IBM Upgrades Lotus Notes for Mac

IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced last week an upgrade of Lotus Notes for the Macintosh platform that gives Mac users the same e-mail and collaboration functions already available to the Windows and Linux platforms.

Lotus Notes 7.0.2 provides Mac users, including those using Intel-based Macs as well as Power PCs, with instant messaging, presence awareness and Web 2.0 features.

The upgrade also provides an enhanced user interface that enables Mac users to group e-mails through a conversation thread, to view e-mails at-a-glance and to save work in progress without having to manually activate the save function.

"This upgrade gives a single infrastructure and provides a platform choice for our customers. Now all versions have the same capabilities," Heidi Votaw, senior product manager for IBM, told MacNewsWorld.

Chip Coordination

IBM always staggers its platform releases among its Macintsoh, Windows and Linux versions to allow adequate development cycles, according to Votaw. The last version of Lotus Notes for the Mac platform was version 6.5, which was released more than one year ago, she added.

"Every 12 to 18 months we release a platform-specific upgrade. We do Windows first. This time around we wanted to add more features to the Mac in Notes 7.0," she noted.

IBM took extra time in releasing version 7.0.2 because it was working with Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) to make sure that the Mac release supported what Apple was going to include with its new hardware that runs on the Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) architecture, Votaw explained.

Pricing for the Mac upgrade will follow existing per seat schedules, she said. Lotus Notes software starts at US$101 per seat.

New Features

The new Mac version includes an auto save preference and displays new messages in a shaded blue view. The new user interface makes it easy to assign features to other modules that integrate with Lotus Notes.

The new version lets users view messages in a threaded hierarchy. This lets users set the display to focus on specific topics, Votaw contended.

Additions to the Calendar include a feature called Presence Awareness. This allows Mac users to communicate in real time across the enterprise from within the Notes e-mail, calendar and contacts.

"We are seeing a blurring of the lines between e-mail and chatting," Votaw said, adding that customer feedback has been very positive for this new capability.

Another enhancement lets users right click from any calendar entry to open a chat module of those listed in appointments.

Calendar filtering lets users show specific information rather than everything in the calendar. It also lets them search using key items to quickly locate calendar items, Votaw noted.

"We also added the ability to import from Web-based calendars and enabled users to create templates for bloqqing offline and then upload them," she concluded.

Mac users can now mark specific information in the Domino database to be exposed to RSS readers for easier distribution of that information as well.