Oh the joys of travelling by train in the UK – this news came out about 90 minutes ago, and by the time I had the network connection to blog it, Ed is already there with all the details!
Here’s the announcement letter:
IBM LotusLive Notes 1.3 enhancements:
- Option to purchase cloud-based services for BlackBerry mobile device users
- Support for additional platform — Android OS — for users of the optional Traveler for LotusLive Notes service
- Additional mail management controls
- Advances in user experience
IBM LotusLive Notes 1.3 is a full-featured, cloud-based email service. Subscribing to the LotusLive Notes service means that IBM sets up, operates, and maintains your organization’s Lotus Domino-based mailboxes via a LotusLive server farm operated within the cloud. LotusLive Notes offers users the benefits of the Lotus Domino mail server architecture and security without the mail server maintenance overhead.
With this update of LotusLive Notes, you get the addition of a fully hosted service offering for BlackBerry Enterprise Server, both with and without optional Mobile Data Services from Research In Motion (RIM).
Additional enhancements:
- Traveler for LotusLive Notes subscription supports Android operating system, expanding the mobile needs of virtually anyone.
- Additional Mail Manager controls are available as part of the web-based LotusLive Notes Administration experience (including automatic management of content older than “n” days and administrator-controlled User Exclude lists).
- Support for limiting the size of inbound file attachments for email messages (administrator controlled at the user or group level).
- User experience modifications in the area of calendaring and scheduling to further improve visual parity with the Notes client when working in LotusLive Notes via a standard web browser (including full support for alarm preferences plus font, background, and color updates).
- The ability to import contacts within LotusLive Notes web in any supported language.
- Support for purchasing subscriptions to the LotusLive Notes service.
And Ed adds some context:
This morning we released a service update to LotusLive Notes, as announced here. This is the third release of LotusLive Notes in six months, an impressive demonstration of IBM’s ability to deliver in the software as a service market.
Today’s service update is notable mainly for the improvements to mobile access for LotusLive Notes. A new service, IBM LotusLive Notes Hosted Blackberry, offers a fixed-price, pay as you go full BES capability listing at US$10/user/month. LotusLive Notes Traveler has been extended and now offers Android device support on top of existing iOS and other devices. Some service improvements have been added from both the administration/management point of view and also some usability enhancements in LotusLive Notes web.
We highlighted LotusLive Notes customers at Lotusphere including Panasonic and General Motors Component Holdings. Another wave of customers has been onboarding in the last few weeks. My team is busy planning the fourth release already, with plans for that and a fifth release still on tap for 2011. If you are looking for the best, most-integrated cloud collaboration solution, I encourage you to check out LotusLive Notes and LotusLive Engage and see what we’ve done — and will continue to do — to make the IBM collaboration stack stand up in a SaaS world with tons of value and at a cost-effective price.
As Ed says, this is further confirmation that IBM is serious about the LotusLive cloud portfolio and the delivery of additional value to subscribers. I’m very impressed at the rate of delivery right now. Good stuff, IBM.
