IBM adds Lotus Notes hosting service

IBM Tuesday unveiled a hosting service focused on Lotus Notes and said that it would ship in January mobile, Web access and other enhancements to Notes 8.

IBM’s Applications on Demand service for Lotus Notes will provides users with a hosted Domino infrastructure that can be accessed via a Notes client on the corporate desktop or via a Web browser using Domino Web Access.

Mike Rhodin, Lotus general manager, said at the Lotus Collaboration Summit in New York that the service would be priced between $5 and $10 per user per month.

The announcements came the same day that IBM unveiled the beta release of a suite of free productivity applications built on OpenOffice.org, a set of open-source applications.

The Applications on Demand Notes service is not a software-as-a-service model where a single copy of an application services could be used by many users, known as multi-tenant. The Notes hosting will create single infrastructures used by only a single company.

“There are some advantages [in the hosted model] including security and complete isolation of processes,” says Doug Heintzman, director of strategy for IBM collaboration technologies. “But the multi-tenant environment is a powerful one and it is another we are watching.”

IBM offers hosted applications under its Applications of Demand banner for Oracle, PeopleSoft, SAP, Siebel, and PTC Windchill data management.

In addition to the hosted offering, IBM also said it would ship in January the first maintenance upgrade to Notes 8, which shipped last month.

Notes 8.0.1 will include a new Domino Web Access client that has an Ajax interface and does not require any browser plug-ins or modifications. The interface mimics that of the Notes desktop client complete with slide out bars and dynamic calendars, according to IBM officials.

IBM also will introduce Notes Traveler, which will push out Notes e-mail to any Windows Mobile device. The add-on is being offered at no cost.

IBM is also adding Notes integration with external Web services that will provide hyperlinks inside Notes that when clicked would retrieve information from sources outside the corporate network.

The Notes e-mail interface is being updated with a quota meter, which shows users just how much of their storage quota they have consumed.

Also in January, IBM will release the 8.1 version of Quickr, its team collaboration software, that includes a connector for Notes 8 and Microsoft Outlook along with personal file sharing features and integration with third-party content management systems. Also new is Quickr Content Integrator, which can retrieve data from various IBM and third-party repositories.

IBM also has updated Lotus Forms 3.0,which adds support for XML and XForms.