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IBM has aired Lotus Notes for the iPhone at last.  (Source: Celularis)
There's lots new from Big Blue

A little known fact is that IBM claims its Lotus Notes email client was the first software interface to introduce the chiclet-shaped graphical icons now typically associated with the iPhone in the minds of most.  Perhaps it is appropriate that IBM is now at last offering Lotus Notes in all its glory for the iPhone.

Lotus Notes Traveler Companion, Big Blue's first application for the Apple iPhone App Store was announced yesterday at Lotusphere 2010, an IBM trade show.  IBM describes the new product, stating, "If you want a mobile alternative to reading Domino-encrypted mail on your laptop, then this is the application for you. Encrypted mail will appear in your inbox with only a unique, secure link for the Companion application. After entering your Lotus Notes Traveler password, the mail will be displayed on your iPhone or iPod Touch, and then upon exit will leave no decrypted mail on the device -- ensuring the security of your most sensitive corporate data. "

For now, a minor inconvenience is that the app requires a fixpack to Traveler 8.5.1 to manage your meetings.  Still, that's unlikely to damper the spirits much among Lotus Notes users, who have long hoped for an iPhone app.

Next up is Google's Android OS, said IBM director of product management Ed Brill.  He states that the new Google Nexus One "Google Phone" will be the first to get the secure email client app.

While new business apps like Lotus Notes may fuel some business users to push their companies to embrace the iPhone or Android phones, IBM also announced that it's expanding its relationship with RIM, makers of the leading BlackBerry smart phones.

BlackBerry devices already have access to IBM's Lotus Domino Server, via the BlackBerry Enterprise Server and BlackBerry Client product lines.  They also recently received support for IBM's business instant messaging client, Lotus SameTime.

Newly announced is an upcoming BlackBerry Lotus Quickr client (Quickr is a content sharing/collaboration software by IBM) and an improved IBM Lotus Connections Blackberry client, produced by RIM with the help of IBM.  RIM will also internally be adopting Lotus Connections, a business-geared social networking suite.

Alistair Rennie, IBM's new general manager for Lotus, says mobile accessibility is critical for the company's business software offerings staying relevant.  He states, "Mobile is not an ancillary plot anymore. It has pivoted to a fundamental way people will work."

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By sapiens74 on 1/19/2010 1:12:55 PM , Rating: 2
I was surprised they were not on Exchange considering they use mostly Mac clients and purchased Office 2008 with exchange support...




By Brandon Hill (blog) on 1/19/2010 1:23:27 PM , Rating: 2
Yeah, my wife use Lotus Notes here a well (she's a second grade teacher for the Wake County Public School System). Maybe it's an education thing?


By Smartless on 1/19/2010 1:34:36 PM , Rating: 5
Oh look another Hawaii person. Honest question, is there a requirement that governments use software that isn't industry standard? Excuse my generalization and preferences aside:

Government uses Lotus and Word Perfect - Everyone else MS Office.
Government uses Microstation CAD - Everyone else AutoCAD
Education uses Mac(discount) - Everyone else PC.
Government buys GM - Everyone else Toyota (lol jk)

It's like the back the wrong monkey everytime. Well in Hawaii they do lol.


By bhieb on 1/19/2010 2:03:20 PM , Rating: 4
Part of the problem is the Government is SLLLLOOOOOWWW to change. They use Lotus, and Word Perfect because in 1980 when they installed those, they were far better than Microsoft. Now they are so used to it they won't change.

I've worked on both and Lotus is not all bad, and actually quite capable (same with Word Perfect). But I think it has to do with the cost of moving from a highly integrated system to a completely different process.


By Solandri on 1/19/2010 2:07:47 PM , Rating: 2
Back in the early 90's, Lotus Notes was the hottest thing for intra-office communication. It got high marks from users and was generally regarded as superior to things like Exchange. Unfortunately, it hasn't kept up with the times.

