Lotusphere - The Krypton factor

Lotus has promised a Notes package with all the strengths of Superman, but has it got the power to deliver?

Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive,perman, but has it got the power to deliver? invulnerable to attacks of any kind. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it Superman? No, apparently it's Lotus. The IBM subsidiary has donned the Superman outfit for the launch of R5, the latest version of Notes and Domino. In its latest marketing drive, the company has taken to comparing its next software release to the all-American hero.

The new marketing initiative debuted at the company's annual user conference, Lotusphere, held last month in Orlando, Florida. The event gives Lotus a chance to flex its muscles and show off its powers. But at the end of the conference, did Lotus come out looking 'super' or just mild-mannered?

Unfortunately, the Superman analogy seemed to fall at the first hurdle when CEO Jeff Papows bounded on stage and announced that Release 5 wouldn't ship until at least February - two months later than expected. Faster than a speeding bullet, always in the nick of time?

The delays have been put down to problems with the user interface in the Notes client which is now highly web-enabled. "We need another two to three weeks of quality assurance and polishing, and you have my word we will ship the release in February," said Papows.

Another hiccup followed, in the same keynote, when Papows had to admit that he was wrong to say at last year's European Lotusphere in Berlin that Domino would not appear on Linux.

He revealed that the company would be shipping a version of Domino on the Linux platform. Papows said that the turnaround was due to user pressure and claimed that he had even been heckled on the way to the cinema by Linux-mad Lotus groupies. "At the time I thought: 'What does the world need another Unix variant for?' But I think I missed the point and I'm a big enough person to admit if I'm wrong."

Domino ready for Linux

Even less super was the declaration by Lotus chief technology officer, Nick Shelness, that at the time of Papows' Berlin statement the company had a fully-functioning version of Domino for Linux in its labs. He wouldn't give a definite shipping date, saying that it would be available soon.

Another source of controversy was the choice of technology for the browser element of the new 'webified' Notes interface. Until recently it looked like Netscape was on Lotus' hit-list after a deal to ship Communicator with Notes was called off. Lotus' argument was that Communicator has too many groupware functions that are in competition with Notes. Lotus tried to insist that Netscape just ship the browser portion of Communicator - Navigator - but Netscape refused and the deal collapsed. Lotus still has no plans to ship Communicator with Notes.

Adding insult to injury, after the Netscape deal folded in the middle of last year - Lotus went looking for another browser to weld onto Notes.

The problem was that Microsoft - Lotus' supposed sworn enemy in the groupware arena - was the only other option. But Lotus pragmatically forgot about the Exchange/Notes war and now Lotus 4.6 and R5 are bundled with IE. More importantly Lotus has agreed to support Microsoft's Component Object Model (COM) which allows for a more integrated environment among cross-platform tasks such as serving Microsoft Excel from a Domino-developed web page.

So for a while Lotus was out with Netscape but in with Microsoft. Then at Lotusphere, Lotus announced an exclusive deal with AOL - Netscape's new owner - where the ISP will provide content to the browser window newly incorporated into the Notes client. Users will be able to receive customised news and search the web using AOL's web search engine. Lotus was now indirectly allied to Netscape and Microsoft giving it the best of both worlds, or so it seemed.

Sleeping with the enemy

But at Lotusphere, Papows had decided that Microsoft was the enemy again. In a Microsoft-bashing monologue he claimed that Microsoft had stated in a press release on 14 December that Exchange had outshipped Notes, despite the fact that neither company had released figures. "They have once again declared victory for the fourth quarter and full year. Again, we have yet to report a single number and neither have they."

Jim Moffat, UK groupware marketing manager, denied that there were background deals and put Lotus' decision to bundle IE as purely technical. "You shouldn't try and infer politics from this. Sometimes things don't work out technically. You can still use Communicator with Notes but it won't launch with the Notes frame."

But Lotus' ability to swap sides between Netscape and Microsoft at will may evaporate in the future if it continues to develop the browser within Notes. At the moment users can access the internet through a navigation tool integrated into Notes, without leaving the program to surf. But where does this leave Lotus' relationship with the browser makers?

Moffat insisted that Lotus is not attempting to move into the browser marketplace. "The browser is not as good as Communicator or IE but it's as good as it needs to be for most web pages. I don't think it ever will be, because it's not our strength."

Despite this, the main theme to emerge from Lotusphere and the R5 announcement is that the line between groupware and browser technology is blurring. But whether or not the web-enabled Notes R5 will prove to be a success with businesses, or is just too complex, is hard to foresee - even with the help of Superman's X-ray vision.

RELEASE 5: FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH

What's new in Notes R5?

Bookmarks: Similar to browser bookmarks, they can link to company documents and forms as well as web pages.

Headlines: New start page that lets users create a personalised information page using information from intranets and the internet.

Windows tabs: Located along the top of the active Window, allowing users to manoeuvre around information in multiple windows.

Navigation bar: Provides forward, back, stop and refresh buttons, as well as instant access to new search capabilities and URL address bar.

What's new in Domino R5?

Increased scalability: Databases can hold up to 64GB and the LDAP directory supports more than one million users. Lotus claims that the number of Notes, IMAP4, POP3 and browser users supported by a single server will be up to six times greater than R4.6.

Integrated public key infrastructure: Support for X.509 certificates, S/MIME, CDSA and SSL. A Linux version is expected soon, but R5 doesn't support Novell's NetWare. Lotus claims the environment is 'hellish' for the new Domino. The decision is also probably due to a projected lack of demand.