“Reviving an old feud with Microsoft’s Windows, IBM is launching Linux and Macintosh versions of its most popular software — and vowing to help other software makers do the same,” Ken Spencer Brown reports for Investor’s Business Daily.
Brown reports, “Following up on last month’s release of Linux and Mac versions of its Lotus Notes calendar program, IBM this week plans to release compatible versions of Sametime, its instant-messaging software.”
Brown reports, “The new programs — developed on an open-source platform called Eclipse — is part of a bigger strategy to cash in on the growth of Linux and other open-source software… The Eclipse Rich-Client Platform lets software makers easily create programs that run equally well on Microsoft Windows, Linux and Apple Computer (AAPL) Macintoshes. IBM created Eclipse and remains a big supporter of the Eclipse Foundation, a trade group that promotes it.”
“Eclipse isn’t the only approach to multiplatform software development. Trolltech, best known for its Linux mobile phone software, also sells a platform called Qt,” Brown reports. “Google used Qt to create the Mac version of its Earth 3-D mapping software.”
Full article here.
Ummm, there is also REALbasic professional for compiling Classic, MacOS X, Win32 and Linux from the one code base. Too easy…
Im freelance so have done the rounds of many a company, i can confirm without doubt that Lotus Notes is most appalling application every written, full of cryptic menus, preference screens and wholly unnecessary features, buggy as hell and generally incompatible with human kind.
Its an easy 2nd on my list for refusing to go somewhere, (Windows is 1st obviously).
Unfortuantly its massive in IT bloat companies so Itll need to be still made for some time.
Okay so about Lotus…
1. The “suite” you are referring to is Lotus Smartsuite, which is basically Lotus’s rival to M$ Office. It doesn’t include or have anything to do with Lotus Notes/Domino.
2. While many of you may have had a bad run-in with Lotus Notes, please don’t generalize the software based on your experience alone. Lotus Notes is great for Rapid Application Development – making it really easy for people with limited skill to put together and deploy apps. That being said, a bad developer can put out a pretty heinous application in Notes. Also, you probably weren’t using the lates Lotus Notes version and if so, I could understand your displeasure. I can assure you that the latest Notes interface is quite nice and fairly intuitive. What they’ve got coming in their upcoming release is absolutely fantastic. It will incorporate ODF support which will pretty much eliminate the need for M$ Office. Also, note that Lotus Notes/Domino is an all-in-one solution – messaging, application server and web server. It’s security model is extremely robust and quite the standard in secure enterprise. You can actually read up on it http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/lotus/products/notesdomino/.
3. There are well over 115 million Lotus Notes seats world wide. Having full Lotus Notes support for our beloved Mac platform goes a really long way towards legitimizing Mac in enterprise.
4. Please remember that Lotus also makes several other great products such as QuickPlace and SameTime. QuickPlace is a web-based collaboration solution that brings groups of people together in a secure workplace where they can share all kinds of data. Sound familiar? Yeah, it’s like .Mac Groups times 20…and it’s been around for quite some time now. SameTime? That would be the industry leader in enterprise IM. It’s actually the pioneer of enterprise IM and it’s seamlessly integrated into Lotus Notes. All of this IM integration you see in Mail.app and addressbook? Been there for quite some time in Lotus Notes. Lotus is optimizing both of these applications for Mac this year and this is huge. I know alot of companies that stayed away from Mac because Safari wasn’t compatible with Lotus web offerings. I spoke with an Apple engineer at FOSE last year and was told that they’ve worked closely with IBM to ensure that Safari is compatible with all of their Lotus offerings.
5. If you truly can’t stand Microsoft then you really need to better understand Lotus software because Lotus Notes/Domino is pretty much Microsoft’s main competitor in enterprise groupware and messaging. All of these years and Redmond has yet to come close to duplicating what Lotus has in Notes/Domino. Lotus commands quite a loyal and fanatical following among it’s supporters and has done so since it began waaaay back in the mid 80’s….writing business apps for the Macintosh.