Even though Notes/Domino 7.0 isn’t due for the next few months, IBM/Lotus has uncharacteristically put in motion its next significant platform overhaul that will fully merge the traditional Notes client with new Java-based technology.
The intent is to give users a single client that can access messaging features, Notes applications and non-Notes applications running on IBM’s middleware.
Last month, the company showed off that client, code-named Hannover, which is slated to go into beta early next year.
The client, once tagged with the name Notes 8.0, is the culmination of two years of work to integrate the Notes client with IBM’s Java-based Workplace Client Technology (WCT), a “rich client” framework that includes a small database, a run-time environment and a synchronization technology that supports clients and middleware servers sharing application processing chores.
Hannover will not only expand traditional messaging centric concepts such as the in-box, calendaring and scheduling, but also will be but one component running inside the WCT framework supporting both traditional Notes applications, new era composite applications and combinations of both.
“Hannover is not an incremental upgrade of Notes,” says Ken Bisconti, vice president of Workplace, portal and collaboration for IBM/Lotus. “This is a considerably accelerated investment in Notes. We now see how we will technically implement, in the future for Lotus Notes users, the potential value of the Workplace Client Technology and other recent innovations.”
Transitional moment
For Notes/Domino users, Hannover represents the start of what will be a transition to IBM’s WCT as a front end for either Domino or Workplace, a Java 2 Platform Enterprise Edition (J2EE)-based component platform that marries the rich client with WebSphere application server, Workplace components such as Workplace Messaging, and the DB2 database.
The middleware backbone is what companies can use to deploy Web services and build service-oriented architectures.
“Whether you want it or not, you are getting Workplace Client Technology,” says Matt Cain, an analyst with Gartner. “There is nothing forcing you to use WCT components if you are just going to run it against a Domino back end.” Cain says users with Workplace or J2EE servers on the back end will have multiple options for using Hannover.
“Clearly with Hannover, what we see is IBM on the front end blending in its Workplace Client Technology and therefore kick-starting longer term migrations to Workplace services on the back end,” Cain says.
Cain says in the short term the question is how much of the new Hannover feature set will be available to those running only Domino.
“At this point that is an unknown. If it takes the addition of a Workplace server on the back end to expose new feature sets in the Notes client component of Hannover then obviously that is a more substantial undertaking for Domino shops because it essentially forces them into Workplace,” he says.
IBM/Lotus says Hannover has plenty for Notes users, including the new “activity-centric computing,” which is the process of organizing data from various sources around specific tasks, such as a sales project, as opposed to searching for that data within various silos such as calendars, in-boxes or discussion threads.
Final manifestation
It is IBM/Lotus’ final manifestation of what it and rival Microsoft refer to as “contextual collaboration,” which allows users to stay in one interface while accessing multiple application services.
IBM/Lotus is focusing those innovations in four distinct areas: improvements in e-mail calendar and the addition of presence technology to contact management; introduction of activity-centric computing; extending the application qualities of the Notes platform to support composite applications based on open standards; and delivering it all in a managed environment that companies can tailor to suit their business.
The activity-centric computing is perhaps the biggest change. It allows users to organize data from multiple sources into a single project or activity. For example, a user could collect e-mail threads, chat logs, documents and online workspace data into an activity and invite users to share that information or subsets of that information. An “Activity” tab within the client allows users to look at those activities in a single pane.
There might be that value, but according to experts it is no coincidence that the introduction of Hannover and its proposed ship date, in late 2006 or early 2007, coincides with Microsoft’s planned release of Office 12 and Longhorn client, which is a cornerstone for real-time collaboration services, component-based application delivery and support for contextual collaboration.
“Microsoft is continuing a strategy of putting more client interfaces in front of their end users,” Bisconti says. “We don’t think this is the method of achieving productivity gains and improving the way people work.”
So while Hannover represents a major investment for IBM/Lotus to update and upgrade its Notes client, it also signals a new round in its battle with Microsoft, one which started over messaging servers but now includes the fight to provide a powerful client to support service-oriented computing environments.
“The way we look at the world of trying to improve information work is that it starts with the people. We start where they work and with the way that they work,” says Dan Leach, group product manager for Office. “It’s the ability to use whatever client you use and have a rich capability to tie into back-end services. We are confident going into this next round. It’s an opportunity for us to talk to Lotus customers.”
