While IBM rarely makes major announcements during August, the company's Lotus division has made some interesting revelations over the last couple of weeks. Those revelations could have a significant impact on thousands of iSeries customers who are also Lotus users.
The news started to trickle out of Lotus back on August 13, when the vendor announced two Express editions of its Domino Enterprise Server Version 6.0. The first product, Domino Collaboration Server Express, offers all the features of Domino 6.0 and a choice of clients, including Lotus Notes and Domino Web Access. The offering has a Passport Advantage cost of $119 per user for new installations and $89.25 per user for customers who replace competitive products. These pricies are only good for a maximum of 1,000 users, a condition designed to limit Domino Collaboration Server Express to small and medium-size companies.
The second product, Domino Utility Server Express, provides all of the application development and deployment capabilities of Domino 6.0, but strips out the messaging and group calendaring functions. Lotus is offering this package at a cost of $5,000 for two CPUs or $10,000 for four CPUs, which is the maximum number that customers can purchase. By comparison, the enterprise version of Domino Utility Server costs $15,000 per CPU.
Besides announcing the Domino Express offerings, Lotus has also made an unofficial announcement about subcapacity pricing for some of its iSeries products. As you may know, subcapacity pricing allows customers to limit their per-CPU software charges to the processors on which the software runs rather than all of their processors. Currently, iSeries subcapacity pricing is only available on a limited number of WebSphere products. For months, however, the iSeries group has been trying to get other IBM software brands to offer subcapacity pricing. That effort has not born much fruit, as there is no iSeries facility that can monitor whether a software product is running on a subset of a system's processors.
Despite this fact, Lotus has agreed to offer subcapacity pricing on its Domino Server, Sametime (now Lotus Instant Messaging and Web Conferencing), and QuickPlace (now Lotus Team Workplace) products. As part of the agreement, however, Lotus will not publish official subcapacity prices for these products, but it will offer prices on a special bid basis to inquiring customers. It is not yet clear which versions of these products will carry subcapacity pricing, nor is it clear whether Lotus will limit such pricing to selected iSeries models or operating system release levels. I hope to obtain this information in the next week or two so that I can share it with all of you. In the meantime, customers can learn more about this offer through their Lotus territory managers. If you don't know who your territory manager is, ask your IBM or Lotus Business Partner to set up a meeting.
Domino 6.5 on the Horizon
While the Lotus team has been talking up new pricing options, they have also been pointing toward the future of their product lines. Last week, for instance, I learned from a Lotus source that both Notes and Domino 6.5 should become generally available in late January or early February of 2004. When they ship, Notes and Domino 6.5 will include significant improvements over Version 6.0. On the Notes client, the enhancements will include integrated instant messaging and improved junk mail management. Domino will gain support for Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and the ability to run in Linux partitions on IBM's zSeries mainframes.
At present, Lotus is offering a public beta version of Notes and Domino 6.5 known as Milestone 2 at its Web site. In three to four weeks, however, Lotus will likely offer a new beta version known as Notes and Domino 6.5.1. This is the release that will ship early next year, so you may want to wait for this beta version before you download and test the new release.
I have also learned that as part of the upcoming release, Lotus will enhance Domino Access for Microsoft Outlook, a product that provides access to Domino servers from Outlook mail clients. The product, which Lotus introduced with Domino 6.0.2 back in June, is the replacement product for iNotes Access for Microsoft Outlook. For the Domino 6.5.1 release, Lotus will make numerous enhancements to Domino Access for Microsoft Outlook. These include the ability to synchronize Outlook calendar data with Domino servers and to decrypt any Notes-encrypted emails sent via Notes clients.
In addition, Lotus is helping Microsoft enhance its own product for accessing Domino servers via Outlook: Microsoft Outlook 2002 Connector. While it may come as a surprise, Lotus and Microsoft cooperate closely on the development of this product, and Lotus intends to continue the relationship. Right now, Outlook 2002 Connector only supports Domino 5 servers and requires users to install the Notes client on their systems. According to Lotus, however, the next release will support Domino 6 and will not require the additional Notes client. Look for Microsoft to announce the new release late in the fourth quarter of this year.
With attractive pricing options and new releases on the way, Lotus is clearly stepping up its efforts to attract medium-size businesses and iSeries customers to its products. I expect to see more of these efforts from both Lotus and Microsoft over the coming months as they face growing competition from vendors of cheaper, open-source messaging solutions. I'll have more to say about that competition in future issues, so stay tuned.
Lee Kroon is a Senior Industry Analyst for Andrews Consulting Group, a firm that helps mid-sized companies manage business transformation through technology. You can reach him at
More than ever, there is a demand for IT to deliver innovation. Your IBM i has been an essential part of your business operations for years. However, your organization may struggle to maintain the current system and implement new projects. The thousands of customers we've worked with and surveyed state that expectations regarding the digital footprint and vision of the company are not aligned with the current IT environment.
TRY the one package that solves all your document design and printing challenges on all your platforms. Produce bar code labels, electronic forms, ad hoc reports, and RFID tags – without programming! MarkMagic is the only document design and print solution that combines report writing, WYSIWYG label and forms design, and conditional printing in one integrated product. Make sure your data survives when catastrophe hits. Request your trial now! Request Now.
Forms of ransomware has been around for over 30 years, and with more and more organizations suffering attacks each year, it continues to endure. What has made ransomware such a durable threat and what is the best way to combat it? In order to prevent ransomware, organizations must first understand how it works.
Disaster protection is vital to every business. Yet, it often consists of patched together procedures that are prone to error. From automatic backups to data encryption to media management, Robot automates the routine (yet often complex) tasks of iSeries backup and recovery, saving you time and money and making the process safer and more reliable. Automate your backups with the Robot Backup and Recovery Solution. Key features include:
Business users want new applications now. Market and regulatory pressures require faster application updates and delivery into production. Your IBM i developers may be approaching retirement, and you see no sure way to fill their positions with experienced developers. In addition, you may be caught between maintaining your existing applications and the uncertainty of moving to something new.
IT managers hoping to find new IBM i talent are discovering that the pool of experienced RPG programmers and operators or administrators with intimate knowledge of the operating system and the applications that run on it is small. This begs the question: How will you manage the platform that supports such a big part of your business? This guide offers strategies and software suggestions to help you plan IT staffing and resources and smooth the transition after your AS/400 talent retires. Read on to learn:
LATEST COMMENTS
MC Press Online