Slash LaneMicrosoft rivals Apple Inc. and IBM Corp. will soon announce a partnership that will deliver a handful of IBM's Lotus software packages for Apple's handheld and Mac products, the Associated Press is reporting.
The software, which requires use of IBM's Domino e-mail server program, will be free for users who already have a Lotus Web-access license and start at $39 per year for new users, the AP claims.
In addition, IBM also plans to release Lotus Notes and the free Lotus Symphony "productivity" package - which includes documents, spreadsheets and other Microsoft Office-like software - for Apple's Mac computer line.
The move is reported to be part of a broader push on the part of IBM to find more avenues for its software and take advantage of Apple's natural affinity for Microsoft alternatives.
The AP speculates that if IBM, which counts 135 million Lotus users worldwide, can get companies to let their employees check Lotus e-mail on iPhones, the partnership could make Apple's gadget more competitive with Research in Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry and other business-targeted smart phones.
Though IBM and Apple have largely remained competitors in the PC market outside of Apple's previous use of IBM's PowerPC chips in its Mac lines, the two sides are now said to appreciate that they "have a lot in common."
"We're going to cross-pollinate," said IBM spokesman Mike Azzi.
IBM's Lotus Notes e-mail package for the iPhone and iPod touch will reportedly make use of Apple's upcoming iPhone software developers kit (SDK), which has presumably been seeded to IBM ahead of its formal release sometime next month.
Amber Neely
Christine McKee
Marko Zivkovic
Malcolm Owen
28 Comments
Like many, IBM has a history of making half-assed Mac software. Lotus? I can't remember anyone using Lotus in years. IBM had always been a bureaucracy and is now surviving on previous Patents. I'll be surprised if anything good, or bad, comes out of this.
Like many, IBM has a history of making half-assed Mac software. Lotus? I can't remember anyone using Lotus in years. IBM had always been a bureaucracy and is now surviving on previous Patents. I'll be surprised if anything good, or bad, comes out of this.
That's kinda what I thought but the 135 million Lotus users caught my attention.
Who knows? With the new MBA and this, it seems Apple is trying to get corporate business.
About bloody time. Apple needs to press whatever advantages they have right now to broaden acceptance of their hardware and iPhone into larger corporations. It's asinine they haven't been doing this.
IBM's Lotus products have been gaining market-share and I believe where the most profitable part of IBMs business during a recent quarter.
Microsoft has long trumpted the "Notes is dead" spin, but no-only does it have a healthy user-base running on Windows, Mac and Linux desktops, but is also getting alot wins from people running Domino (the Server software) on Unix and Linux boxes.
For along time, too-long, Notes looked ugly and was rightly bashed for its user-interface which looked circa 1999. But IBM recently launched Notes 8, the biggest update to the product ever.
Notes 8;-
+ has a completley redesigned user-interface with lots of eye-candy (well for those who've never used a Mac),
+ is now based-upon the open-source Eclipse platform which allows a large degree of o.s agnostic software-development,
+ allows easy integration with other Eclipse plug-ins, for example, it includes Symphony which is IBM's free version of OpenOffice ported to the Eclipse environment
+ etc, etc.
Would be good to find-out how much functionality will be included in the iPhone client, as they say "Exchange is a mail-server, Domino contains a mail-server".
PS: don't forget IBM sold its PC division so it no-longer competes with Apple in that area.
Having worked with Lotus software for a long time, I'm skeptical of IBM's dedication to the platform. I agree with one of the other posters here; IBM is a bureaucracy and this bureaucratic culture that comes from the top ends up spilling over to the different divisions including the Software Group. Their latest foray into the Notes Client is Eclipse-based which adds an additional layer of code execution on the platform. Sure, Eclipse (an IBM brainchild) makes their code more portable but also makes it larger. In terms of software for the iPhone, I hope Apple keeps a tight reign on the SDK in the hands of IBM. It's likely they will make design decisions that are financially favorable to IBM that sometimes sacrifice the quality and elegance of the Macintosh platform.