I suspect many of the shops still using it are doing so out of inertia and unwillingness/incapability to make the capital expenditure to transition over to a new system. In particular, government educational institutions probably don't have the money to transition.


By The0ne on 1/19/2010 2:38:38 PM , Rating: 2
Forgive the young one, he maybe wasn't born back then. It was a time where people use keyboard to do almost everything in the application and time was measured in mouse clicks and keyboard presses hahaha

Hell, even I remember 90% of the keys to use Orcad without the mouse :)


By omnicronx on 1/19/2010 5:19:51 PM , Rating: 1
My workplace switched from Outlook. I like Outlook, its far more intuitive, but unfortunately its still a Microsoft product. Many of the exploits and viruses that circle around the net target it specifically. As terrible as Lotus Notes is, it does have one thing going for it, security via obscurity.


By damianrobertjones on 1/19/2010 5:41:07 PM , Rating: 4
I find these comments odd?

In over eight years the company I'm admin for ONLY use MS products, from Office XP, 2003 to 2007 and soon, 2010.

How many viruses have we had in that time?

wait for it

0.

Sure, I Make SURE that all the latest pacthes are applied via WSUS and add a valid virus checker in there. Yet, time and again, I keep hearing about how Microsoft's security sucks? It's the PEOPLE that use the products that suck, lazy admins, staff that will click everything and everything and MS gets the blame. Our third party software, Syspro, Equator and SysproCRM have caused far, far more problems over the years.


By lightfoot on 1/20/2010 12:48:14 PM , Rating: 2
It is a tale far older than Microsoft; one where the user blames his tools.


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Gah.
By Motoman on 1/19/2010 1:56:35 PM , Rating: 5
Lotus Notes is horrible. I've had to suffer with it twice at an employer - first way back in 1995 or so, when it was pretty new - and then again in 2007.

The product looked the same in 2007 as it did in 1995. And having to switch from Exchange/Outlook to Lotus Notes is like trading in your new Cadillac for a used Yugo.

...sure, it works - but it's a far cry from the same thing.




RE: Gah.
By Ammohunt on 1/19/2010 2:16:14 PM , Rating: 2
I agree i got exposed to it when i first worked at IBM. Took me forever to find out how to create a new email becasue its called a "Memo" WTF is a "Memo"? I am surprised its still around.


RE: Gah.
By theapparition on 1/20/2010 8:24:21 AM , Rating: 2
I'd rather slit my wrists than use that POS Notes program again.

Thankfully, it's good to be the king, and owning my own company ensures that will never happen. Already told my IT manager that the mention of the word Lotus gets them fired on the spot.


RE: Gah.
By Mitch101 on 1/19/2010 4:31:10 PM , Rating: 2
As a Messaging Engineer Lotus Notes was ahead of its time but its more of a collaboration tool than an e-mail client and most people just want e-mail. As I recall when IBM bought them the core developers who designed Notes left the company which is probably why it never evolved. But then IBM is a killer of software. Now what will happen is some IBMer's will come in here telling us were all wrong and that Notes/Domino is the greatest thing since sliced bread and defend the application to no end. Instead they should listen to the feedback on why people hate it so passionately and improve it. Most people aren't talking about the back end but talking about the client interface and experience. The majority of complaints would be eliminated if they revamped the client interface to something more modern with the way people work today. Sadly the interface is almost the same POS it was 15 years ago.


RE: Gah.
By The0ne on 1/19/2010 5:12:44 PM , Rating: 2
You are correct. When IBM bought Notes most of the team left and Notes never did evolved, for ages. IBM just never paid much attention and instead left it alone to wither and died, slowly in the face of competition. Wordperfect, although it did go through changes, did not have enough to compete with Word93, once applications went GUI. The GUI of wordperfect 8, if I recall correctly, was downright slow, sluggish and that's when they changed a lot of the keystrokes that made 6 so easy for people like me to use.


