IBM Previews Lotus iNotes For iPhone

[MacRumors]

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com)

IBM has launched a website previewing their forthcoming version of specialized Lotus Notes access for the iPhone.

Dubbed IBM Lotus iNotes 'Ultralite' (http://www-306.ibm.com/software/lotus/products/domino-web-access/ultralite/), the web-based application built on Lotus Domino Web Access will provide corporate email, calendar, and contacts in a specially formatted iPhone version. Several preliminary screenshots are available, though IBM notes they are subject to change.

The software has been expected since January (http://www.macrumors.com/2008/01/17/ibm-to-release-lotus-symphony-for-mac-notes-iphone-compatibility/) and will be released later this year.

Article Link (http://www.macrumors.com/2008/08/10/ibm-previews-lotus-inotes-for-iphone/)

[The General]

Cooool ... a web app. :rolleyes: I like how in the little banner there they felt the need to add in a fake Mac OS X scroll bar on the iPhone. :rolleyes:

http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/1893/picture1ap9.png

[thecartoonguy]

While I have not used "Note" is about seven years, I'm sure this will make someone very happy. I wonder what the percent of users are on this application compared to the other services out there?

[Trip.Tucker]

*puke* if Notes wasn't bad enough in our work environment, now I'll have to carry it with me. *ack*

[Trip.Tucker]

While I have not used "Note" is about seven years, I'm sure this will make someone very happy. I wonder what the percent of users are on this application compared to the other services out there?

How many people are using Lotus Notes in the world? Many corporations use it.

[mitchellh]

Why wouldn't they just make this into a native iPhone app? It seems like it'd be much more fluid that way, less clunky, as most web apps are. Although they could prove me wrong... I find it unlikely.

[longofest]

Why wouldn't they just make this into a native iPhone app? It seems like it'd be much more fluid that way, less clunky, as most web apps are. Although they could prove me wrong... I find it unlikely.

While you have a good point, it's less risky to make a web application that uses the same framework that the existing iNotes Web Access portal uses. Less security risks, etc. Either way, it's a huge step in the right direction.

[tobyx]

I'd say wait until Apple does the push notification service and do a native app but Lotus Notes is clunky and bad as it is, this web app will actually be an improvement.

[EagerDragon]

in my company of 46,000 employees only about 1,800 are using notes, every one else is happy using exchange.

[LFCRules]

Well there are about 380,000 IBM'ers around the globe who use it ;)

[bstreiff]

In the company I work for (4000ish employees), we use Notes. Outlook shines in comparison.

And the worst part is, migrating away would be hard-- not only do we use it for mail/calendaring (for which it does a horrible job at both) it's also integrated into a whole bunch of Oracle services as well (such as our phone support department's systems). I've seen hints that our bug-tracking system used to be in Notes as well, though I don't know that for certain.

Our IT department is apparently now running a beta program for moving to Notes 8 in which they finally turned IMAP support on, though I haven't yet figured out how to take part in the beta.

[Rocketman]

I for one see this as a seminal moment. IBM is now largely a software and services company. Here is IBM using the iPhone device as a front end for its software and services. It would only take IBM Doing a similar thing for 2-3 more applications to make a real dent in iPhone sales rates, and corporate adoption.

It almost doesn't mater if this application sucks or not.

Rocketman

[twoodcc]

so is this really just a web app?

[OriginalMacRat]

in my company of 46,000 employees only about 1,800 are using notes, every one else is happy using exchange.

Crap choice A vs crap choice B.

[viperguy]

Apple is conquering the world.

[sebimeyer]

looks like big blue is about to jump onto a very tiny, yet fast moving bandwagon.

A "proper" email app would be nice. If you have only a .mac/me account mail.app is ok, I guess, buyanyone who has more thanone account and gets more than a fewemails a day will learnto hate it. Why no unified inbox? Smart mailboxes that sync over from the mac? And a huge one: junk mail filtering?

[Me1000]

Screenshot: Attach and send files

How do they plan to do that? Or are you attaching files that are already on your server?

[babyj]

While I have not used "Note" is about seven years, I'm sure this will make someone very happy. I wonder what the percent of users are on this application compared to the other services out there?

To date IBM state that they have sold over 140 Million licenses for Lotus Notes, they don't say how many are still in use / paying annual maintenance but I'd imagine it is a lot of people (10's of Millions).

So something like this is big, big news for a lot of major companies - companies that could very easily go out and buy many thousands of new phones for their staff at once. So it could be big news for Apple as well - the first major corporate switch to the iPhone will be headline news.

[Bambeezer]

A web app is disappointing compared with a native app, but I'll take what I can get. I think this iNotes template requires Notes server 8. The reality is that a few significant prerequisites are required to make this work.

