Triple Play From Lotus

Lotus hasn't announced ship dates but said it plans to unveil details about the new products on Oct. 1.

Lotus executives declined to comment.

Sametime 3.0, Lotus' secure instant-messaging product, will enable users to participate in multiple communities more easily, such as via integration with AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), said one solution provider, who requested anonymity.

Sametime 3.0 essentially logs users into AIM and Sametime simultaneously, and users can turn off the instant logins at their discretion, according to Lotus documents. Other key features include the ability to capture and transmit video from a 360-degree camera for online meetings, updated alerting capabilities and the ability to blast fast announcements to one or more users.

"We use Sametime all the time. We're spread apart, so it saves money on travel. And we use it with our customers as well," said Andy Sweet, CTO of Perficient, an Austin, Texas-based integrator. Video capability and simultaneous login for AIM and Sametime would be good perks, Sweet added. "We've done some mergers, and not everyone has seen each other yet. So that would be helpful," he said.

QuickPlace 3.0, which lets users set up secure online workspaces, adds new Web caching technology to improve page-rendering performance, according to IBM documents. Also, a new "My Places" feature lists all of a user's workspaces across multiple servers, and an enhanced search function will work across those workspaces. The current version would search only the active workspace or a particular folder.

The long-awaited Domino 6 messaging product stands to bring server-side spam control plus integrated support for mobile devices, Lotus partners said. But still unclear is how Lotus will package and price J2EE support within Domino.

Last January, Lotus pulled internal code and said it would furnish J2EE support from IBM WebSphere, without specifying how that would be handled.