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macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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30,863


Lotus Notes, a high-visibility enterprise class communications suite by IBM, will receive improved Macintosh support according to Mike Rhodin, general manager of IBM's Lotus group speaking to CRN.

"We have millions of Notes seats on the Mac now, and some very large customers are active in the beta and are very vocal about that," Rhodin said in an interview with CRN. "The Mac is a resurgent platform."

In addition, the next release will receive iNotes compatibility for Macs. Sametime 7.5, IBM's enterprise instant messaging solution (including VoIP support) also includes Macintosh client support.

Many in the Mac community have been wondering whether Apple's Intel switch would bring forth increased interest from enterprise customers. Rhodin's comments can't be taken to represent the entire enterprise Mac market of course, but they can represent an interesting insight into how well the Mac version of a product that is used by government and many large corporations is doing.
 

gauchogolfer

macrumors 603
Jan 28, 2005
5,551
5
American Riviera
People still use LotusNotes?

My wife uses it at her work, and I've been contemplating working there as well. Maybe this will eliminate a barrier to bringing my Powerbook to a Windows-centric business :)
 

KindredMAC

macrumors 6502a
Sep 23, 2003
975
218
We use Lotus Notes at my company also. This is great news. Notes has a couple small but still annoying bugs on the Mac.

I was surprised to find out how many companies in our city use Notes. I had never heard of it before I started using it. I was used to Entourage and Outlook before that.
 

bjdku

macrumors member
Mar 3, 2006
40
0
Chicago, IL
This is fantastic news! I am stunned! Yes a lot of large enterprises and non-profits use Lotus Notes...it is more pervasive than you would think, and if IBM are taking notice of a increasing demand, I am drooling at the mouth to start marketing Mac computers to my clients!

"Be like the big dogs, get a mac!"
 

x704

macrumors regular
Apr 15, 2006
118
0
indeed this is good for apple...
I still want a CAM program for the mac. Currently there is none available on the mac platform. If apple computers are getting corporate attention then a CAM might be closer then I think among other things that could use better support.
 

jellomizer

macrumors 6502
Sep 12, 2006
486
4
Upstate NY
While I am not a big fan of Lotus Notes, It normally causes more problems then it solves. But a lot of companies use it and some swayer by it, I swayer at it. But giving companies with Lotus notes a choice in alternate platforms to move to, is a good thing. Worst case senerio is that a company who still wants to stay on windows, can go to microsoft/dell... and say well Apple can give me this what can you do better?
 

ifjake

macrumors 6502a
Jan 19, 2004
562
1
"The Mac is a resurgent platform."

sweet.

For a while I was thinking that the only dent Apple could make was primarily in the individual consumer market. But this news along with checking out some of the new upcoming features for Leopard server makes me change my mind. 2007 and all it will bring to the Mac platform will be an interesting year for sure.
 

Rocketman

macrumors 603
This really hits a nerve with me. This example of Lotus notes which at one time was a new application which was NOT written to work well with BOTH Macs and DOStel PC's was a CHOICE. They wanted for a variety of reasons to deal with only one set of hardware even though there was deployed hardware in use with users who would at least in principal, need to be on their network.

As the years passed with Notes, they begrudgingly made some versions with limited Mac support, but always as a second class citizen to such a degree that unless you ran it on a DOStel PC or a Wintel PC an employer could not practicably talk with them to the drgree they needed to.

As a result of this and the fairly wide adoption of Notes for secure communication within several large enterprises, Macs were shut out.

Now that Notes is adding "more full" Mac support 20 years later, they will not be surprised to hear Mac users, and shops who respect Mac users have simply switched to something else.

Hopefully what will happen now is their captured markets will simply buy APPLE hardware to perform Dostel and Wintel PC functions under Parallels or Bootcamp or Q.

It will be ritious.

Rocketman
 

iNewbie

macrumors regular
Aug 25, 2006
129
1
Lotus Notes on Mac

Lotus Notes is a great program when it's implemented correctly. We've been using it over 10 years now and there's still nothing out there that can touch it.