[Santa Rosa]

I also think this would be better if it was a native app, but I was wondering, would that not be possible to do, as it would be direct competition to the iPhones mail app? Isn't that something that Apple would disallow?

[3Tabernacles]

Kodak forces their people to use this crap and they're still using version 6.5! Their IT NAZIs won't allow iPhones, They use the security risk as an excuse. They only allow Crackberries to Upper management who dwell in the same building as the freakin Domino server. Go Figure! I can't wait for the day IBM end of lifes Notes.

[thecartoonguy]

How many people are using Lotus Notes in the world? Many corporations use it.

Makes sense. I guess I have been sucked into the Exchange world. :D

[JasonD]

The worst email/calendar software out there is coming the iPhone? Wow, I can't wait.

[dannyminick]

they made the iphone look like a freaking Treo... how disgusting...

[alphaod]

The worst email/calendar software out there is coming the iPhone? Wow, I can't wait.

It's better than Novell Groupwise!

[bdkennedy1]

Exactly. I can't believe businesses still abuse their employees with this.

*puke* if Notes wasn't bad enough in our work environment, now I'll have to carry it with me. *ack*

[PKFC]

Well I work(ed) for IBM, but got sold to AT&T. I'm in Canada which means I get nothing for employee plans from Rogers... :P But yeah I use Notes which I think will eventually go away. I don't use it very intensively.. It's just the email client, but also the place all the documentation gets dumped in into teamrooms.. Not sure how Exchange could do that so from this view, it's a nice solution... Not sold on the iPhone version because then I could take work home with me (you know.. more so than having a T60 issued to me).. I wouldn't mind getting some magic perks for being with IBM in terms of trying it though :P

[137489]

It's better than Novell Groupwise!

Anything is better than Novell Groupwise. NGW is the worst ever, I had to suffer through 5 years at a company with it. they even agreed they made a mistake getting it, but they are not quick to change software (still using MS Office 97 - as they claim there is no good reason to upgrade).

[gauchogolfer]

I don't think this will be much help to me, since we have a secure login before webmail and then get redirected. We've not upgraded to Domino 8 either.

[ItsGavinC]

I work for Stony Brook University, and the entire campus uses Lotus Notes. That includes 1,900 faculty, at least that many adjunctive services employees, and a large hospital with over 6,000 employees. That's over 10,000 people using the system. :(

[haylo]

I work for an organisation with 36000 users. All use Lotus Notes. :eek:

[Malakas07]

not good at all. My company has over 12k employees and they force us to use lotus notes and everybody knows I have an iPhone. I refused to pick up a crackberry.

Maybe this is another sign to move on since they force me to code in Delphi.

[space1nvaders]

in my company of 46,000 employees only about 1,800 are using notes, every one else is happy using exchange.

Of those users, I wonder how many use Notes or Exchange just for email?

[KindredMAC]

We use Lotus Notes at my corporation (about 1500 corporate users world wide) and I have to say that I for one would much rather have a Webmail app than a true corporate app that our IT dept would have to set up. IT depts still aren't comfortable with a Mac install base as a whole yet I've found.

I don't want the corporation to have to touch my personal iPhone just so I can check my work email while on the road.

[Mr Skills]

I also think this would be better if it was a native app, but I was wondering, would that not be possible to do, as it would be direct competition to the iPhones mail app? Isn't that something that Apple would disallow?

I think you hit the nail on the head. I'm pretty sure things like email clients are not allowed under the Ts and Cs of the development program. So unless they make a "blessed" app like Google, I assume they have to do it as a web app.

So I guess this means no saving emails etc for viewing offline.

[benspratling]

Hey, they finally finished making their little web app; now that everybody else is making real applications...

[MattyP30]

It's better than Novell Groupwise!

we are finally moving to a microsoft backbone soon!! thank god no more novell!!

[sushi]

Looks good for those who companies who use Lotus Notes.

Maybe someday it will transform into an app.

Nice to see IBM supporting the iPhone platform.

[bobbleheadbob]

We use Notes at work. I can't stand it. I'm not sure if this is good or bad news for me personally. Likely it won't matter as my backward-a$$ company probably won't let corporate e-mail be viewed on any device they don't own. :mad:

One more reason why I need a new job....

[Morky]

This is a big deal, as Notes still has about a 10% market share for groupware, which is not insignificant. Web apps can work pretty nicely for webmail and calendars, as Google has proven. The problem here is business people need to see their emails, contacts, and calendars when offline (e.g. while flying). Exchange support on the iPhone can replace a Blackberry for most people, but this simply can't. It's a good start, however, and hopefully IBM is developing full Notes support, or coordinating with Apple to build it in.

[eugenio01]

in my company of 46,000 employees only about 1,800 are using notes, every one else is happy using exchange.

'Happy'? Exchange is such a painful example of Microsoft's inconsistent, confusing and tedious applications.

