Lotus Touts 'Extension' Of Notes In Workplace Client

As reported last week by CRN, the company unveiled the new "rich" client, to ship in the second quarter, which incorporates an embedded local database and promises to run existing Notes applications unmodified, according to Mike Rhodin, vice president of development for Lotus, Cambridge, Mass. (See story.)

Additionally, a new Workplace Builder promises to let non-programmers, including Notes administrators, build in access to backend applications with an easy point-and-click metaphor, the company said. The goal is to provide a converged interface to all important applications in one spot.

Building on the Notes heritage, the Workplace Builder promises to allow the administrator set roles-based access parameters for applications centrally. "Roles can be applied to an entire range of components, not just a single component or database," according to Doug Wilson, chief technology officer for Lotus, speaking at Lotusphere 2004 in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.

In stark contrast to Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference last fall, where the company talked about the still distant Longhorn product wave, Lotus highlighted offerings that are expected to ship in the second quarter. Executives barely mentioned Notes or Domino 8, both of which are on the company's road map but not due until after this year.

A bevy of Lotus execs, along with Patrick Stewart of Star Trek fame, kicked off the show Monday morning with a demonstration of the new technologies. Stewart even proclaimed the St. Crispin's Day speech from Shakespeare's Henry V, which some construed as a veiled reference to IBM Lotus taking on Microsoft, once again, on the desktop.

The biggest round of applause from the few thousand Lotus Domino/Notes customers and partners came when executives showed an existing Notes application running, ostensibly unmodified, within the upcoming Workplace client.

While a few analysts at the show said Lotus' commitment to the existing installed base of applications was welcome relief to partners who have been worried about potentially dead-ended technologies, some partners themselves were more skeptical, especially about IBM Software's and Lotus' renewed partner push.

Company executives have reiterated for the past year how important ISV and other partners are to the company, especially in small and midsize businesses, but several long-standing Lotus partners said that message has not trickled down to others within the huge company.

It's all well and good for IBM Software to say they're a better partner than Microsoft for ISVs, said one. "But before they go recruiting new ISV partners, they should take care of existing Lotus partners," said one East Coast solution provider. "Right now, if the partner message isn't in perfect lockstep with theirs, you're out of luck," he noted.

At a partner event on Sunday, the slide bullet item that got the hottest reaction indicated that IBM should listen more to their partner community than it has been, according to attendees of the meeting.

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