According to Information Week, sources "with knowledge of IBM's plans" have confirmed that IBM will be releasing a version of its email client, Lotus Notes, for the iPhone (and iPod touch) at the Lotusphere conference next week. Plans for this were announced in October last year after Steve Jobs announced an iPhone SDK coming in February. Notes has been previously available on your Mac, but this release would give iPhone users mobile access to all of the Notes tools, including e-mail, calendars and databases.
The Notes news, along with IBM's Wednesday announcement that it will be porting its Informix 11 'Cheetah' database server to Leopard, and reports that Symphony (the productivity suite based on the OpenOffice.org project) is headed for OS X give rise to speculation that IBM may be gearing up to take a bite out of Microsoft via some strategic partnering with Apple. And for Apple, support from IBM could lead to gaining ground in the enterprise arena. Would more IBM software on the Mac (and iPhone) cause a stir in the Microsoft-dominated business world? I guess we're about to find out.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
1-18-2008 @ 7:59AM
Mike Young said...
Having Notes on the iPhone cannot be underestimated. Large corporations, global banks, major accounting firms and consultants tend to use Notes for email in preference to all other vendors. Without Notes email, Apple would have a hard time getting on the approval list of these corporations. This is huge, HUGE.
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1-18-2008 @ 8:09AM
Kishen said...
meh, not so much.
If the corps wanted people to access their Notes mail with iPhones then they'd just do it with IMAP.
The fact is, big corps won't adopt the iphone because:
1. it doesn't support advanced security, such as remote wipe. Do you think one of the Big 4 firms wants egg on its face after an employee loses valuable third party information along with their iphone?
2. cost of the handset, plus the fact that the network are not making it easy to attach the iphone to a pre-existing corporate contract where voice/data bundles are shared across all users.
iphone is great for small business where systems and controls are already simple. for the big corporations, fuhgedaboutit
1-18-2008 @ 11:01AM
Edward said...
@ Kishen: yeah, right on IMAP. I have not found any major corporations using IMAP as their primary mail system. In fact, IMAP is often seen as a security vulnerability since it does not provide for the level of encryption, availability, and reliability of a proprietary enterprise-grade messaging solution. What works for small businesses/universities doesn't always scale up for large corporations.
But you are right, manageability is going to be the deal-breaker for iPhone in the enterprise.
1-18-2008 @ 12:08PM
Scott Falkner said...
Nobody "prefers" to use Lotus Notes. It's awful. Some companies prefer to pay for and manage it because if promises a large set of features or the upgrades are seem easier and cheaper than jumping to a better system, like paper and pencil.
I assure you that iPhone users will hate using Notes. Hate it. HAtE.
1-18-2008 @ 8:11AM
MetPotoDotNet said...
This is very big news!
The company I work for has many tens of thousands of users on Notes. Now they HAVE to buy me an iPhone to test! :-)
Mark
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1-18-2008 @ 8:29AM
Frank Furter said...
Lotus Notes ranks up there in my top 3 of crappiest apps of all time. Corporations still running this our behind the times (waaaay behind the times). The first commenter said "In preference to other vendors". In layman speak, that means "too cheap to upgrade to what the cool kids are using".
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1-18-2008 @ 10:35AM
Skeezle said...
I Agree about Notes being lousy to use, especially using it on a Mac although the latest version certainly is a giant improvement. I've been Lotus Notes it for 12 years now, and believe me, the company I work for is not small nor cheap, and not behind the times in the least. We are a major player in our field. I am happy to use Notes when the alternative is something made by Microsoft. I think it is security concern that keep us on Notes.
As far as your "cool kids" statement, the kids that did what everyone else were doing were never perceived as 'cool' in my book, they were lemmings.
1-18-2008 @ 10:38AM
scott said...
I don't think ExxonMobil (record holder for most profitable quarter in US history) chose notes because they're cheap. If anything, Exchange is the cheap option!
Lotus Notes is currently unmatched as collaboration suite. Exchange is NOT a collaboration tool. It is an email and calendar system.
The interface requires a learning curve, no doubt, but it does things that are simply impossible in an Exchange world, and so people deal with the interface. The interface HAS gotten a lot better with v7 and the current v8.
1-18-2008 @ 11:06AM
Edward said...