[Trip.Tucker]

Crap choice A vs crap choice B.

Exactly. Both equally bad applications compared to what we could be running.
We have a mix of both, around 170,000 Notes users and 118,000 Exchange users and the grand plan to migrate all the Notes people to Exchange has been in the planning stage for the last year.

[eugenio01]

Cooool ... a web app. :rolleyes: I like how in the little banner there they felt the need to add in a fake Mac OS X scroll bar on the iPhone. :rolleyes:

http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/1893/picture1ap9.png

An active scroll bar would actually be quite good in the iPhone. The black ones that appear should be selectable after appearing, before they disappear. it only makes sense especially since i have so many bookmarks and when scrolling through many mails.

[Scepticalscribe]

I worked with a company that used Lotus Notes and I must say that it is the worst designed, most cumbersome and simply dire package I have ever used. It was unspeakably, laughably, mindlessly badly-designed. It was so bad I cannot understand why it is still in use. If good design has its reward in devoted fan-boys and girls, satisfied and loyal costumers, and basking in the warm glow of memory, bad and poor design should be consigned to history's dustbin and assigned to oblivion. As others who have posted on this thread have remarked, it makes all of the MS software look effortless and flawlessly designed by contrast. I cannot believe that anyone in their right mind - with function, ease of use, basic competence as criteria (rather than profit) - would ever seriously installing and using it in anything, be it a company/institution/or a revolutionary piece of design.

Another thread discusses whether, which and why people have or do not have iPhones. I'm a long time iPod fan and recent MBP switcher, and am very happy with these parts of the Apple world. Currently, for a variety of reasons, - restrictive contracts, limited functions, high pricing, - I don't have an iPhone, but am open to conversion. If, however, Lotus Notes becomes the standard, then, that is one Apple product I will never contemplate switching to. Words fail me.
Cheers.

[bytethese]

so is this really just a web app?

Well, yeah, since iNotes is a web-based way to view your mailfile. :)

[Justinerator]

c'mon google, make a native docs for the iphone already!

[bytethese]

Exactly. I can't believe businesses still abuse their employees with this.

I can't believe businesses use Exchange. :) I guess I'm biased, I've been using Notes since v4, we have 6.5/7 at my current office. Would be nice to be able to access my email without havign to bring my Blackberry around. :)

[GNUMatrix]

I dunno... I use Notes, think it's great for my peculiar needs. And I can count all the employees in my company on one hand... err... finger.

I use the IMAP support to access Domino mail. Works just fine. Not push, but still works just fine.

If IBM was really trying to do something interesting here, they've certainly got an opportunity to. They could get together with Apple and add in Notes support at the same tier as they've done with Exchange. Being able to sync mail, contacts and calendars with Notes the same way that is done (from the user's perspective) with MobileMe seems within their grasp.

[Rotary8]

my company uses notes. We really don't have much of a choice but it has done it's job. So no complaints here.

[ArtOfWarfare]

I also think this would be better if it was a native app, but I was wondering, would that not be possible to do, as it would be direct competition to the iPhones mail app? Isn't that something that Apple would disallow?

I don't see why they would.

You're still using the same network connection. And you still bought the iPhone. They're not losing any money from it. That would be like Apple not allowing Firefox on Macs.

[stockcerts]

*puke* if Notes wasn't bad enough in our work environment, now I'll have to carry it with me. *ack*

I agree Notes sucks, but sadly we use it at my company. I soooo miss Outlook! Either way it's what we have, so I hope my company adapts it....I doubt that they will as they are overly paranoid about security....to the point they don't provide us with all the available options to be more productive.

[kavika411]

I am glad that the iPhone is reaching a population as massive as those who use Lotus Notes.

I am sad that that the population still having to use Lotus Notes is massive.

[andiwm2003]

While I have not used "Note" is about seven years, I'm sure this will make someone very happy. I wonder what the percent of users are on this application compared to the other services out there?

well it hasn't improved in ten years so you're still up to date.

anyway, i'll hope they release it soon and our company allows me using it. i could need access to notes but i don't want a blackberry on top of my iphone. checking work email and seeing my work calendar is good enough. no need for a work phone.

[w00master]

People are asking "why are business using Lotus notes?" I believe the answer to this question is that Lotus Notes' licensing fees are far lower than MS Exchange's licensing fees. That being said:

Lotus Notes still suck.

[DunMac]

... for the Notes bashing to begin.

I've worked full time with Notes and Domino for 10 years, and to be honest, 90% of the time, the organizations where it's hated are the organizations where it's been badly installed, managed, and never upgraded. Yes, version 5 and 6 were not great. The UI got very stale.

However.

Notes and Domino 8 were completely re-written almost a year ago. The mail/calendaring UI is so Outlook-like (imitation being the sincerest form of flattery?) it's creepy. Even our rah-rah Outlook types like Notes 8.

