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RE: Lotus Domino at the end of life ~Anita Asafreezenoopsi 23.Jul.03 05:33 PM a Web browser Notes Client All ReleasesAll Platforms
Two recurring themes in these forums over many years have been "Is Notes dead?" and "Why can't we have a Linux/Unix client?"
The Linux client issue has been answered many times here, and a search of the forum will turn up several good explanations from Iris/Lotus people. It comes down to the huge cost of developing (and more particularly maintaining) an active client code stream for Linux, versus the small commercial benefit in having a native client.
Now, and for the last five years, that equation has had a better solution by adding together the work developers put in to getting good Linux browsers and the work Lotus/Iris puts in to extend as much functionality as possible to the browser.
Don't hold your breath for a Linux Notes client. In fact, get used to not having one.
So what about the death of Notes? It's been touted since at least 1995, with the killer app named as everything from Exchange, to the Web, to Groupwise and Groove (yes, really).
It may happen. People mourn Lotus 1-2-3 and Netware, both innovative products with good technology that were killed by a combination of slow adaptation and market perception. But unless the installed OS base changes, Notes is more likely to be killed by the latest Outlook gizmo, or by the ubiquity of browsers, or by poor marketing than by the lack of a Linux client.
If you want to buy a cross-platform solution for mail and collaboration, there's only one choice right now. If Microsoft's desktop licensing stranglehold ever gets to the point where substantial numbers of desktops are running Linux, I'd expect IBM to be looking very hard at the idea of a Notes client for Linux.
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. . RE: Lotus Domino at the end of life... (~Anita Asafreez... 23.Jul.03)
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