IBM sees innovations in Notes

IBM's Lotus division unveiled on Tuesday some of the features it plans to build into future versions of its Notes software, previewing a number of new tools aimed at helping people share information across its various applications.

Though Lotus isn't scheduled to introduce its Notes 7 version of the collaboration package until the third quarter of 2005, the unit is already showing off some of the capabilities that it's working to add to a later iteration of the software. Branded with the code name "Hannover," the future version of Notes--which is technically considered client software and includes e-mail, instant messaging and calendar applications--is planned to arrive 12 to 18 months after the release of Notes 7.

According to Lotus officials, at least part of the reason behind divulging its future plans for Notes is to quiet rumors that the company remains uncommitted to the product line, which competes directly against the dominant Office productivity and collaboration software made by Microsoft. IBM maintains that demand for Notes is growing quickly and reported that sales of the software, along with its Domino server package, jumped by 17 percent during the final quarter of 2004 and the first quarter of 2005. IBM claims that there are roughly 118 million Notes users worldwide today.

With Notes 7, much of the Lotus unit's work was aimed at improving the underlying server software that controls performance of the overall package, said Mike Loria, director of product marketing at IBM Lotus Software. In building Hannover, which was initially previewed by IBM General Manager Dr. Ambuj Goyal at a conference in Germany on Tuesday morning, much of the effort will be focused on streamlining the ways in which individuals can manage and share information stored throughout the tools.

"This is really about the idea of activity-based computing," said Loria. "A lot of what happens in the e-mail in-box is actually business process, and we can create an environment where those processes can be stored, named, and integrated across applications, to gain productivity by remaining focused on the activity, more than the format."

For example, Hannover will be designed to let people organize and manage their information based on a specific project or topic across various Notes tools. Using a demonstration version of the software, Loria showed that if a person were to click on an e-mail related to a specific issue, he or she could quickly access all of the correspondence that might have been received about the topic from others, regardless of the manner in which those messages were sent. Data could also be organized to reflect communications with a particular person, or group of people, using the software.

Another element of Hannover previewed by IBM was the software's ability to let customers create composite applications, a manner of assembling software tools by linking together prewritten programs. Using that approach, someone could essentially use different aspects of various programs together in order to create additional programs that meet their specific needs.

At least one industry watcher observed that the composite-applications plans illustrate something of a shift for IBM, as the company hasn't talked about the possibility for utilizing the tools in that manner with Notes before. Erica Rugullies, analyst with Forrester Research, said the composite plans could open up Notes to a number of new uses in the future, if IBM can deliver.

"The framework underlying the Notes client software gives IBM the capability to do this sort of thing, and it will make Notes potentially more valuable if it can be used to access applications other than those built on Domino," she said.

In general, the analyst said, IBM's work to align Notes increasingly with the manner in which people want to do their work, by making information more available across applications, could represent a significant step forward.

"Rather than trying to find content based on its format, people will be able to relate information more to their activities, which is a much more intuitive, logical way to mimic the way that people work," said Rugullies. IBM "can differentiate from Office with this approach, because Microsoft isn't talking about building Office 12 in the same way."

IBM incompatibility

The IBM offering looked OK at the demo they presented to us then comes the bomb shell.

1) It won't be compatible with Notes for 3years. In other words they openly admit you have to run two separate e-mail and calendar systems that can't talk to each other even though they are both IBM systems.

Bit of a joke and they won't tell you who is using it. In other words IBM Its Better Manually

IBM incompatibility

The IBM offering looked OK at the demo they presented to us then comes the bomb shell.

1) It won't be compatible with Notes for 3years. In other words they openly admit you have to run two separate e-mail and calendar systems that can't talk to each other even though they are both IBM systems.

