I really felt as though there was a future for a platform that still has so much potential.
Hoping that Pink isn't altogether dead and that Danielle announces some firm plans for the delivery of these components. Fingers crossed!
