In-Depth
IBM Brings Lotus Notes into Instant Messaging Era
Version 6.5 of Notes and Domino adds built-in IM, plus better spam defenses, improved compression, and encrypted e-mail.
IBM has changed the face of Lotus Notes and Domino, adding a new version 6.5 with built in Instant Messaging and better spam defenses, better compression, encrypted e-mail, tighter integration with Java and CORBA, further integration with WebSphere, and a bundled Mozilla browser.
The new version allows Notes and Domino applications to have Instant Messaging retro-fitted for virtually no effort, says IBM.
The new facilities can be tested until the end of the year for no extra charge with an aggressive IBM promotion, in which the company is giving away a free 20-person license to Instant Messaging and WebSphere Portal with every copy of Notes 6.5
The latest version of Lotus Notes and Domino also integrates with IBM’s Web Conferencing functionality (formerly Lotus Sametime), giving users online “awareness” capabilities and the ability to initiate instant messaging sessions directly from their in-box or from within a collaborative application.
Lotus Notes 6.5 is the first release of Lotus Notes to embrace IBM's new Lotus Workplace strategy for integrating people with business processes. The Lotus Notes 6.5 interface provides a unified entry point into various collaborative applications.
Users can access collaborative tools such as messaging, instant messaging, search and calendaring and scheduling, right from the Lotus Notes 6.5 client, rather than as separate applications.
The Lotus Workplace vision looks like it is designed to offer enterprise class alternatives to basic Microsoft Office applications.
Lotus 6.5 is available on September 30, with prices for the client licenses starting at $62.80 per user, and server licenses ranging, depending on which options are chosen from $1,145 per processor, just for the messaging server to the Utility server at $15,067.
Lotus Notes and Domino 6.5 run on most combinations of Windows, the IBM iSeries, the mainframe zSeries, AIX and many other Unix’s such as Solaris and Linux implementations and Notes runs on an Apple Mac.
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