Truly noteworthy

THERE'S AN OLD joke that claims the way to recognize a pioneer is by the arrows sticking out of his back. That's certainly been the fate of Lotus Development since IBM acquired it in 1995. Once a thriving titan of the software industry, Lotus is now barely recognizable, having been left for dead in every software market except the one it pioneered: the integrated collaboration environment, originally defined by the Lotus Notes client and the Domino server.

Today, one might argue that there is no such entity as Lotus -- it's just an IBM division playing dress-up. Certainly many longtime Domino and Notes customers felt that way after January's announcement that native support of JSP (JavaServer Pages) would not appear in the forthcoming versions of Domino 6 and Notes 6, despite the fact that hundreds, if not thousands, of developers had come to rely on that feature.

One doesn't have to be a cynic to recognize that IBM is pushing customers, willing or not, to its WebSphere package; but at the same time, it's hard to ignore that, to everyone outside the developer community, it makes no sense for IBM to split its Java development offerings.

But the groans of disappointed developers aren't likely to make a difference, as Version 6 of Domino and Notes remains on track for a third-quarter release. Our look at Pre-release 1 of the IBM/Lotus duo was impressive, but it still amazes us how far Notes has to go before it can catch up with the feature set of its chief competitor, Microsoft Outlook, to say nothing of simple e-mail programs.

Beyond Windows

To its credit, IBM/Lotus continues to offer a Macintosh version of the Notes client, putting it a step in front of Novell's competing GroupWise 6 and perhaps a nose ahead of Microsoft's on-again, off-again approach toward offering a Macintosh client for Exchange.

IBM's new-found love for open-source software is demonstrated by the decision to package a Linux version of Domino 6, although we wonder how far this commitment will go, because no Linux version of the Notes client will be forthcoming in this release.

Memo to Linux developers and evangelists: Linux won't become a corporate desktop without collaboration clients. There's already a Linux work-alike for Outlook (see " Open-source Outlook "), but we're still waiting -- as are customers -- for a similar substitute for Notes. Granted, there's no Linux client for GroupWise either, but at least Novell is publicly admitting its dependence on outside help in this department.

Notable improvement

The new Notes client offers a slick interface and a plethora of new features, including automatic refresh, the ability to color-code calendar entries and e-mail in one's inbox, and the use of the Trash folder as a "soft delete" for unwanted documents. Notes 6 will also allow multiple users to share a PC and maintain separate private message stores, linked to the local operating system's user ID.

But for some reason, the Notes client still does not allow a view of e-mail by subject. Date, name, and size sorts are still available, but the lack of a sort-by-subject option remains our primary complaint with Notes, and for good reason, because it seems that every other messaging and collaboration client offers this feature.