Those that whine about it are stuck in the past based on Draconian I.T. departments that keep them mired in ancient history.

Get over it folks. With several years of growth in an otherwise saturated market (messaging), guess at who's expense the Notes marketshare is expanding? 22% growth in last quarter alone. Stop counting seats people - as you should know, MSoft counts an Exchange/Outlook seat when it's sold as part of an Enteprise Agreement, even if the company is still using Notes. It's bad math.

The performance, scalability, and security is still better than what the MS fanboys are pushing. I've seen several tens of thousands of concurrent, real users running on a single Domino server with sub-second response time across terabytes of data. Do that with another product.

Notes 8 runs on Mac, Linux, Windows. Access the data from any number of mobile of devices. Loads of choice.

Ever wonder why so many organizations can't get away from Domino applications? It's not because they can't. It's because it's so damn expensive to do so. Why is that? Nothing else can touch it in terms of rapid development, deployment, management and scalability. Yes, Domino is not the magic hammer with every problem looking like a nail. Too bad it's been used in the wrong way, for the wrong problem, or so very very badly done by people who consider themselves developers. How many times have I seen a small, badly written application work okay for a team or department, yet get scaled out to the enterprise and fail due to bad design? Many times. Just because it's easy to write crap software doesn't mean it's the technology's fault.

Then, consider the organization that is so called "stuck" with Notes (see above) - they can't afford to port to another platform, so they stick it in maintenance mode, never upgrading the clients, servers, or even web-enabling the application. The software get's older and older, and people hate it more and more for it's dated look and feel. Who's fault is that? IBMs? No way friends. Don't stop watering the vineyard and then complain all you can see to the horizon is raisins.

Exchange/Outlook is a pig wearing lipstick.

[Konstanty]

A web app. Just what the world has been waiting for. What next, IBM -- a floppy drive for the iPhone?

[eRondeau]

I am stuck with Lotus Notes for 12.5-hrs/day at work, and I'l be damned if I'm taking it home!!! It is a shining example of what computer programming should NOT become!

[Evangelion]

I think the Notes-bashers forget few things:

a) Notes is a lot more than just email/calendaring

b) Notes got a lot better in Notes 8

Granted, our company is still running 6.5, but we have a roadmap for our move to 8. And yes, every few years or so we evaluate Exchange. And every single time we find out that it simply does not cope with our workloads. It just doesn't scale.

[sushi]

Seems like there are quite a few companies out there still running Notes.

Having this capability on the iPhone is good for them.

[EagerDragon]

Crap choice A vs crap choice B.

It is worst, we have something like 100 Macs and the rest are either windows or Linux (mostly windows).

'Happy'? Exchange is such a painful example of Microsoft's inconsistent, confusing and tedious applications.

They don't know better. They are happy within the choices they have at hand.

I hate not being able to use my Mac.

[SilentCrs]

For those wondering, yes, a good number of companies still use Notes. It's mainly used by older institutions and financial companies that have a vested interest in maintaining their Notes databases. For them, switching to Exchange (or what few alternatives there are) involves not only the pain of moving email/contacts/etc over but also a fair chunk of databases.

It's also important to note the difference between Notes the system and Notes the GUI. The backend system isn't that bad. It's database-driven, replicates well and by-and-large does its job. The Notes interface is the scum of the earth and was written by Satan. ;) It's customizable to a fault and fairly obtuse even for people that've used the app for years. This is what people generally hate, as that's all they're working with.

[sushi]

They don't know better. They are happy within the choices they have at hand.
And IT likes to keep managers in the dark sometimes.

For those wondering, yes, a good number of companies still use Notes.
I know some companies here in Japan that use Notes and like it. :)

[The Tall One]

I want.

[agentkow]

Honestly, I would set my Safari to pretend to be Mobile Safari just to use this app instead of the actual Blotus Notes Mac client.

I understand Notes has all these other features, but my educational institution doesn't use them, and all I need is the email...

[pw-man]

While this is an interesting discussion and I work for a company that has a significant number of Notes users, however web access is not what I am looking for.

In short, I want synchronization - I want to be able to carry my calendar around with me, get e-mail (push or on schedule) as I need and have my contacts available as well... All without have to be connected to some server somewhere. That defeats the whole purpose of this type of information, at least given the current maturity of the mobile infrastructure...

That is about the only reason I haven't yet bought an iPhone - because I need my contacts, calendar and mail - easily on my device (current WM5 - sorry guys!). Hopefully soon I will be released from the dark side :-)

pw-man

[crapeyes]

If you used GroupWise of 5 years ago, I can understand your loathing. However, the company I work for is currently at v7.x and it's much improved and v8 looks even better. I HATE the lookout client and exchange security and reliability is among the worst I've ever had to deal with. I had to suffer exchange at a company I used to work for and when I left, I breathed a sigh of relieve and hoped I'd never have to see that crap again.