Improved support on the Apple is a good thing. They are even improving the client on Linux as well. That will really give people the potential to move away from windows.
 

DCBass

macrumors 6502
Jan 23, 2004
312
3
Washington, DC
good news...

This is nice to know. I use Lotus Notes at my work on Windows. It's decent enough, but I hope that with this new version the online experience with accessing my work email remotely with my mac improves. As it is right now, it's basically unusable.

DCBass
 

kingtj

macrumors 68030
Oct 23, 2003
2,606
749
Brunswick, MD
Yep... why'd people vote negative on this?

This is definitely good news. I had friends in corporate I.T. where they did a massive migration from Notes to Exchange/Outlook (mostly due to Microsoft salespeople's slick talking and giving strategic gifts to the right people) -- and the environment suffered.

Notes has its bugs and issues, but it also has some flexibility that Exchange/Outlook doesn't offer.



iNewbie said:
Lotus Notes is a great program when it's implemented correctly. We've been using it over 10 years now and there's still nothing out there that can touch it.

Improved support on the Apple is a good thing. They are even improving the client on Linux as well. That will really give people the potential to move away from windows.
 

h00ligan

macrumors 68040
Apr 10, 2003
3,028
136
London
LOL

a highly visible enterprise app.. pfft..

notes is a pile of ****, the only people using it still are those way behind the curve of other good groupware apps.
 

bigandy

macrumors G3
Apr 30, 2004
8,852
7
Murka
h00ligan said:
LOL

a highly visible enterprise app.. pfft..

notes is a pile of ****, the only people using it still are those way behind the curve of other good groupware apps.

actually there are some big companies using it, and finding it fine for what they need. Prudential PLC, in the UK (a large financial company) is one example.
 

RedTomato

macrumors 601
Mar 4, 2005
4,155
442
.. London ..
Like most of you, my knowledge of Notes is about 10 years out of date, so I had a look at the wikithing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Notes

Hmm, interesting read. Seems lots of updates recently. Gone from 43 million to 120 million users in the last few years. Quite impressive database based multi-channel document handling and communication app. Useful replication of databases so that work can be done offline, and updated when next online.

Lots of gotchas tho, see the criticisms in the article. Notable that they only implemented a number-of-unread-emails count in the 2003 edition. :eek:
 

MattG

macrumors 68040
May 27, 2003
3,864
440
Asheville, NC
FANTASTIC news. As big a pile of crap as Notes/Domino is, I'm stuck with it at work, and being the lone Mac dude just makes things worse. Notes on the Mac platform is sorry right now, and some improvements would be much appreciated.

I'd love to some day see Domino Administrator ported to Mac.
 

agentkow

macrumors 6502
Oct 1, 2003
288
47
Vancouver, Canada
Am I ever glad to hear this. I just got a Mac Pro at the college I work at and am forced to use Lotus Notes, and besides being crappy, ugly and slow, it doesn't even support scroll wheels!

I managed to hack Mail.app a little bit to access and sort my email through IMAP, but since there is no official support or server to send from, that option is out the window.

Suprised no one has referred to it as Blotus Notes yet...
 

dcv

macrumors G3
May 24, 2005
8,021
1
Just a shame there's still no Domino Designer or Admin clients available on the Mac platform.
 

russed

macrumors 68000
Jan 16, 2004
1,619
20
where i have just started work (Grant Thornton) we use it, its a refreshing change to see Outlook not being used. it seems quite nice so far but then again it also feels relativly slow and some parts are rather 'comical' like the headers that you can put on your emails (or memos as called in notes), but all in all seems quite good and imporeved mac support is never a bad thing!
 

zwida

macrumors 6502a
Jan 5, 2001
595
23
NYC + Madison, WI
redAPPLE said:
there is still lotus notes? unbelievable. i know people use it. but i thought they are still using the outdated version.

A friend of mine who works at IBM grouses about having to use Lotus Notes. I didn't imagine anyone used it that didn't have to.

Maybe it's just IBM and Grant Thornton.;)
 
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