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Lotus Offers a Peek Into Linux plans

Posted by HeUnique on from the it-is-coming-to-linux dept.

Sm@rt Resseler has published an article about what Lotus will port to Linux in the near future. Among their products are Domino 5.0.3 with connectivity to Oracle 8.0x and IBM's DB2, Sametime 2.0 (Realtime collaboration software), and Quick Place 2.0 Collaborative Program (scheduled for the first half of 2000). Unfortunately, Lotus is not planning to port either their Notes client or SmartSuite Millenium edition to Linux, which is a sad thing. (/me thinks that a petition could help us to get those client ports.)

4 of 76 comments (clear)

  1. Client Ports... by Lee+Horrocks · · Score: 2

    I'm pessimistic on the idea that Lotus will port the Notes Client or Smartsuite to Linux; especially since they dumped client support for Unixen in Domino R5... And the idea that a petiton might change there minds is (sadly) unlikely - Lotus isn't really good at listening to that kind of input from users...

    Or even from their business partners, like the one I work for; Lotus has a partner forum, which is available to Lotus Certified Business Partner companies. Various requests have been made at times for improvements in certain Notes features (like printing, or report generation); many of the these request meet very little response or support from Lotus.

    As far as the server Linux port goes, and speaking from several years of familiarity with Notes/Domino, I'm not really that interested. Lotus' track record for Unix versions hasn't been great; the AIX and Solaris version have been buggy, slow, or they require a _very_ specific set of OS patches/configuration to run efficiently... By analogy, that would mean that the Linux version may run on the 2.2.7 kernel (for example), but not, say, 2.2.9 . (And don't dare try putting it on a development kernal)




    1. Re:Client Ports... by IntlHarvester · · Score: 2

      The Release 5 user interface is much much better, although it's still Notesey. Unfortunately, most Notes shops upgrade at the speed of molasses, so you might be waiting a while.

      Not that this is really an excuse, but back in the dark ages, the Notes GUI first shipped on OS/2 1.x, so many of it's interface conventions are non-standard because they pre-date virtually every standard (an example is that right double-click = close window). Furthermore, many Notes applications just have uglyness designed in. Notes developers (including Lotus) tend to do things like put Purple text on a yellow background and use the least readable font they can find. But, I guess if they had any design sense, they'd be doing web stuff.
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      Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
  2. Re:I think I know why by IntlHarvester · · Score: 2


    Not total bunk, just mostly bunk. R5 has built-in support for java applets that have the functionality of Notes views or folders. There's also a java rich text editor. (Almost all of the other features can translate pretty much into HTML and JavaScript.)

    They've also beefed up the Java-based Administrator program so that you can do more admining from a web browser.
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    Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
  3. Re:Lotus Notes and SmartSuite Just Say NO by pstorry · · Score: 2
    "Would Notes be a good thing if it was written right?"
    It's written fairly well considering the scale of the product. And unlike some other companies, Lotus is commiteed to putting out fixes as quickly as possibly - with maintenance updates and quaterly maintenance releases to ensure that bugs hang around for as little as possible - and all that from a product that runs on multiple platforms.
    "What does it really do that email, news and an address book can't? Hey! Don't we have all those already?"
    Groupware. Which is a little more than email, news and an address book.
    • It allows workflow, so that documents you create can be routed to the correct people for approval.
    • It allows indexing of all those documents, so that you can find the one you wanted by a quick and easy search.
    • It allows security on the documents created, which is very important in a business environment.
    • And probably most importantly, it allows all of these features to be replicated around multiple servers, in a fast and efficient manner.
    I think that Domino using Linux as a server platform is probably a good thing, but it remains to be seen how many companies will take up the option - after all, they can also run Domino on AIX, Solaris, HP-UX, Windows NT (Intel and Alpha), OS/2, OS/390 and OS/400. So we in the Domino world already have a good choice of platforms anyway.