IBM’s upcoming release of Lotus Notes for Linux is, according to Novell survey responders, among the most eagerly anticipated events in Linuxdom. And rightly so.
Notes for Linux will allow shops already running Lotus Domino Server on Linux to adopt the same platform for its integrated client. Notes provides e-mail, instant messaging, calendar and scheduling. It includes personal information management utilities, discussion forums, teamrooms and reference databases with basic workflow. And it’s all based on a desktop platform that encourages collaborative applications.
Luckily for IBM’s Lotus team, millions embrace the current version of Notes. But continued success doesn’t accomodate standing still. Microsoft is blatantly stalking the Notes/Domino combo with its upcoming feature-rich Office/Exchange 12 on Vista.
IBM’s response is twofold. Make a better Lotus Notes (codename Hannover), and make it work on more platforms: Lotus Notes for Linux, and Lotus Notes for Apple Mac OS 10.4.
The moment the new Notes is launched, Linux will have a complete retail-quality client desktop system to link with the world’s only browser platform, Firefox, and hopefully accelerate OpenOffice development.
Apple will get its first truly complete database collaboration environment, which should help create an image of Mac as a possible business platform.
And both will get a shot at tons of previously out-of-reach business desktops.
For its part, IBM should finally gain ground in the client arena without genuflecting toward Redmond.
If IBM Lotus Notes for Linux takes off, expect others to follow IBM’s lead, albeit slowly: Intuit, Autodesk, Adobe-Macromedia, Sage and more.
Microsoft’s reaction will be measured but predictable. Microsoft’s UK director of platform strategy said it best:
The simplest way I can answer the question is that Microsoft is 100 percent focused on Windows. We have no plans at this present moment in time to deploy or build a version of Microsoft Office on Linux.
In Microsoftspeak, that means, once IBM makes the market, you’d better believe Redmond will both build and deploy a version of Microsoft Office on Linux… with a few “unintentional” kinks, of course.
20 comments
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February 28th, 2006 at 7:00 am
stan mcintosh
Two questions:
1) Will the next version fix Notes’ frustrating inability to competently conduct a keyword search through message folders? Other mail handlers let you find *all* messages containing a keyword string, why not Lotus Notes? I can enter a string that I know appears in a message in the inbox folder, and searching does not return that message.
2) Will this be available for free to home users to spur conversion to Notes? However, until the flaw above is fixed, I know I’ll stick with Thunderbird.
Later,
mcintosh
February 28th, 2006 at 8:44 am
Steve Storey
You could try clicking the “Create Index” button in the search panel of the database, which makes the searching both faster, and much more accurate.
February 28th, 2006 at 3:55 pm
Feeley
In my work, I deal with both Exchange/Outlook and Domino/Notes shops. FWIW, I can tell you that I have far more tech support headaches when I’m dealing with Domino/Notes networks.
February 28th, 2006 at 5:56 pm
Ken Yee
Notes allows you to search through documents organized in specific folders to narrow your search. If you want to search through everything, click on View\AllDocuments on the left, then bring up the full text search engine by clicking on the magnifying glass icon (not the binoculars which only searches subject headers and author names), then do your search. Why is such a PITA? Tell me why you can’t file messages into multiple folders in Outlook like you can in Notes. You mean you have never had a message that should be put in multiple folders because it belongs in multiple categories?
On the admin side, I’ve had Exchange admin friends who lost their data store for hours/days when it got corrupted. They didn’t think it was a big deal for users to be w/o mail for a while. That doesn’t happen in Notes w/ clustered shared-nothing servers
Back to the article: I really doubt MS would bring any of its clients or server apps to Linux. They’re fighting a holy war against it…
February 28th, 2006 at 5:58 pm
Ken Yee
I forgot to mention: Notes/Domino is not just email. It’s a RAD software development infrastructure that gives you replication, application delivery, security, web service, etc. You don’t have to spend 1/3 of the time in your project writing a user manager, then figure out how to secure the application, and how to deliver the application to your users, including the ones who want to use laptops on the plane to do useful work…
February 28th, 2006 at 7:19 pm
Dan
Why would anyone in the linux community want Lotus Notes?
http://lotusnotessucks.4t.com/index.html
March 1st, 2006 at 7:51 am
mick4394
This isn’t about the vocal, Linux geek community, minority. This is about all of those normal folks out there that use Lotus Notes and would like to migrate out of Windows.
AKA, the majority.
March 1st, 2006 at 3:21 pm
Jon Champlin
http://lotusnotessucks.4t.com/index.html refers to Notes 5.x. The current shipping version is 7.01 and with Hannover the UI will get a complete makeover.
March 1st, 2006 at 4:26 pm
Bernard Devlin
People can say that it sucks as much as they like. But the bottom line is that there is _no single product_ that can do the same work on the client or on the server as Notes and Domino do. It’s great the IBM are extending the Notes client to other platforms, but they need to do the same thing with the Designer client too.