RE: Gah.
By dgingeri on 1/20/2010 1:11:49 PM , Rating: 2
The biggest problem I had with Lotus Notes, as a support tech, was that the same problem exists from version 1.3 all the way to today. I believe it is at 8.5(?)

The caching scheme totally disregards the Windows caching, and then things get written out of order. These miswrites cause errors in the indexing of the databases. The most frequent fix required by Notes is simply deleting the local copy of a database and redownloading it. It gets worse the larger the database gets, which is why most Notes users are limited to a 50MB mailbox. Even with this limitation, most users have to have this done about every 2-3 weeks.

Now, this would be an easy fix: simply remove their internal caching scheme and let Windows handle it entirely or force dedicated writes, bypassing the Windows caching. However, they simply have not done either.

Microsoft Outlook can handle very large local copies of mailboxes (>800MB in 2003 and >1.5GB in 2007) without hardly any issues. Once in a while, the same needs to be done, but it is usually months to years between issues.

I don't get why the Lotus Notes engineers can't get this right.


RE: Gah.
By gusc3669 on 1/19/2010 4:35:58 PM , Rating: 2
I'll second the motion (that Notes is horrible)! It's slow...miserably slow. Having used it at a university and in a TV Cable Network for over 4 years now, it's not the friendliest program for normal users. The company I work for now, just 'upgraded' to Notes 8 recently (from version 6, I believe) and we just got the option to 'recall sent message' which was an option I loved under Exchange/Outlook.

I'm guessing that the company has a lot of data/costs/headcount tied-up with Notes since when you ask an IT person about why they use it versus other options, they look at you like your out to kill their first born.


RE: Gah.
By Jedi2155 on 1/19/2010 4:37:04 PM , Rating: 2
The company I work at just finally upgraded from Lotus 6.5 to Lotus 8.5 last week and it is a huge improvement in many areas compared to the atrocious version I've been using over the past year and a half. I would go as far as to say the latest version is relatively modern and up to date as SameTime allows VOIP/Video conferencing as well as instant messaging. Not bleeding edge of course but relatively up to date.


RE: Gah.
By d1nn0 on 1/20/2010 1:48:27 PM , Rating: 2
Unfortunately, the company I work for also uses Lotus Notes and SameTime (which I call ShameTime).
I am using ST 8 and it probably has some issues with McAfee (which I call McCrappy) as after I launch ST in the morning it takes more than 10 minutes to become responsive/usable and during this time McCrappy uses a lot of CPU resources.
Another thing - if you right click and check the properties of the folder C:\Program Files\IBM\Lotus\Sametime Connect you will see that it contains:
- more than 8000 files
- more than 600 folders
- that totals to 190 MB but takes 211 MB on the disk.
WOW! I stopped doing any programming in 1997 and maybe I'm not up to date with the new philosophy but that amount of files/folders doesn't seem reasonable to me.
The only convenient feature I've seen/used in ST (maybe other IM clients have it too but I doubt it's that easy to use) is to include screen-shots in your instant messages.
Other than that, using LN and ST disgusts me to the point that I think that IBM stands for "Indian Bug Makers" instead of "International Business Machines".


RE: Gah.
By bbomb on 1/19/2010 11:36:16 PM , Rating: 2
I didn't like the software either. Kroger's recently dumped Lotus for Outlook as well.


Want bloated software on your Iphone?
By vapore0n on 1/20/2010 10:41:49 AM , Rating: 2
Now there is an app for that.

My work uses Notes and sametime. Both are bloatware. Slow, painful to use, still lagging years behind other software like outlook and thunderbird.
Just how bloated is IBM software? Sametime 7.5.1 currently using 90MB of memory, where pidgin would use 4MB. This is actually an improvement over previous versions.




RE: Want bloated software on your Iphone?
By MrFord on 1/20/2010 12:58:27 PM , Rating: 2
90MB, I wish Outlook could be that slim. Just my basic Exchange-connected Outlook 2003 takes 117MB idling. Plus another 77MB for Word which it uses to compose e-mails.

