|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
IBM Ships Lotus Notes & Domino 8August 20, 2007; 02:04 AM Research and
insight gained from IBM R&D Laboratories and businesses worldwide
indicate overall collaboration has superceded email as the key
characteristic of their desktop experience. Consequently, Lotus
Notes 8 is designed to transform the inbox into an integrated workspace
that brings together email, calendar, instant messaging, office
productivity tools and custom applications.
More than 93 percent of Lotus Notes customers are using the most recent two releases, a high adoption rate.
Further, annual service subscription renewal rates within Lotus Notes
licenses exceed 20 percent of the industry average, indicating broad,
fast adoption. "Some people have actually switched from Microsoft
Outlook at home to Notes 8 since we showed them how, " said Marc
Frasier, IT Mgr, Well Dynamics of New Zealand. "I'm pretty confident
that we'll be rolling out 8.0 pretty close to launch date."
Lotus Notes 8 is much more than email, unlike competitive offerings.
Lotus Notes 8 integrates work by building in instant messaging and
presence awareness, office tools to create and edit documents,
presentations and spreadsheets and infusinga business' custom
applications, including HelpDesk, CRM, Sales Force, Discussion Forums, Blogs and more.
"Our customers are calling Lotus Notes 8 the 'desktop of the
future' because it consolidates all their collaboration tools into one
screen," said Michael Rhodin, GM, IBM Lotus Software. "Collaboration is eclipsing email as the killer appwe use daily, whether your virtual desktop is on your desk, in your car, your hand, or your ear. Notes and Domino 8 is your personal portal to the Web 2.0 world."
Lotus Notes 8 organizes key applications neatly in the inbox via a
newly expanded sidebar, putting the user's most valuable resources
within sight after log on. "Lotus Notes & Domino 8 is a great work setup for having 'everything at your fingertips,’" said Rachael Trudgeon of the New Zealand Ministry of Health. "And the search facility is much improved and valuable."
"The best addition to Lotus Notes 8 is the RSS Reader, I can't remember what I ever did without it," said Darren Creely of Prudential UK, the UK's second biggest insurer.
"We are also really excited about the improved search capabilities in
Lotus Notes and Domino 8, they really help us save time and add value
to our desktop."
Dale Sinstead ofPioneer Petroleums said, "Lotus Notes and Domino 8
provided our users with an attractive new interface packed with new
Collaborative Communication tools, exceptional Contact Management and
fresh message handling features. The new, multi-platform Notes 8 client
is fast becoming a corporate workspace and breathes noticeable
efficiencies into every user effort."
"We see a lot of value in the ability to build composite
applications within Lotus Notes," said Robert Spaltenstein,
Allianz-Suisse. "With the sidebar in Lotus Notes and Domino 8, I have
one-click access to the applications and information I need to get the
my work done."
Lotus Notes 8 provides instant productivity through immediate
access to people, current projects or activities, and information
without leaving the inbox. Time can be saved through a new search tool
that lets users automatically extend searches beyond email and contacts
to Web and hard drive file searches. Face can be saved through
the "message recall" feature which enables users to quickly recall an
email message after it has been sent by mistake, sparing a user from
possible miscommunication. In addition, through the new
"conversation" feature, users can view all individual messages in their
inbox -- the traditional approach -- or they can now view their emails
grouped together in related conversations or threads by subject.
Hundreds of emails can be immediately reduced to dozens of
conversations.
Building on its leadership in the business social networking, IBM
is enabling Notes and Domino customers to add the Activities component
of Lotus Connections directly into Notes. Licensed separately, the
Activities option enables the worker to share collaborative content
such as documents, email, instant messaging and other items related to
a project into one logical unit. " I strongly believe
Activities have the potential to revolutionize the way people organize
their work and collaborate with their team," added Ingo Erdmann of the University of Paderborn.
