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Could the 8th time be the charm?

Everyone will soon find out now that IBM is shipping Lotus Notes and Domino 8 to a mob of enterprise customers clamoring for more functionality, custom applications, Web 2.0 features like mash-ups and, most important, a snazzier and more intuitive user interface.

While Notes and Domino 8 deliver all that, what really separates this version from the previous seven is Lotus Expeditor, an application development platform that gives users and independent software vendors (ISV) free reign to build, manage and deliver all kinds of applications from their Notes dashboard.

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Bringing this level of flexibility and functionality to the Notes environment marks a dramatic shift for IBM's flagship e-mail software and could be the first step toward transitioning longtime Notes/Domino customers to its more lucrative WebSphere Portal Server and software.

"Over a very long period of time, IBM will encourage their Domino customers to invest in the WebSphere portal server to maximize their Domino infrastructure," Matt Cain, an analyst at Gartner, told InternetNews.com. "They'll have Expeditor and the portal server working with Domino in a transitory strategy where companies can preserve their investments in Domino and then carry them over into the Expeditor/Portal Server world."

Lotus Notes 8 encapsulates all the code that is Lotus Notes within the Eclipse RCP (Rich Client Platform), providing a template-drive design on an open-source, Java-based platform. The open, plug-in-based architecture allows users to access a variety of applications, including, for example, Cisco System's suite of Internet telephony applications, from the Notes client.

The development model for Lotus Notes 8 mash-ups, which IBM calls composite applications, parallels IBM's WebSphere Portal applications. Instead of using a Web browser to connect to the WebSphere Portal, the Lotus Notes 8 client allows users to build these mash-ups and support the interactions between multiple applications on a standalone basis.

"Notes and Domino 8 does have more functionality and better management features," Cain said. "But that's pretty hum-drum stuff. However, combining the Notes client with the Expeditor client is the real news and is absolutely the right move for IBM right now."

IBM said more than 30,000 business customers served as guinea pigs and sounding boards for this version, providing the feedback it hopes to use in its quest to regain market share from Microsoft's formidable Outlook and Exchange franchise.

Gartner estimates Microsoft's Outlook and Exchange software is used in approximately 62 percent of all corporate seats compared to just 26 percent for Notes and Domino.

The Notes 8 client.

This article first appeared on Internetnews.com.

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