Lotus Notes and Domino 8 show new life

One important capability is optional, yet very relevant to collaboration. Enterprises may add the Activities component of Lotus Connections as a sidebar. Put simply, this lets team members create a shared space for working with e-mail, IM discussions, and documents related to a project -- without involving IT administrators.

The work administrators perform should be less time-consuming. For example, it's easy to provision sidebar plug-ins and other client features (such as mail settings) from a Lotus Domino 8 server.

Lotus Notes and Domino 8 aren't written in Eclipse (rather C++). But elsewhere, Eclipse open standards abound, from Web 2.0 plug-ins to working with documents created with Microsoft Office and Open Office. Upgrading from Notes 6 to 7 wasn't a "must do" for many customers. Lotus Notes and Domino 8 are more compelling. The new release not only freshens up the platform with modern Web 2.0 features, but also represents a substantial shift in approach -- toward a modern services-oriented architecture. The time is right for the move.

BOTTOM LINE: IBM Lotus Notes and Domino 8

Company: IBM, http://www.ibm.com/lotus/nd8

Ship Date: Available now

Cost: Starts at US$101 per client; Web Access is US$73 per user; Domino server starts at US$14.75 per value unit (IBM's method of describing the number of processors and cores)

Bottom Line: IBM Lotus has delivered a significant upgrade that existing customers will embrace. Compared with competitors (such as Microsoft's unified communications and collaboration platform), Lotus Notes and Domino 8 appear less complicated for IT staff to manage and develop solutions around, providing opportunities for server consolidation while integrating various collaboration capabilities in a rich Web 2.0-style client. Notes and Domino 8 also provide important multi-platform support.