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January 27, 2004 | Comments: (0)

Lotus back on track

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I just had a meeting with IBM Lotus Software GM Ambuj Goyal here at the company's annual Lotusphere conference. Judging from the general tone at the show, my numerous roadmap briefings with IBM execs, and discussions with customers, it seems Lotus is back on track after scaring the bejesus out of its loyal customer base a couple years back. The J2EE and Big Blue abyss of the Lotus developer's nightmares aren't quite so scary. Or at least it seems that way.

At this conference, Lotus has drawn out a clear game plan, showed live code for some of what they plan to do, and are giving customers the tools to get there.

Workplace was introduced earlier this year, and the opening session here demonstrated the Workplace Client, and a technology preview of how traditional Notes applications can run unmodified within the J2EE-based Workplace environment.

"Customers who want to move forward in the network-based world with the web-based client and collaboration platform will not" be asked to rip and replace their Domino applications, Goyal said.

"I feel very comfortable and [ customers ] are starting to feel very comfortable, that we have a path for them and they don't have to move from Notes 6 or 6.5 to some realase of Workplace," Goyal said. "They can just go [eventually] to Notes 8.0 and they will have all the Workplace technologies with them."

"They can remain in Notes/Domino and they will get the Workplace technology," Goyal said.

Posted by Cathleen Moore on January 27, 2004 07:57 PM

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