Lotus Previews Next Notes Release

Lotus Business Partners will be able to download the first prerelease beta of the next Notes release, dubbed Rnext, as early as this week.

At last week's Lotusphere, teaser demonstrations of the software spotlighted its increased multitasking ability, more drag-and-drop capability and a feature for resending e-mail without automatically copying large file attachments each time.

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Bringing solution providers into the beta process will enable them to impact the development process earlier, Lotus executives say.

"We want our Business Partners to be partners with us in the test phase," says Donald Harbison, general manager of worldwide Domino product marketing at Lotus.

Lotus CEO Al Zollar last week refused to commit to even an estimated ship date for the Notes upgrade, beyond saying the software would be available "later this year."

Lorne Schwartz, president and CEO of Acceleron, a Notes solution provider in Saint-Laurent, Quebec, says he is comfortable with the release progress, given the upgrade plans of his customers. "But I can see where some people might be frustrated," he says.

"I think some of our customers are going to be on [Notes] R5, [the current release], for the next two to three years," Schwartz says. "Whether they announce [Rnext] in six months or not won't impact our customers."