At my present company, the IT department laughs whenever a virus cripples other's exchange environments for hours or even days while the GroupWise system doesn't even blink. Since they also use a lot of NetWare servers, there's never been a virus that even touched it while all the ms servers croaked in short order. I've been converted to Novell's side from all this. I'll NEVER use M$ crap again if I have a choice!!

On the other hand, given the choice between notes and exchange... hmmm... that's a hard choice given my previous statement! Might have to eat my words. :rolleyes:

[hdrummon]

To date IBM state that they have sold over 140 Million licenses for Lotus Notes, they don't say how many are still in use / paying annual maintenance but I'd imagine it is a lot of people (10's of Millions).

So something like this is big, big news for a lot of major companies - companies that could very easily go out and buy many thousands of new phones for their staff at once. So it could be big news for Apple as well - the first major corporate switch to the iPhone will be headline news.

Here are some facts on Lotus Notes:
IBM® Lotus® Notes® and Domino® has over 20 years of leadership in the collaboration space
Over 140M licenses of Lotus Notes and Domino have been sold worldwide
Over 46K companies around the world actively use and maintain their Lotus Notes and Domino installations
Lotus Notes and Domino has seen 14 consecutive quarters of year-to-year growth from 4Q04 through 1Q08
Lotus growth in the first quarter results beat MS Exchange results with 22% growth
More than half of America’s largest 100 corporations use Lotus Notes and Domino
More than half of the FORTUNE Global 100 corporations use Lotus Notes and Domino
 8 of the top 10 banks use Domino and Notes
 8 of the top 10 insurance corporations use Domino and Notes
 4 of the top 5 consumer products corporations use Domino and Notes
 8 of the top 12 pharmaceutical corporations use Domino and Notes
 7 of the top 10 electronics corporations use Domino and Notes
 9 of the top 12 telecommunications corporations use Domino and Notes
 8 of the top 10 automotive corporations use Domino and Notes
 9 of the top 10 aerospace & defense corporations use Domino and Notes
As a market share leader, Lotus Notes and Domino ranks second in the integrated collaborative environments market based on worldwide total revenue
Lotus data indicates that approximately 97 percent of Lotus Notes and Domino customers are on the 6.5.x release or higher
Lotus Notes and Domino are supported by over 10,000 IBM Business Partners worldwide who have thousands of integrated solutions running on it
From 2006 to 2007, the number of IBM Business Partners delivering Lotus solutions more than doubled
Market share numbers are anywhere from 40-43% of the worldwide collaboration market and growing depending on the analyst performing the study. Some companies have both Exchange and Domino and are licensed for both so there is overlap. Microsoft licensing agreements for Office sometimes include Exchange and Outlook licenses which are counted as valid by Microsoft when in fact those licenses are never used because they are sold to a customer using Notes and Domino. Those licenses remain sitting on the shelf but MS reports that company and an Exchange customer.

Lotus developed iNotes in late 2007/early 2008 and has in beta as a part of Domino 8.02 due for release in Q3/2008 the new iNotes interface for iPhone. Lotus was given the developers toolkit by Apple this just this Spring and developers are evaluating ways to add more Lotus functionality. Anything Lotus develops has to meet business enterprise ready requirements and security concerns. Since Lotus Notes is the world's largest installed Public Key Infrastructure we have to make sure that any application developed for iPhone has security in mind and cannot be compromised. Our customers have that expectation of absolute security of the data and the PKI inside Notes.

Lotus Notes 8 is based on open-source Eclipse, integrates with Google Gadgets and includes integrated instant messaging and awareness, includes composite applications, and allows anyone to change the look and feel of the interface anyway they desire. You can even change it to look like Outlook. Notes 8 has hooks into social software and other products. The Notes 8.5 Mac OSX Beta is available now for downloading and will be released in Q4/2008 with Domino 8.5. Lotus Symphony for Mac (Open Office based document, presentation, and spreadsheet editors) will also be available for no charge by the end of the year. Lotus Quickr and Lotus Connections (social software) fully support Safari on the Mac. Many of the other Lotus software products support the Mac since our customers are all looking at adopting Mac OSX as an alternate OS to Windows. Gartner reports that 56% of CIO's are looking at other OS options like Linux and Mac now.

Many IBMers are now adopting Macbook Pro laptops as an option for some IBM divisions and the Mac has quite a devoted following inside Lotus in particular.

[hdrummon]

... for the Notes bashing to begin.

I've worked full time with Notes and Domino for 10 years, and to be honest, 90% of the time, the organizations where it's hated are the organizations where it's been badly installed, managed, and never upgraded. Yes, version 5 and 6 were not great. The UI got very stale.

However.

