First hand impression of Alloy
Msc mobile had the chance to participate in early test on Alloy (formerly code named Atlantic) at SAP.
Wouldn't it be great to access all your business relevant information from a single point? Wouldn't it be great to avoid switching between your personal information manager (PIM) and your ERP system? Wouldn't it be great to have all your SAP functionality in your Lotus Notes Client?
I'm sure you heard that it is possible now: Alloy is the magic word. It's the SAP integration into Lotus Notes, developed by IBM and SAP.
Together with a colleague from msc mobile, I participated in the Atlantic (that was the old name for Alloy) tests at SAP in November and December 2008. During our tests we did a lot of hands on with Alloy and we were impressed how seamless the integration of the Alloy plug-in into the Notes Client was done. For example it's possible to create a leave or travel request hassle-free out of your Lotus Notes Calendar, like any other meeting request. No need any more to access the SAP Netweaver Portal or the backend system.
It was impressive how stable the product is - no crashes and bugs like we know it from other products that are in the early phase of the product life cycle.
Another great thing is the Sideshelf - it's a big benefit for the user because it offers context sensitive information like links to related reports (how many vacation days used) when creating a leave request. The Alloy team at SAP and IBM even thought about the little details - like the personalization of reports. This is what makes the difference between a good and great product!
So far so good, but the real advantage comes with the openness of the Lotus Notes environment: It is based on great and open technologies like SWT and RCP (for which a lot of books and tutorials are available). It allows you to create your own workflows or reports and bring them down to the Lotus Notes client. This improves the productivity and the user experience a lot. So we are sure the product will be a big success - we at msc mobile are thinking about building customized scenarios based on Alloy because we think this is the future - integrated solutions that are user friendly and easy to use.