Many organizations have quit trying to standardize on an email client. They believe Microsoft has won the battle by offering Outlook free. Now, along comes Lotus Notes R5, the client companion to Domino R5. Should you reconsider email client standardization? Well, consider the advantages and disadvantages.

Any software standard must be strong enough to get the job done but flexible enough to do the job right. Email is no exception. A standard for email clients must meet most users’ needs but should also perform other functions to leverage the organization’s investment. Notes has always had integration features, but until R5, they were difficult to use and implement. That’s the major disadvantage of standardization: It often lowers the usability of a tool to its most unworkable, hardest-to-use denominator. In the past, the lowest common denominator for email was the Notes 4.6 client. It had functionality but not usability.

Notes 4.6 was as unique as it was clumsy to use. It provided a workspace interface with multiple icons for email, address book, free time, and Help databases, but the calendar function—which was built into the email database, making it difficult to locate—was unintuitive, and casual users found it so graceless that they preferred to miss appointments rather than try to make it work. Likewise, the integrated personal Web browser was a curious but useless feature: It tended to crash and bring the client software to its knees. And the bizarre Portfolio database purported to make all the other icons more “user friendly,” but this “database of databases” seemed more like a magic trick performed with sideshow mirrors: It tended to confuse the novice without offering any benefits.

These “integrated features” in 4.6 gave Notes a well-deserved reputation as powerful and interesting but not too useful. Why was 4.6 so difficult to use? Generally, it was a mix-master vestige of a Domino architecture that still considered messaging a medium for Notes database interaction. This distorted worldview made it difficult for most casual email users to accept Notes. Users would mess around with the email client just long enough to get totally frustrated before they’d move back to Outlook or Netscape Communicator. Alas, 4.6 seemed destined to remain kludgy and overly complex, and many shops were relieved when Domino allowed access to Notes databases through an

Internet browser. At least then, they commiserated, they wouldn’t have to support the Notes 4.6 client.

However, Notes R5 takes a different approach to the user interface and the email function. R5 actually aligns the user interface to user expectations! Email is simply email. Gone are the weird brackets where users enter text into the body of the message. With R5, users can create memos that look like memos!

Additional features for communicating within the R5 client follow a basic paradigm. Want to send email? Click the email icon! Want to look at the calendar? Click the calendar icon! Want to see the databases? Click the databases folder! From this simple interface, other features such as Web pages, shortcuts, and Notes views and links can be easily added. Everything is laid out in a logical and customizable fashion. Calendar and address book access is straightforward and nicely integrated. Even integration with the selected Web browser is a clean fit. This interface allows the user to have one integrated client that pulls the messaging desktop together—finally.

More importantly, users who need only Internet email can use the Notes client without having a full-blown Domino configuration set up. In fact, users don’t need a connection to a Domino server just to access Post Office Protocol (POP3) or Internet Mail Access Protocol (IMAP) mail or to send Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) mail through an ISP. A user doesn’t even have to be connected to the ISP to create mail. R5 allows mail to be created and stored in an Outbox for delivery when an ISP connection has been consummated.

Because R5 installs over a previous Notes release and built-in filters allow conversion from Outlook, Netscape, and Eudora clients, rollout should be relatively simple. Configuration beyond the basics, however, can still get tricky if the installer is unfamiliar with Notes installation, so it’s best to keep configurations simple at first and tweak them as requirements become more complex.

Of course, one benefit to standardizing around Notes/Domino is corporate calendaring, the function that originally sold IBM’s Office Vision/400 to corporations long ago. When IBM customers grouse about losing OV/400, one of their concerns is the loss of this critical workplace coordinator. With R5, calendars look like calendars. Furthermore, you can actually print them! Calendaring and access to UDB should be primary reasons for standardizing around R5, and R5’s integration package is hard to beat.

But what about AS/400 users? How about hooks to Operations Navigator or terminal emulation integration? Of course, the browser can provide these functions, but an icon that puts these tools into the desktop would be nice. Maybe some enterprising company will bring these integration pieces to the Notes client soon.

Is standardizing email around the Notes R5 client a good idea? If you’re looking for a good email platform that integrates most of your users’ email and Internet needs, it’s worth the look. No, the Notes client isn’t free. Yes, it comes with a hefty disk drive requirement. No, it doesn’t look exactly like Microsoft Exchange. Yes, it’s an easy implementation for your users. No, it doesn’t require a Domino connection. Yes, the client is very stable. No, you will not have to be a Notes administrator to get it working. Yes, your users might actually learn to love it.