Notes and Domino 8 were completely re-written almost a year ago. The mail/calendaring UI is so Outlook-like (imitation being the sincerest form of flattery?) it's creepy. Even our rah-rah Outlook types like Notes 8.

Those that whine about it are stuck in the past based on Draconian I.T. departments that keep them mired in ancient history.

Get over it folks. With several years of growth in an otherwise saturated market (messaging), guess at who's expense the Notes marketshare is expanding? 22% growth in last quarter alone. Stop counting seats people - as you should know, MSoft counts an Exchange/Outlook seat when it's sold as part of an Enteprise Agreement, even if the company is still using Notes. It's bad math.

The performance, scalability, and security is still better than what the MS fanboys are pushing. I've seen several tens of thousands of concurrent, real users running on a single Domino server with sub-second response time across terabytes of data. Do that with another product.

Notes 8 runs on Mac, Linux, Windows. Access the data from any number of mobile of devices. Loads of choice.

Ever wonder why so many organizations can't get away from Domino applications? It's not because they can't. It's because it's so damn expensive to do so. Why is that? Nothing else can touch it in terms of rapid development, deployment, management and scalability. Yes, Domino is not the magic hammer with every problem looking like a nail. Too bad it's been used in the wrong way, for the wrong problem, or so very very badly done by people who consider themselves developers. How many times have I seen a small, badly written application work okay for a team or department, yet get scaled out to the enterprise and fail due to bad design? Many times. Just because it's easy to write crap software doesn't mean it's the technology's fault.

Then, consider the organization that is so called "stuck" with Notes (see above) - they can't afford to port to another platform, so they stick it in maintenance mode, never upgrading the clients, servers, or even web-enabling the application. The software get's older and older, and people hate it more and more for it's dated look and feel. Who's fault is that? IBMs? No way friends. Don't stop watering the vineyard and then complain all you can see to the horizon is raisins.

Exchange/Outlook is a pig wearing lipstick.




Could not agree more! Well said...I always cringe when I hear someone say they hate Lotus Notes and then I hear them tell me they are using Notes 5 or 6 which are not even supported products anymore. Don't blame Lotus for the way it was deployed, the way it was abused, the way it was managed.

[sdds]

I've never been exposed to Lotus. I am, though, working in an Outlook world and it sucks hairy balls for sure! Lotus can't be that bad compared to Exchange/Outlook!

[Shasterball]

Maybe I am out of the loop, but who uses this suite of apps?

[haylo]

Here are some facts on Lotus Notes:
IBM® Lotus® Notes® and Domino® has over 20 years of leadership in the collaboration space
Over 140M licenses of Lotus Notes and Domino have been sold worldwide
Over 46K companies around the world actively use and maintain their Lotus Notes and Domino installations
Lotus Notes and Domino has seen 14 consecutive quarters of year-to-year growth from 4Q04 through 1Q08
Lotus growth in the first quarter results beat MS Exchange results with 22% growth
More than half of America’s largest 100 corporations use Lotus Notes and Domino
More than half of the FORTUNE Global 100 corporations use Lotus Notes and Domino
 8 of the top 10 banks use Domino and Notes
 8 of the top 10 insurance corporations use Domino and Notes
 4 of the top 5 consumer products corporations use Domino and Notes
 8 of the top 12 pharmaceutical corporations use Domino and Notes
 7 of the top 10 electronics corporations use Domino and Notes
 9 of the top 12 telecommunications corporations use Domino and Notes
 8 of the top 10 automotive corporations use Domino and Notes
 9 of the top 10 aerospace & defense corporations use Domino and Notes
As a market share leader, Lotus Notes and Domino ranks second in the integrated collaborative environments market based on worldwide total revenue
Lotus data indicates that approximately 97 percent of Lotus Notes and Domino customers are on the 6.5.x release or higher
Lotus Notes and Domino are supported by over 10,000 IBM Business Partners worldwide who have thousands of integrated solutions running on it
From 2006 to 2007, the number of IBM Business Partners delivering Lotus solutions more than doubled
Market share numbers are anywhere from 40-43% of the worldwide collaboration market and growing depending on the analyst performing the study.

Thanks for posting this. This is really interesting... what is the source of this information?

[PNutts]

A web app. Just what the world has been waiting for. What next, IBM -- a floppy drive for the iPhone?

Not sure of the meaning of your message, but yes, the world is waiting for thin client e-mail clients for mobile devices (especially for the iPhone). IBM also introduced Traveler which synchronizes e-mail onto mobile devices without the need of a third party application. It appears that industry trends are walking by you.

[PNutts]

For the Notes haters, remember that Notes is a RAD development environment which includes an app that does e-mail. If you don't like it then customize it. Notes is often judged on the crap applications that are written by the company, not IBM. It is easy to write Notes apps, so everyone does and usually not well. Head to head there is no real difference in Notes 8 and Outlook mail, except the enhanced security and flexibility in Notes.