March 2nd, 2006 at 7:19 am
scott
Please get me off Windows… PLEASE !!!!!
March 7th, 2006 at 2:43 am
Jose Albaladejo
The real issue here is not whether Lotus Notes is THE ideal product. It an invitation to other major software manufacturers to look at Linux as an alternative. If this happens we will start seeing Linux being shipped on PCs for home and enterprise users. Personally I am pro-Windows but realise that it needs a competitor. Notes will bring Mac and Linux into the market and besides, is there anything that Lotus Notes/Domino can’t do?
March 7th, 2006 at 11:21 am
Sitaram
This is really bad news for me!
At my work I bless IBM everyday that they DONT have a Linux product. Since I insist on using Linux as my desktop, this leaves me free to use Thunderbird
If this happens I will be forced to use a bloated client with half the functionality of TB.
And I’m tired of IBM apologists saying “but it’s not just an email client, it’s a RAD playform, [or whatever]”. I dont *need* a RADplatform. I just want to be able to search my email quickly and easily.
Any email client which acquired “sort by subject line” in version 6 is a client worth avoiding. Regardless of what super-glorified version it will be on tomorrow.
March 13th, 2006 at 10:14 am
Jumbo Quigley
Well, if anyone in your organization had a brian, they could have implemented “Sort by Subject line” either in the mail template for all users, or only for you since I doubt anyone else thought it necessary. This could be done back in, oh, Notes 1.0
If you don’t want a ‘bloated’ client with RAD apps, you can use the excellent browser-based email. Oh, yeah, fast and correct searches there, too.
210aMarch 26th, 2006 at 11:09 pm
Mark Demicoli
You can pick on Lotus Notes until the cows learn java. Personally I go to bed at night knowing that my clients are ecstatic about the stuff i’m building for them and in so much less time than their experience with other platforms. I love you Notes. *mwah*
April 4th, 2006 at 6:29 am
Chris
All I have to say is it is about time! I’m not a Lotus Notes user but my dad is. He is not a ‘Linux’ user but he is using Linux at home. Lotus Notes is what he needs for work and is currently running through CrossOver Office. He hates Lotus Notes regardless of platform. The thing I think people need to pay attention to is that the current version of Lotus Notes is written in Microsoft visual c++. This is half the problem but the other half of why IBM still hasn’t ported it to Linux. I think it’s pretty apparent this isn’t going to be anything like the old Lotus Notes given it’s now multi-platform they are almost certainly writing this from the ground up. For those who absolutely hate Lotus Notes this likely will incorporate all the changes you so desire. If not at first, it will over time. FireFox 1.0 had a lot to be desired but with 1.5 and 2.0 it’s softened up a bit and gotten better support from web designers.
July 24th, 2006 at 2:39 pm
dbf
Quirky quirky… However, all those lacks of multiple undo’s, connection settings deep in address book, some easy options (sortability mentioned) missing, still beats Outlook - at least on the count of being able to handle HUGE end-user mail files. Outlook somehow found it difficult (in my case, at least) to deal with mail files over 1-2 Gb, whereas Lotus handles the current 8 Gb with a relative ease, and seems to be willing to go further. Of course, large GBs of mail are not very wise, and most home users will never collect so much mail… but in work environment mail just piles up. Integrated indexing and index-based searches - also something that Outlook lacks and which makes working with very large mail databases such a pain in the ass… Last, but not least, even though not a power-user, and do not use it, but Lotus has tons of “possibility” built-in… just if I could program in Lotusspeak…
October 26th, 2006 at 4:52 am
FP
Ya, multi-level undo is *one* of the *major* issues with Notes, no matter what platform you run it on…
As such, it can only improve, and I am all for the Linux version… Now if only the company would upgrade so we can also use it…
December 3rd, 2006 at 3:07 am
Googler
Lotus Notes apologists really need to read the information posted at http://lotusnotessucks.4t.com/index.html. Notes violates about every known heuristic of effective UI design.
I’d love to see gmail gain encryption and start dominating the email client space. As for the rest of the databases and functionality in Notes…use them if you dare. But don’t foist them on your innocent employees as usable software. The number of people that vehemently hate notes with every fiber of their being is shocking.
March 30th, 2007 at 11:03 am
Brendan
Where can I register as a person that vehemently hates notes with every fiber of my being?
July 18th, 2007 at 8:44 am
who cares
Lotus Jokes can burn in hell. Seriously. Burn burn burn.
As someone who likes to think that they have a “brian” (as Jumbo Quigley defined it), I would think that other people who have a “brian” would realize the clunkiness, difficulty of use, and overall misery that this program delivers. I would wish IBM bankrupt for carrying this product alone. My hope is that like Quark it too will die a slow agonizing death, just as long as I’m not involved with using it.