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Mac OS X Version of Lotus Notes 6
NadizPicR writes "Lotus released the first Mac OS X beta for its Notes Domino messaging and collaboration system client. Version 6.0b1 also features improved toolbar handling. I just downloaded and installed it, and it seems to be an excellent implementation." Do people still use Lotus Notes? Honestly?
Does anyone have any screenshots?
This is pretty exciting since, with MS Office, it makes the mac a pretty viable alternative in the non-creative workplace. I worked as a designer and it was always immensely frustrating to either have to also use a PC, or simply be excluded from some enterprise apps and productivity tools.
I noticed though that there is no Domino Server for OS X. pity. A Dual G4 domino server (with Gigabit ethernet of course) would kick serious butt and would make an all mac office a distinct possibility.
I dream of a day when Oracle server runs on OS X and Apple has an easy to use data access framework a la ADO.net (with Postgres support): Rack mounted OS X application & database servers.
Oh my god, somebody get me a towel.
-a
"The plural of anecdote is not data." -- Roger Brinner
>The email client has to be the worst that I have ever used.
That is the admin's fault. Notes allows you to do a lot of customization so that it serves your needs, but once you do, it's pretty much essential. Of all the groupware I've seen it integrates best with heterogeneous data stores, custom applications, and workflows.
I agree that the e-mail is sucky compared to Outlook 2002 or mozilla or kmail or any number of other clients. This can be remedied though by effective use of custom domino applications and templates.
-a
"The plural of anecdote is not data." -- Roger Brinner
I've been using this client for about 2 weeks since it was released, and aside from a few small crashes, it's been running solid. The main problem is that when it freezes and you kill it, you have to reboot your Mac in order for it's database to be unlocked, (or i haven't figured out what else to do), which is kinda dumb, this being BSD.
The aqua interface isn't too aqua - it's mainly a wrapper around the R5 design with the exception of the dialogues, but all in all is just as easy to use.
Do people still use Lotus Notes? Honestly?
/. flamebait. Notes has a huge installed base in big financial institutions and other sectors where security and IBM are important. My employer, with over 10,000 staff, is currently migrating everyone to Notes from a mix of mainframe mail and POP3. 2000 users are to be migrated this weekend.
This is just
Now, I'm a Free Software bigot, so I hate Notes for being proprietary. And I hate the odd GUI for being... well, odd and buggy. But Notes has no real competition in terms of features and security. It's also impressively cross platform (on the server side, anyway).
It's really in a class of it's own. Of course it's still used.
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
IBM shops often use notes, since they already depend on IBM as a vendor. I know Kaiser-Permanente, the HMO, just recently swtiched from MS Exchange (A.K.A. Mmm... sex change...) and Outlook over to Lotus Notes after weathering one too many email viruses. KP uses DB2 on RS6000s running AIX.
Washington Mutual probably uses Notes too. I know they're an IBM customer. At the branch in Cheney you could see the S/390 behind the counter. If you get a look at the screen of a loan officer's PC, it's not running Windows but OS/2. From what I understand, the banks buy the AS400s and get OS/2 thrown in for free.
Casinos are another safe bet, if you want a job working with IBM iron and Notes. The new ones being run by native americans seem to prefer NT/2000, but the "old" corporate-run casinos of Las Vegas mostly use AS/400s for their accounting.
The Associated Press (AP) used to be all-IBM too. All the turnkey systems they used to sell newspapers ran nothing but OS/2, but last year they made a big promotion about they're new commitment to Windows 2000, and shortly after that all our AP systems were replaced by IBM PCs with W2K. They may still may be a place to look if you're looking for a Notes sysadmin position.
Democracy. Whiskey. Sexy. Pick any two.
I certainly hope it has the same well-crafted and intuitive interface I came to know and love last time I worked for a company that used Notes.
*cough*
--saint