Bit of a joke and they won't tell you who is using it. In other words IBM Its Better Manually

[bob blob]

lotus notes sucks

to anyone who has ever had to use lotus notes at work, my sympathies to you. it is one of the most needlessly unintuitive, confusing software packages i have ever used. i probably only utilize less than 10% of its full capability because most of its functions require a manual or some documentation for the user to fully understand. i would much rather be using outlook or thunderbird, but my company's email is all on lotus servers.

the following webpages spell out some deficiencies in notes. though one of the sites is kind of old, many of the issues remain the same as the developers of lotus notes seem to rarely care about improving user experience with each new revision. i'm using version 6.5, by the way.

http://www.computergripes.com/LotusNotes.html
http://www.mivec.co.uk/lotus%5Fnotes/

i could not find the article that rants on one of the funniest and dumbest things about notes: the password login. if you have used notes, you know that the login puts up 3 or 4 'Xs' for each password character you type and has a little clip-art display to the side than changes with every character as well. now can anyone explain to me what these are for? part of lotus notes' deployment of additional advanced security features to visually distract over-the-shoulder onlookers to the stupid little graphics as you type your password? i think porn would work better than clip-art.

one last mention. a constant problem that has never been fixed since at least 4.x is the kill-notes problem. if notes was closed 'improperly' or in a way it does not like, you will not be able to open it again without at least logging off your computer. in fact, there are third party applications written specifically to successfully kill notes so you can open it again without rebooting. look up zapnotes or killnotes. in fact, killnotes is a regular feature on the desktop of many of our employees and is even on the company ftp.

[drudixon1]

Maybe the problem is you

Let's see, over 90% of all email viruses attack MS, not Notes. MS has extortionary pricing and forces you to have not only Windows OS, but the full version of Outlook, MS Mail Server, MS Client Access License not including the hassle of downloading 50 million security patches a year because of MS terrible coding. All said, most companies pay well over$1000 a year just so an employee can email. As for anything advanced requiring a manual, that's your fault. I have no problem with using any of the functions. Maybe you should trade your PC for an Etcha-Sketch.

It is all about Total Cost of Ownership

OK.. I have spent the last 2-3 years understanding notes and domino technology and have mixed feelings.

Yes I agree Lotus Notes is not as snappy or fancy as MS Outlook or Thunderbird. So why don't you use Outlook? There is a Lotus supplied plug-in to make Outlook work with Lotus Domino (the server product)? Does Exchange allow Thunderbird to work with it.. No Didn't think so.

Hey want a quick database made up so you can access it on the INTERNET.. Use notes no problem. I can make a database in about the same time it takes to walk to the water cooler and back.

Want to do that with Outlook.. Oh wait.. Outlook is not a database.. You need to ask your IT department for One Note Server and Exchange Server and SQL Server and Internet Information Server and VB.NET and you need to know how to write Visual Basic, Active Server Pages and Simple Query Language and you might want to throw in MS Exchange server - Internet Connectivity so you can view your mail over the INTERNET and you need 2 servers to do so and probably 2 more staff to support it.. Might as well throw in a firewall to protect all that stuff..

Want that database available for you on the plane so you can update the product pricing to the new pricing well with Notes I just right click and create a local replica.. Do my updates on the plane and then use the INTERNET in my hotel room to replicate my local replica to the server.

Whoa! wait what is this.. stoop-id Lotus a replication error how dare it figure out that while I was jetting across country someone changed a record from the one I have on my laptop.. It is now asking what I want to do with it... Oh this is just too hard for my brain..

Want to do that with outlook.. well you just.. no wait.. you can't.
Want to do that with any Microsoft product can't..
Want to have the same database on Linux in NY, windows in Calf. and UNIX in the UK all at the same time. Watch your MS guys heads explode or start watching the $$ in their eyes. Lotus can be set-up to do this in a couple of hours.

Yes Notes is not as good as Outlook's user interface for mail. But really you are trying to compare a apple to a boat. If all you use Notes/Domino for is mail then maybe you should be using Outlook/Exchange. Oh yeah and while you are at it try and justify all that money to your Boss.. You might just see why we chose notes.

P.S. Want to see Note's new interface try looking up 'Lotus Hanover' in goggle. See how long it takes Microsoft to do that.

