Great to see the Lotus Notes & Domino 8.5 news hitting the big IT news sites. VNUnet leads the way:
IBM unveils Lotus Notes 8.5
Collaboration suite beefs up Mac support and cuts email storage requirements
IBM has released version 8.5 of its Lotus Notes/Domino collaboration software, bringing updated support for the Apple Mac platform and improvements to the way attachments are handled that should lead to welcome savings on storage requirements.
The new release includes enhancements to both client and server components. On the client side, IBM said that Mac OS X users will now get the same experience as Windows and Linux users, which is one reason why the 8.5 version is being announced to coincide with the Macworld 2009 show in San Francisco.
“As near as we can make it, the Mac version now has parity with other platforms,” said Darren Adams, IBM’s Messaging and Collaboration business unit leader for the UK & Ireland.
While earlier Notes releases were developed for the PC and then ported to the Mac, the move to the Eclipse platform has allowed IBM to develop components that can run cross-platform, Adams explained. The growing popularity of the Mac also drove development.
“A lot of organisations are now looking at the Mac, and it is growing in usage worldwide,” he said.
The article goes on to mention Symphony, DAOS, ID Vault and XPages, and our own Darren Adams does a great job of explaining the key details.
Lastly, just an aside – the Mac version of Notes 8.5 does not currently include the Symphony functionality, but I understand this will change sooner rather than later (effectively when Symphony for the Mac goes gold). Look out for more news on that in the next few days.