Filed under: Enterprise, Software, Freeware, iPhone
iPhone in the Enterprise: Lotus iNotes Ultralite
Back in January, we reported that IBM had plans to bring the Lotus Notes groupware application to the iPhone platform. Well, it's happened! Big Blue is announcing the availability of iNotes Ultralite, an iPhone portal to Lotus Notes that is available for free for anyone with a Lotus Notes license. In case you're wondering, there are currently about 140 million people worldwide who use Notes for their email, calendaring, and contacts.
IBM is always concerned about data security for its customers, and as such they decided to make iNotes Ultralite a web app rather than a native iPhone application. IBM felt it was important to customers to insure that all communications between the iPhone and Lotus Domino server be encrypted, and that no data remain on the device in case it was lost or stolen.
iNotes Ulitralite provides yet another foothold in the enterprise market for Apple.
[Via New York Times Technology blog]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
pat said 1:51PM on 9-30-2008
Doesn't this duplicate existing functionality? I hope they get pre-approved for the app store.
/end sarcasm
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Ben said 2:16PM on 9-30-2008
This is a Web App.
"IBM is always concerned about data security for its customers, and as such they decided to make iNotes Ultralite a web app rather than a native iPhone application."
Michael said 1:57PM on 9-30-2008
And why doesn't this application get booted... since after-all it does duplicate functionality already on the iPhone!
Sorry.. still a bit upset at Apple... think they are being total Prats about the whole thing.
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Gary@Brinkman.net said 2:54PM on 9-30-2008
Why doesn't anyone read the articles? Not a app, but a web page.
h said 8:06PM on 9-30-2008
Read the article? Come on, this guy just wanted a quick flame at apple without caring about mere things such as reality. He admitted it himself.
Runny Yolk said 2:13PM on 9-30-2008
Uhh, no app store worries. unfortunately (or fortunately), this is a web app. See the mobile safari bookmark, etc icons at the bottom of the screenshot? Personally, this is really lame but I can understand that IBM basically has no incentive to support iPhone, it's not like adding that feature will drive sales of Domino/Notes, rather more likely to drive sales of iPhones...
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barry levy said 3:04PM on 9-30-2008
What is the web address for the iphone link? I want to try it. Please help
Brandon Barnes said 2:18PM on 9-30-2008
This is great news. I can't wait until my company loads the correct version on the server so I can try it.
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Mike Eovino said 11:27PM on 10-13-2008
Go to http://greenhouse.lotus.com and sign up for a demo account. Then show it to your admins and tell them that this is why they need to go to 8.0.2.
Henry said 2:19PM on 9-30-2008
What a load of rubbish.
What this means is that my company HAS to implement the latest (or at least newer) version of Domino, followed by implementing an iPhone portal for those users who choose to personally buy and use an iPhone. No chance.
If IBM had released a TRUE iPhone client then we might be OK (as it is I can access Lotus via the webmail system - though of course that doesn't work 100% as it requires Java).
Thanks IBM - for nothing !!
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Jamus said 3:08PM on 9-30-2008
We are stuck in a similar boat although with the other ancient dreadnought: Oracle. We really could use an Oracle Calendar app. Even Oracle Devs themselves are screaming out for one, but Oracle does not want to budge (yet).
Mike Eovino said 11:31PM on 10-13-2008
How could IBM have done this? The SDK doesn't allow access to anything other than contacts. Again, there are plenty of other ways to integrate with Domino while we're all waiting for an enterprise worthy solution.
Scott said 2:30PM on 9-30-2008
Where is the link for the web 2.0 page? I have both lotus and an iPhone.
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rob said 2:48PM on 9-30-2008
Howard Stern would love this thing...supposedly his whole office uses lotus notes...maybe he'll get one now and get rid of his ancient treo
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Ed said 2:50PM on 9-30-2008
It'd be more secure to use a native app. With a web app, the caching behavior of the browser is unpredictable. It might be saving all sorts of secret information. With a native app, you can control that - and provide a better user experience.
Sounds like an excuse to me.
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DAJ said 4:33PM on 9-30-2008
I've used this web app and it is actually a poor implementation and simply a jazzed up webmail client accessed via safari.
There is no access to the corporate address book, and you can not interact fully with your calendar.
I know IBM are working on a native app so lets hope it comes soon
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h said 6:10PM on 9-30-2008
What would be, in this case, the difference in functionality between a webapp and a native app?
ar said 8:50PM on 9-30-2008
The reason this is implemented as a browser application has got nothing to do with security. There are technical limitations with the published iphone sdk that make implementing a native application not feasible. These links explain it somewhat:
http://www.edbrill.com/ebrill/edbrill.nsf/dx/and-a-last-word-on-the-notesiphone-thing
http://www.lotus911.com/nathan/escape.nsf/d6plinks/NTFN-7FGKUB
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Jash Sayani said 3:01AM on 10-01-2008
Nice to see the iPhone getting ready for Enterprise finally......
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Mike Eovino said 9:03PM on 10-12-2008
There are plenty of other ways to get your Lotus Notes mail, calendar and contacts on your iPhone. Tons of us are blogging about it (mine is at http://dominoiphone.wordpress.com). No, none of them are as seamless as if you were running Exchange and EAS, but it's doable.
For the record, we are not yet running 8.0.2, so I cannot comment on how this works in production. However, I have an account at Lotus Greenhouse (greenhouse.lotus.com) and I have used iNotes Ultralite there on my iPhone, and it's not bad.
In order to have better integration with the native apps, Apple either needs to greatly expand the capabilities of the SDK or get to working with IBM's Domino Traveler protocol.
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