It’s great to see an IBM business partner stepping up and making an effort to promote careers in Lotus software at colleges and inviting students to attend the opening day of Lotusphere 2011 is a fantastic venue for showing IBM’s stuff to the workers of the future. As an online prelude to the free attendance to opening day, they take visitors through a quick history of Lotus software and a lesson on xpages development.

An excerpt from their site tells you the WIIFY:

What’s in it for you?
A rare opportunity to attend a student’s only meeting with key IBM Executives from R&D, Marketing, and Business Development
Meet with IBM Engineers to learn what skills will allow you to quickly start a career working on IBM platforms as well as their insight into the future
Learn what new IBM software will be delivered around social media, collaboration and web development
Network with 200 small, medium and large companies in the IBM Showcase
Network with over 6500 business professionals in attendance
Attend technical and business oriented sessions
Go to the Labs where you can get hands-on experience with the software as well as talk to IBM developers and engineers
Attend a Women in Technology session with Kristen Lauria, VP Marketing IBM and Sandy Carter, VP IBM Software Group (for woman only)

Check it all out here: http://www.gbs.com/college

Even if you aren’t at a college in Florida, you should check out the info on the history of Lotus software and the latest on their software development platform with XPages: http://college.gbs.com/

Students, it’s easy to think Microsoft is the end-all for software. The reality is IBM is the leader in business software. They just don’t make a big deal about it.