If you are regular on Techgearz you might have noticed last year Techgearz featured an article on Colayer, a Google Wave like project which is in market for all most a decade now. I had an exclusive interview with Markus Hegi, CEO Colayer yesterday on twitter. We discussed about Google Wave, Colayer and the future of real time communication. This discussion is based on the article that Markus posted on Colayer blog about Colayer and the Rise & Fall of Google Wave.

Interview with Markus Hegi, CEO Colayer ( @mhegi ) – on twitter by @anix86

tweet link- http://twitter.com/anix86/status/20697909920

tweet link- http://twitter.com/mhegi/status/20697999320

tweet link- http://twitter.com/anix86/status/20698084489

tweet link- http://twitter.com/mhegi/status/20698253516

tweet link- http://twitter.com/anix86/status/20698324856

tweet link- http://twitter.com/mhegi/status/20698421743

tweet link- http://twitter.com/mhegi/status/20698492859

tweet link- http://twitter.com/anix86/status/20698584530

tweet link- http://twitter.com/mhegi/status/20698700421

tweet link- http://twitter.com/mhegi/status/20698818534

tweet link- http://twitter.com/anix86/status/20698923610

tweet link- http://twitter.com/mhegi/status/20699026343

tweet link- http://twitter.com/anix86/status/20699815102

tweet link- http://twitter.com/mhegi/status/20699956814

tweet link- http://twitter.com/mhegi/status/20700051918

tweet link- http://twitter.com/anix86/status/20700272765

tweet link- http://twitter.com/mhegi/status/20700454390

tweet link- http://twitter.com/mhegi/status/20700669262

tweet link- http://twitter.com/anix86/status/20700957370

tweet link- http://twitter.com/anix86/status/20701098028

tweet link- http://twitter.com/mhegi/status/20701354250

tweet link- http://twitter.com/mhegi/status/20701387654

tweet link- http://twitter.com/anix86/status/20702291043

tweet link- http://twitter.com/mhegi/status/20702680321

tweet link- http://twitter.com/anix86/status/20702815340

tweet link- http://twitter.com/mhegi/status/20703266596

tweet link- http://twitter.com/anix86/status/20703670825

tweet link- http://twitter.com/mhegi/status/20704142024

tweet link- http://twitter.com/anix86/status/20704431066

tweet link- http://twitter.com/anix86/status/20704486078

tweet link- http://twitter.com/mhegi/status/20704723442

tweet link- http://twitter.com/anix86/status/20705151474

tweet link- http://twitter.com/mhegi/status/20705332954

You could also check these time lines in twitter search click here. Post your comments and view on the above discussion.

In the end of 2008 IBM announced its new “software as a service” (SaaS) platform called LotusLive, this included a wide array of web based IBM Lotus products like Sametime, Lotus Connections, Lotus Quickr, Lotus Mashups.

Now this product range also contains one most powerful Lotus Application i.e its email service, this would be called iNotes. iNotes 8.5 is the web version of the IBMs Lotus Notes email client.

Though iNotes is not a new term for Lotus Notes, its there since the Lotus Notes/Domino 6 version. But very few company could prefer to use this feature, reason, need a powerful infrastructure to maintain it. And this could be the reason why IBM thought of bringing its as a cloud offering so that company need not think about the infrastructure and could focus on the business part.

Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are way ahead in the webmail offering and they doing this job for quite a long time now, then why Lotus iNotes. Its Simple , more safer, secure, reliable, more mature webmail client, cheaper and its an IBM product.

Along with email, iNotes also offer calender, Contact management, and a wast range of collaborative tools.

Currently iNotes is available with 1Gb mail space with cost of 3$ / month i.e a 36$ /year rent, which is comparatively cheaper then the google Apps 56$ /year.

Lotus iNotes will be avaibale in 3 Modes, Full Mode for broadband users, Lite mode for normal internet users and ultra Lite mode for mobile and iphone users. Check out the features

Notes: Below information is taken from IBM website

Full mode
Access a full array of integrated collaboration tools within environments providing full broadband connections. New features in 8.5 help users:

• Manage personal and team content, and helps reduce email glut through integration with optionally available IBM Lotus Quickr™ software. Save email attachments into shared or personal Lotus Quickr places, and send links to Lotus Quickr places in place of attachments.
• Maintain greater control over your schedule as the line between work and life outside of work continues to blur by integrating Lotus iNotes calendars and professional calendars into a single view, offering a complete view of daily schedules.
• Connect users with relevant, realtime information from a variety of sources–without having to store that information in a document or e–mail– via widgets created from a variety of available sources. Users can, for example, immediately find directions to a destination by clicking an address within a document.
• Easily switch between applications with convenient icons located in the left-hand navigation panel.
• Quickly access a day–at–a–glance view of calendars and help information through an easily accessible slideout sidebar.
• Maintain productivity with message tabs that that include a status icon that indicate when a document is loading.
• Enforce discipline and professionalism across organization communication through automatic spell checking performance when an email is sent.

Lite mode

• Deliver a focused and rich feature experience for mail, contacts, and calendars in areas with slow connections or bandwidth constrained networks. New features in 8.5 include:
• Easily manage the size of your inbox through available mail quota information.
• Maintain control of your daily schedule by creating meetings, or accepting and declining meetings from other users.
• Help optimize your schedule by including comments to users when accepting or declining meeting invitations.

Ultra–light mode

• With one touch, view the Inbox, Contacts, and Day–at–a–glance calendar on supported mobile devices.
• Lotus Domino data combines with the flexibility and connectivity of the Apple iPhone enabling users to quickly access email, calendars, and contacts directly through the Apple iPhone Safari browser.

GoogleWave Start page

As Google has announced early this year that Google Wave will be an open source and they want Open Source community to contribute to this project by developing app’s on top of the wave protocol, similar to the activity going on for the Android OS. Ample of App’s have been developed for Android even before the official launch of the OS.

Google Wave will be out by the beginning of the next year for the user community worldwide, but Google has already released a developer version of Google Wave so the developers can have a hands on the Google wave APIs and start developing the application.

You can have a look on the Google Wave APIs here >> http://code.google.com/apis/wave/

Many companies have already started developing application for the wave protocol and also for the Google Wave using these apis.
Anyways having access to the apis wont help you, unless you have the access to the Google wave Sandbox to try out the APIs. You can place a request for that here >> https://services.google.com/fb/forms/wavesignupfordev/ . Already lots of requests  have been placed and many have got access to the Google Wave Sandbox.

Long back @Teahgearz i has requested for a Sandbox access to Google Wave and have received one few week back.

I tried to test the wave but din get any one on-line so that I can check out the power of the Google wave.  (if any of the reader have the Google wave Sandbox id please add anix86@wavesandbox.com to your contact list and ping me when you are online.)

Ultimately i had to use the test id provided by the Google to me. Along with the main user id, Google also give a test id so that you can actually give a try.

Check out the Screen Shot to have a look on the Google Wave. I have observed that lots of patches a applied on the regular bases since the development on this framework is going on. Though the GUI of the Google Wave for the users will be 80% similar to this i guess. That any way can be see when its officially launched for the users.

Communication using googlewave. One person is using login in the Wave from firefox and other on the goolge chrome and editing the same document.

Here you can see all the wave that has been initiated by you, you can also see who all are invloved in each wave. It a sort of wave inbox, you can also communication you have done using any of the google wave apps in here.

Since I write this blog in my spare time, din get much time to explore wave much.
Hope to explore out many other features as soon as possible and update in this space.

Post in you updates and feedback on wave, if you have given a try on it.