[bob blob]

lotus notes sucks

to anyone who has ever had to use lotus notes at work, my sympathies to you. it is one of the most needlessly unintuitive, confusing software packages i have ever used. i probably only utilize less than 10% of its full capability because most of its functions require a manual or some documentation for the user to fully understand. i would much rather be using outlook or thunderbird, but my company's email is all on lotus servers.

the following webpages spell out some deficiencies in notes. though one of the sites is kind of old, many of the issues remain the same as the developers of lotus notes seem to rarely care about improving user experience with each new revision. i'm using version 6.5, by the way.

http://www.computergripes.com/LotusNotes.html
http://www.mivec.co.uk/lotus%5Fnotes/

i could not find the article that rants on one of the funniest and dumbest things about notes: the password login. if you have used notes, you know that the login puts up 3 or 4 'Xs' for each password character you type and has a little clip-art display to the side than changes with every character as well. now can anyone explain to me what these are for? part of lotus notes' deployment of additional advanced security features to visually distract over-the-shoulder onlookers to the stupid little graphics as you type your password? i think porn would work better than clip-art.

one last mention. a constant problem that has never been fixed since at least 4.x is the kill-notes problem. if notes was closed 'improperly' or in a way it does not like, you will not be able to open it again without at least logging off your computer. in fact, there are third party applications written specifically to successfully kill notes so you can open it again without rebooting. look up zapnotes or killnotes. in fact, killnotes is a regular feature on the desktop of many of our employees and is even on the company ftp.

[drudixon1]

Maybe the problem is you

Let's see, over 90% of all email viruses attack MS, not Notes. MS has extortionary pricing and forces you to have not only Windows OS, but the full version of Outlook, MS Mail Server, MS Client Access License not including the hassle of downloading 50 million security patches a year because of MS terrible coding. All said, most companies pay well over$1000 a year just so an employee can email. As for anything advanced requiring a manual, that's your fault. I have no problem with using any of the functions. Maybe you should trade your PC for an Etcha-Sketch.

It is all about Total Cost of Ownership

OK.. I have spent the last 2-3 years understanding notes and domino technology and have mixed feelings.

Yes I agree Lotus Notes is not as snappy or fancy as MS Outlook or Thunderbird. So why don't you use Outlook? There is a Lotus supplied plug-in to make Outlook work with Lotus Domino (the server product)? Does Exchange allow Thunderbird to work with it.. No Didn't think so.

Hey want a quick database made up so you can access it on the INTERNET.. Use notes no problem. I can make a database in about the same time it takes to walk to the water cooler and back.

Want to do that with Outlook.. Oh wait.. Outlook is not a database.. You need to ask your IT department for One Note Server and Exchange Server and SQL Server and Internet Information Server and VB.NET and you need to know how to write Visual Basic, Active Server Pages and Simple Query Language and you might want to throw in MS Exchange server - Internet Connectivity so you can view your mail over the INTERNET and you need 2 servers to do so and probably 2 more staff to support it.. Might as well throw in a firewall to protect all that stuff..

Want that database available for you on the plane so you can update the product pricing to the new pricing well with Notes I just right click and create a local replica.. Do my updates on the plane and then use the INTERNET in my hotel room to replicate my local replica to the server.

Whoa! wait what is this.. stoop-id Lotus a replication error how dare it figure out that while I was jetting across country someone changed a record from the one I have on my laptop.. It is now asking what I want to do with it... Oh this is just too hard for my brain..

Want to do that with outlook.. well you just.. no wait.. you can't.
Want to do that with any Microsoft product can't..
Want to have the same database on Linux in NY, windows in Calf. and UNIX in the UK all at the same time. Watch your MS guys heads explode or start watching the $$ in their eyes. Lotus can be set-up to do this in a couple of hours.

Yes Notes is not as good as Outlook's user interface for mail. But really you are trying to compare a apple to a boat. If all you use Notes/Domino for is mail then maybe you should be using Outlook/Exchange. Oh yeah and while you are at it try and justify all that money to your Boss.. You might just see why we chose notes.

P.S. Want to see Note's new interface try looking up 'Lotus Hanover' in goggle. See how long it takes Microsoft to do that.