IBM LotusLive Notes and Apps

08/10/2010 03:31 PM by Chris Toohey

Sitting through the blogger IBM debriefing for LotusLive Notes, I couldn't help but listening to the call with my developer ears on.

IBM creating a SaaS messaging solution based on IBM Lotus Notes Domino certainly addresses an SMB market requirements, and the hybrid approach that allows growing organizations to evolve their business based on it's needs.

Need to quickly ramp-up a new Domino server in the cloud that's a part of your existing infrastructure? LotusLive Notes (or LLN) is a great solution, especially for the price.

LotusLive Notes is an offering that's meant to -- from what I gathered -- compliment your existing Lotus Notes Domino solution, or allow a 25+ new Lotus Notes Domino customer to quickly ramp-up a no-fuss Domino solution, and get your teams using the messaging, calendaring, and task management capabilities of the standard Domino mail template.

...but again, I couldn't help but listen with my developer ears, and specifically my platform developer ears.

As a result, there was a big take-away for me:

While the offering entitlements give you CAL access to the Lotus Notes Client, the Lotus Notes Client is to be used for messaging only.

This means that LotusLive Notes - while addressing a true mail need for SMB customers (or new Notes customers) - does not currently leverage the true value of the Lotus Notes product: it's use as a collaborative application platform.

... but does it need to?

I see this solution addressing very specific business and architecture needs from delivering secure webmail to running a load-handling SMTP server.

With it's 25 seat minimum pricing, it's not a solution for brand new small businesses... but that's today.

Ed, who was leading the call, mentioned a plan to offer Lotus Traveler as early as October of 2010, and many of the questions that were brought up during the debriefing were answered with an encouraging "we're still working on it".

The 1000 starting seat requirement had already been lowered to 25, so perhaps with time we'll get to the point where not only single-user new customers cannot only get LNL for messaging, but use a fully-licensed Lotus Notes Client for collaborative and user-friendly consumer apps as well.