I thought it would be interesting to ask some of the leading Notes professionals I know about their opinions on these questions. Therefore, I interviewed about a dozen Notes professionals: developers, Lotus/IBM business partners, project mangers with Fortune 500 companies, etc. and asked them what was going to be hot in 2002. This article reflects what I learned and will speak to those two most frequently asked questions.

Hot products
Almost every respondent to my survey told me that Sametime (at http://www.lotus.com/home.nsf/welcome/sametime) would be more important this year than last year. Kimberly Junker, Advisory Programmer Analyst with BlueWare, Inc. told me that, "With more concern about travel, Sametime and other collaboration applications can be used to replace travel and decrease associated costs."

Perhaps the events of September 11 are the main reason for the prospects of Sametime's popularity, as explained by Michael Walton, Federal Practice Manager for Lotus Professional Services who sees, "a large focus on rapid collaboration solutions leveraging Quickplace and Sametime technologies, primarily because of 9-11." He told me, "teams are working across the distances using the collaborative tools built into Domino and other Lotus technologies like Quickplace and Sametime because 9-11 has placed restrictions on travel, but projects continue to move forward."

As for other hot Lotus products, Quickplace (at http://www.lotus.com/home.nsf/welcome/quickplace) and Domino.doc (at http://www.lotus.com/home.nsf/welcome/domdoc) still remain popular, but enthusiasm for SmartSuite (at http://www.lotus.com/home.nsf/welcome/smartsuite) seems to be waning. For more information on this topic, see Dan Velasco's article in DominoPower's May 2001 issue, "Create a QuickPlace of your very own," at http://www.dominopower.com/issues/issue200105/quickplace001.html.

Hot skills
When asked what other development technologies would be added to the technology base, 75% of those I polled responded that Java, WebSphere, and XML (extensible Markup Language) would be added or become more important than they were last year. Phil Barker, CEO of Process Stream Technologies in Denver suggests that the savvy Lotus professional should be adding, "Java, JSP, JavaScript, XML/XSL, WebSphere to their skill set. Rnext will leverage all these skills and prepare Lotus professionals for integration with ongoing trends in the e-business marketplace."