A well written Notes app is amazing. Use it on the network, use it on an airplane, use a browser, use a browser on an airplane, distributed/low bandwidth network friendly, and developed at a fraction of the time necessary of other platforms. However, historically the UI and graphics of Notes apps have been their biggest weakness due to the lack of expertise by their developers. It is hard to compete with an army of consultants coding java/html with graphic designers. Phone book in Notes - less than 30 minutes. Phone book in other platforms - well, we'll see how much of the budget is approved. ;)

It's OK if you don't like Notes, but try to not like Notes for the right reasons.

[Wiggidy]

My dad works for Chrysler corp., and as far as I know the entire corporation still uses notes. He never seems to have a problem with it. The hospital I work for just migrated from groupwise and is now kind of limping into exchange...it works as far as the PCs within the health system, but there is not yet any support for push notifications to blackberrys and what not.

[Trip.Tucker]

For the Notes haters, remember that Notes is a RAD development environment which includes an app that does e-mail. If you don't like it then customize it. Notes is often judged on the crap applications that are written by the company, not IBM. It is easy to write Notes apps, so everyone does and usually not well. Head to head there is no real difference in Notes 8 and Outlook mail, except the enhanced security and flexibility in Notes.

A well written Notes app is amazing. Use it on the network, use it on an airplane, use a browser, use a browser on an airplane, distributed/low bandwidth network friendly, and developed at a fraction of the time necessary of other platforms. However, historically the UI and graphics of Notes apps have been their biggest weakness due to the lack of expertise by their developers. It is hard to compete with an army of consultants coding java/html with graphic designers. Phone book in Notes - less than 30 minutes. Phone book in other platforms - well, we'll see how much of the budget is approved. ;)

It's OK if you don't like Notes, but try to not like Notes for the right reasons.


Like:

* Abysmal performance without throwing huge blades at it
* Memory leaks STILL not corrected
* Applications that require huge efforts to export to another platform (we are migrating our G20 to Websphere = nightmare)
* Platform client costs
* Maintenance lockdowns

Et al....

[stockcerts]

We are using Notes 7 where I work, and I'm not a big fan. Maybe I'll like it better when/if we go to version 8.

[Scepticalscribe]

Like:

* Abysmal performance without throwing huge blades at it
* Memory leaks STILL not corrected
* Applications that require huge efforts to export to another platform (we are migrating our G20 to Websphere = nightmare)
* Platform client costs
* Maintenance lockdowns

Et al....

Agree completely; I have worked with MS, Notes and now MAC and I agree with an earlier poster than Notes was so bad it actually made MS look neat, well-integrated, and seamlessly structured. Lists of percentages and companies using Notes fail to convince, especially when so much user feedback is so dire. My real query here is, what is a super company like Apple thinking of to contemplate using such software on its iPhone? I am lost for words. Cheers

[DunMac]

Agree completely; I have worked with MS, Notes and now MAC and I agree with an earlier poster than Notes was so bad it actually made MS look neat, well-integrated, and seamlessly structured. Lists of percentages and companies using Notes fail to convince, especially when so much user feedback is so dire. My real query here is, what is a super company like Apple thinking of to contemplate using such software on its iPhone? I am lost for words. Cheers

Huh? What version were you working on? MS Products are like heliocopters - thousands of parts flying in close formation, all trying to break apart. What is the basis for your comment? Hell, Sharepoint is AD + IIS + MS SQL + more + more . How is that integrated and seamless?

I'm running 3k + users across two boxes in two data centres with fully active/active clustering and load balancing (all built in, no extra products, no shared data store) and my only performance limitations are due to the underlying OS which is Windows! Oh, and the choice of WIndows was not mine - it was forced upon me, much to managment's now obvious regret. We're going to Linux soon to get away from Windows 2003's hardwired limitations for memory and disk. Not like I could get away from Windows if we were using a MS-based solution.

Your loss for words does not lend our posting any additional viability.

[hdrummon]