Honest question here: how does Notes compares to Novell Groupwise? I've barely touched Notes, but I did suffer with Groupwise for a year or so. The good thing with GW was it's tight integration with NetWare, but the same can be said of Outlook. How does Notes compare in that regard?


RE: Want bloated software on your Iphone?
By dgingeri on 1/20/2010 1:16:35 PM , Rating: 2
You want to know how Notes is from a user standpoint?

1. your mailbox will be limited to 50MB because of program limitations.
2. even with the mailbox at <50MB, you will have to delete the local copy about every 2-3 weeks and download a new copy (with larger mailboxes, it gets more frequent, where if the limit is inceased to 100MB, you'd have to do it about every day. thus, number 1.)
3. support techs for all computer issues will have to be hired specifically for their Notes skills, and Notes is miserable to support, so you wind up with bitter, frustrated people, who know little about any other computer issues, working with you to fix your computer problems.

How's that?


By pfloyd09 on 1/20/2010 4:35:54 PM , Rating: 2
How's that you ask? Completely, and utterly false. I have been a Lotus Notes Admin/Developer for going on 16 years, and these statements you are making are completely untrue.

Firstly, the 50MB limit is something your administrator would set on the server, and it has nothing to do with the reliability of the NSF (Notes Storage Facility - a.k.a. a Lotus Notes Database file). I've supported Notes in environments with well over 125,000 users, none of which had a quota, and MANY of the users had mail files exceeding 20GB - YES GIGABYTES. This reliability thing you speak of is just complete garbage. Nobody on the planet, and I mean NOBODY, would use any email platform that was so severely limited, or unreliable.

Here is a link to the truth:
http://www.geniisoft.com/showcase.nsf/DominoLimits

Support techs are ALWAYS hired with a skillset that matches the platform/application/product they are supporting. Saying that someone with Lotus Notes knowledge is incapable of learning something else like networking, or desktop support, is beyond ludicrous.

Troll much?


By erple2 on 1/25/2010 5:29:15 PM , Rating: 2
No, that 90MiB is just for the IM client, NOT lotus notes itself. If i open Lotus Notes on my work laptop right now, it consumes (without having "done" anything) 120MiB of "Private Bytes" of RAM, and about 1.2 GiB of virtual size. Opening up Thunderbird is 80MiB "Private Bytes" and 164MiB of virtual RAM.

Pidgin consumes 26MiB/125MiB RAM for me.

I must agree that Lotus Notes 8.5 is a stunning improvement over 7.5.1 (what I used before). However, that's kind of like saying that a plate made out of a dirt clod is a stunning improvement over a plate made out of fecal matter mixed with a disease infested bloated deer carcass. While true, I still don't want to use the plate made out of the dirt clod.


Options are good...
By iFX on 1/19/2010 8:23:15 PM , Rating: 2
Not everyone likes Notes, I don't like it or dislike it, although I've both used it as a DU and managed it as a Sys Admin.

What I will say is the more options we have the better, and Notes is an option. The fact that Notes is still around and moving to new platforms is a good thing.




Notes
By Azsen on 1/20/2010 1:14:53 AM , Rating: 2
Notes 8 is nice GUI wise, but still slow and bloated.

Funny that IBM have been making a Lotus Notes app for the iPhone but their corporate policies don't allow data plans on their employees mobile accounts. Thus I have an iPhone but cant get a data plan on the corporate SIM card so miss out on half the functionality. So I had to go out and bought a personal pre-pay SIM so I could use data on my iPhone... f*kers.




Good lock on a screen door?
By djc208 on 1/20/2010 11:18:08 AM , Rating: 2
IBM is pushing it's secure mail app for an unsecure OS on a phone that probably isn't allowed in many places where that kind of security is required. I think we now know why Lotus is the also-ran in this competition.




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