IBM brings Lotus Notes to iPhone users

The newest version of Lotus Notes and Domino will push e-mail, contacts and calendar items to iPhone users. It will also includes some other updates to functionality. But the main new feature is the addition of Microsoft's ActiveSync protocol in Lotus Notes Traveler, the software that supports replication of Notes e-mail, calendars and contacts to smartphones.

IPhone users can check their Notes e-mail through an optimized Web site. However, they must refresh to get new messages. Early last year, Apple licensed ActiveSync so that businesses could push their corporate Exchange e-mail messages to iPhones. Since the ActiveSync client is already embedded in the iPhone, adding ActiveSync to the Traveler product was a good way to enable push Notes e-mail to the iPhone, he said.

IBM launched the new version of Notes and Domino for 600 beta users. The full commercial release is scheduled for the second half of the year.

Users of other kinds of phones can already get Notes e-mail pushed to their phones. With the SyncML standard, Notes pushes e-mail to Windows Mobile and some Symbian devices.
Businesses can also push Notes e-mail to the iPhone using third-party products. Sybase iAnywhere, for example, supports push Notes e-mail on the iPhone through its Information Anywhere Suite. That offering launched in March and only supports e-mail, not calendar or contacts sync.

Earlier this year, IBM said it planned to support ActiveSync in order to push data to iPhones, but it didn't say when.

As we reported and our previous articles in the beginning of this year IBM reported 4% growth in licensing of Notes and Domino in 2008 that foot up to 145 million Notes licensees comparing to 140 million licensees IBM reported last year. Spokesman of "Big Blue" claimed that IBM won as much as 12,000 customers and many of them former users of MS Outlook and Exchange. The list of new customers includes: Southern California Edison, Nationwide, Global Hyatt Corp., CEMEX, 3M, State Bank of India, The Hartford, Banco do Brazil, and The Coca-Cola Company.

Notes from the author:

Mirasoft Group has been selected as offshore supplier of IT services to IBM.

Mirasoft Group is a Ukrainian provider of software outsourcing services with development centers in Kiev and Vinnitsa (Ukraine) has been selected as offshore supplier of IT services to IBM. The company provides software engineering services using IBM technologies for more than 7 years and runs Lotus Notes and Domino development center with highly-qualified team of certified specialists on staff.

During last year most of IBM specialists have been certified as IBM Certified Application Developer thereby confirming the company’s commitment to provide customers with high quality and service in software development using latest IBM technologies.

The Vinnitsa high-qualified team has a profound experience in Lotus Notes/Domino development and successfully completed various software projects belonging to different vertical industries.


For more information about our IBM Lotus Notes/Domino experience please contact:
Email: sergey.lesnikov@mirasoft-group.com
Tel: +38044 492 99 62