What are they behind the times? Yes, if they're using R4/R5, they might be behind the times. However, if they're on R7 or R8, they are up-to-date and extremely competitive on enterprise messaging versus MS Exchange. And that's not to mention the collaboration advantages for Notes that aren't available in Exchange (a public folder is not collaboration).
This attitude is why Mac won't be accepted into corporate IT anytime soon. "Cool" does not equal stable, reliable, or scalable. MacOS X needs more enterprise-grade applications to make it a contender.
1-18-2008 @ 8:42AM
Jonathan Wise said...
The comment about IMAP is so untrue. I work for a big corporation, and I can guarantee you, they won't let me get my e-mail via IMAP over the "extranet."
There's a reason big companies use Lotus and Exchange, and not IMAP or POP3.
This IS a big deal, and I hope someone does the same for Exchange access...
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1-18-2008 @ 8:48AM
MetPhotoDotNet said...
I am very closely associated with the security of mobile devices at my firm. I know for sure that we will not adopt the iPhone, no matter how good the Notes implementation is. There are a lots of reasons why not, however the main one is summarized as; our lack of ability to remotely manage the device. Until there is enterprise grade management for the iPhone it is simply not going to find a way into large corporations.
As for Notes being crappy, well I have been using it for nearly 15 years. While there are plenty of short comings , there is sill a lot you can do with Notes that cannot do with other applications. In particular in an off-line world. If any one believes that you can always be connected where every you are in the world is clearly delusional.
Regardless I still NEED an iPhone to test! :-)
Mark
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1-18-2008 @ 9:18AM
Mike Young said...
Deleting data remotely will happen too. Just wait a bit and I'm confident that Apple or some third-party vendor will solve this security concern. Then, what will the corporate IT departments have left to complain about?
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1-18-2008 @ 9:35AM
krye said...
Yes, huge. The company I work for is huge, and we use lotus notes. The only phones we're allowed are blackberries. And they suck. If iPhone could support Lotus, thar would be huge!
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1-18-2008 @ 9:49AM
itguy07 said...
You mean the POS called Exchange?
Please. On the server side, nothing can touch the reliability and scalability of Notes. Period. The fact you can run the server on AIX, AS/400, Windows, and Linux means you are not held hostage to 1 vendor for your platform.
Then you have a more robust storage model of discrete databases per each user. This is a huge advantage over Exchange which lumps everything together in a database. It means that 1 user's corrupted mailbox won't crash your server, is easier to manage and restore, etc. We have users with multiple GB mail databases and it runs fine. There's a reason why most Exchange implementations limit users' mail databases....
We won't even touch the advanced application development environment that is Notes......
There's a reason why Notes is gaining market share and is still in use by ~ 40% of corporations - ~40% is Exchange and the rest are using something else.
What I will agree on is the Notes client Sucks. Although I don't know what the draw to Outlook is - it's just as big of a POS.
When your email demands reliability and scalability you don't use Exchange.
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1-18-2008 @ 10:19AM
MySchizoBuddy said...
Lotus Symphony has absolutely nothing to do with openoffice.
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1-18-2008 @ 10:24AM
Brett Terpstra said...
"It is based on Eclipse Rich Client Platform from IBM Lotus Expeditor for its shell and OpenOffice.org 1.1.4 for the core office suite code."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Symphony
1-18-2008 @ 10:31AM
Geoff said...
Notes is clunky, yes, but it's what my employer uses nationally. I need more than email: I need calendar, email, address book, tasks, and so on. I have to keep my BlackBerry for now because I especially need my calendar available. I not only need to read my calendar, but modify it. BES is the only way to go, for now, to do this. The other things I really want from iPhone are availability on CDMA-EvDO (Sprint) network and tethering (use as a wireless modem).
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1-18-2008 @ 10:35AM
MySchizoBuddy said...
thanks for the clarification
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1-18-2008 @ 11:35AM
Col said...
Having local access to your lotus notes databases on the iphone would be excellent for road warriors, sales force, maintenance crews etc. And one of the first ways to take non-apple/itunes information sources with you too.
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1-18-2008 @ 12:18PM
CreepersCreek said...
After using the Lotus Notes client for the past 5 years, I don't see how IBM could possibly live up to Apple's usability standards. If anything can ruin the iPhone experience, it's Lotus Notes.
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