Inspired by IBM Research Labs and developed by Lotus, the Activities
feature of the Lotus Notes 8 release uses Web 2.0 technologies such as
Backpack, Atom, Tagging, REST, Ajax and JSON to deliver a lightweight, web-based collaboration offering.
Companies of all sizes, industries and technology lineages are
embracing ND8 as the most comprehensive and versatile open
collaboration platform they've used. Lotus Notes 8 includes the
IBM Lotus productivity tools enabling users to create open
standards-based versions of spreadsheets, word processing documents,
presentations, in addition to supporting many file formats from
traditional stand-alone applications. These tools are included at no
additional charge with Lotus Notes & Domino 8. The productivity
tools support the Open Document Format (ODF), allowing users to import
and export supported file formats used by Microsoft Office and save
them either in the original format or ODF. "There is a lot more to
like about ND8, including integrated Sametime client with full
functionality; integrated office productivity tools; and users can
restore their own deleted mail," said Michael L Borror of the US Navy
Federal Credit Union.
"Giving our clients more productivity tool options for their
workforce gives us an edge in the consulting market. I am very excited
about creating Notes applications that take advantage of the Lotus
productivity tools to introduce a new level of integration unknown in
the marketplace," said John Head, Framework Management with PSC Group,
an IT consultant.
Another major reason why Lotus Notes customers prefer the new
release over competitive offerings is its support for multiple
platforms. In fact, Lotus Notes 8 and Domino 8 support a
variety of platforms, including Linux and Windows for clients and
Windows, Linux, Sun Solaris, AIX and IBM System i for servers. "We
plan to migrate to Notes and Domino 8 on Linux in the 4th quarter of
2007 from a Windows -based hosting environment," said Patrick Darke,
Director, Global IT Infrastructure of Ansell Healthcare LLC, in Bangkok. "Ansell
has about 1900 users on 40 servers -- and with about 50 Domino
applications in house, it is well-used for a midsize company."
Built on eclipse.org open standards, Lotus Notes 8 supports
businesses' existing applications and extends their life by combining
them through mashups with newer applications, resulting in composite
applications that can help provide deeper insight into key business
functions. For example, on a single screen, developers could link a
Domino-based Sales application with a supported Human Resources system
running on another platform. "Notes 8 delivers now what many
consider only a future prospect: A composite application model for
effective creation and use of best-of- breed software components and
standard plug-ins," Professor Ludwig W. Nastansky, Chief Executive
Officer, Groupware Competence Center, University of Paderborn, Germany.
Lotus Notes 8 is built on the programming model of Lotus Expeditor
6.1.1, which is based on eclipse.org open standards. Lotus Expeditor
6.1.1,enables the construction and deployment of enterprise mashups,
also known as composite applications. With the inclusion of the Lotus
Expeditor programming model, developers can integrate these same
Composite Application capabilities into the Notes user experience. The Lotus Expeditor platform is also separatelylicenseable
at additional chargefor customers who want to create their own user
experience for line-of-business applications spanning PDA, Smartphone
and Desktop systems that optionally connect into existing
infrastructure.
Chris Conran, Director, Senior Systems Architect of Australia
Bureau of Statistics stated, "As Notes 8 uses the Eclipse technology,
this should allow us to develop components (or plugins) that can be
deployed both internally on Notes 8 or externally on any other Eclipse
platform without requiring proprietary infrastructure. We expect to use
a number of open source components for functions such as data
visualisation, calculations or editing."
Pricing: Lotus Notes 8 software starts at SRP of $101 per
client. For a browser-based alternative, IBM Domino Web Access clients
are $73 per user. IBM Lotus Domino server software starts at an SRP of
$14.75 per value unit. Lotus Domino Express solutions for small and
medium businesses, inclusive of client and server, start at an SRP of
$99 per user. Volume discounts apply.
Editors Note: A video demonstration of some of the new features of Lotus Notes 8 is available at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmgRnk5VSO0
|
|
Copyright © 1998 - 2018 DevStart, Inc. All Rights Reserved |