Simon Hampel (aka Sim’) and Matthew Webb (aka Matt), that’s us.

We work for the Software Innovation Centre (SWIC), part of the Channels organisation of the IBM Software Group. Our mission is to provide technical enablement and support for our IBM business partners throughout Australia and New Zealand (A/NZ). We are the Lotus brand specialists in the SWIC, and work closely with the Lotus Technical Sales team in A/NZ.

Sim’ specialises in WebSphere Portal, while Matt is the Lotus specialist (Notes, Domino, Sametime, Quickplace, etc). Both of us are covering the new Lotus Workplace platform. Matt is also a WebSphere Everyplace expert, although he denies it :D

We spend a lot of our time on the road, running training sessions and seminars for our business partners, trying to keep them (and ourselves !) up to date with the rapidly changing world of IBM Software.

Matt is based in Melbourne, and Sim’ is based in Sydney, although you are more likely to find us in a Qantas club lounge somewhere, waiting for our next flight !

Sim’ has been with IBM for nearly four years, joining just after the Sydney Olympics in 2000 to become the first member of the AIM Technical Enablement Team, the forerunner of the WebSphere Innovation Centre, which was later to become the core of the cross-brand Software Innovation Centre (SWIC). With the move of technical staff specialising in WebSphere Portal to the Lotus Brand at the beginning of 2004, Sim’ now reports as Lotus headcount, which, given his background as a Lotus Notes and Domino developer, is quite a comfortable fit.

Prior to working for IBM, Sim’ had a long history of working for IBM business partners - including Candle Corporation (purchased by IBM in 2004 !), Somerset Systems (purchased by Candle Corporation in 1999 !), and several other organisations in Adelaide who were Lotus business partners. For these organisations, he has performed application development and consulting work with technologies such as Lotus Notes and Domino, MQSeries (now WebSphere MQ) and WebSphere Application Server.

Oh, and just for the record, Sim’ rhymes with time :D

Before joining the SWIC team at the beginning of 2004, Matt worked for Lotus as a Technical Sales specialist, focussed on the SMB space. (more details to follow)