Here are some facts on Lotus Notes:
IBM® Lotus® Notes® and Domino® has over 20 years of leadership in the collaboration space
Over 140M licenses of Lotus Notes and Domino have been sold worldwide
Over 46K companies around the world actively use and maintain their Lotus Notes and Domino installations
Lotus Notes and Domino has seen 14 consecutive quarters of year-to-year growth from 4Q04 through 1Q08
Lotus growth in the first quarter results beat MS Exchange results with 22% growth
More than half of America’s largest 100 corporations use Lotus Notes and Domino
More than half of the FORTUNE Global 100 corporations use Lotus Notes and Domino
 8 of the top 10 banks use Domino and Notes
 8 of the top 10 insurance corporations use Domino and Notes
 4 of the top 5 consumer products corporations use Domino and Notes
 8 of the top 12 pharmaceutical corporations use Domino and Notes
 7 of the top 10 electronics corporations use Domino and Notes
 9 of the top 12 telecommunications corporations use Domino and Notes
 8 of the top 10 automotive corporations use Domino and Notes
 9 of the top 10 aerospace & defense corporations use Domino and Notes
As a market share leader, Lotus Notes and Domino ranks second in the integrated collaborative environments market based on worldwide total revenue
Lotus data indicates that approximately 97 percent of Lotus Notes and Domino customers are on the 6.5.x release or higher
Lotus Notes and Domino are supported by over 10,000 IBM Business Partners worldwide who have thousands of integrated solutions running on it
From 2006 to 2007, the number of IBM Business Partners delivering Lotus solutions more than doubled
Market share numbers are anywhere from 40-43% of the worldwide collaboration market and growing depending on the analyst performing the study. Some companies have both Exchange and Domino and are licensed for both so there is overlap. Microsoft licensing agreements for Office sometimes include Exchange and Outlook licenses which are counted as valid by Microsoft when in fact those licenses are never used because they are sold to a customer using Notes and Domino. Those licenses remain sitting on the shelf but MS reports that company and an Exchange customer.

Lotus developed iNotes in late 2007/early 2008 and has in beta as a part of Domino 8.02 due for release in Q3/2008 the new iNotes interface for iPhone. Lotus was given the developers toolkit by Apple this just this Spring and developers are evaluating ways to add more Lotus functionality. Anything Lotus develops has to meet business enterprise ready requirements and security concerns. Since Lotus Notes is the world's largest installed Public Key Infrastructure we have to make sure that any application developed for iPhone has security in mind and cannot be compromised. Our customers have that expectation of absolute security of the data and the PKI inside Notes.

Lotus Notes 8 is based on open-source Eclipse, integrates with Google Gadgets and includes integrated instant messaging and awareness, includes composite applications, and allows anyone to change the look and feel of the interface anyway they desire. You can even change it to look like Outlook. Notes 8 has hooks into social software and other products. The Notes 8.5 Mac OSX Beta is available now for downloading and will be released in Q4/2008 with Domino 8.5. Lotus Symphony for Mac (Open Office based document, presentation, and spreadsheet editors) will also be available for no charge by the end of the year. Lotus Quickr and Lotus Connections (social software) fully support Safari on the Mac. Many of the other Lotus software products support the Mac since our customers are all looking at adopting Mac OSX as an alternate OS to Windows. Gartner reports that 56% of CIO's are looking at other OS options like Linux and Mac now.

Many IBMers are now adopting Macbook Pro laptops as an option for some IBM divisions and the Mac has quite a devoted following inside Lotus in particular.


The source of this data is from IBM customer data purchases and relationships where we know which companies use our product and when they pay IBM for maintenance, support and upgrades. This is public information and updated each year at Lotusphere.

[crapeyes]

My dad works for Chrysler corp., and as far as I know the entire corporation still uses notes. He never seems to have a problem with it. The hospital I work for just migrated from groupwise and is now kind of limping into exchange...it works as far as the PCs within the health system, but there is not yet any support for push notifications to blackberrys and what not.

You say your hospital just migrated from groupwise to exchange. I'm curious which version to which version and, so far, which you like better.

[crapeyes]

... My real query here is, what is a super company like Apple thinking of to contemplate using such software on its iPhone? I am lost for words. Cheers

You ask why Apple would contemplate this. But wasn't it IBM that's initiating this connection? Either way, why not? It makes good business sense considering there's such a large use base using notes. And it's an in-road to corporate America. Integrating exchange is like including earwax. It's there but no one really wants to do anything but clean it out. :p

[Scepticalscribe]

Thanks to crapeyes for drawing my attention to the fact that IBM, rather than Apple, have initiated this. Fair enough.

Re dunmac, and my loss for words, my point remains valid as it is based on personal - if reluctant - experience. The choice of Notes was not mine; at the time I used it, I worked in the public service where our section used it. I'll readily concede that it was considerably earlier this decade, and the package used was probably not the most up-to-date. Earlier posts on this thread have pointed out, very fairly, that sometimes the fault lies with the institution or company, rather than with the software package. Perhaps, and I do see the point.

However, I reiterate that Notes was the worst - by far - system that I have ever worked with, and it has left me with an intense prejudice against the software. I'm delighted to learn that it has improved, but, again, this was my experience at the time; indeed, it was the only package that managed to make MS look good; I have no love for MS, after all, I'm a recent switcher. Cheers.

[kaiwai]

It's better than Novell Groupwise!

Meh, I'd sooner use sneaker net than deal with it.

Or what you could do is use the enterprise collaboration middleware which Sun sells :D