Lotus Domino delivering to iPhone in 2008?

Stephen Withers
Monday, 11 August 2008 09:57

Your IT - Mobility

IBM has revealed plans to release the predictably named Lotus iNotes software for Apple's iPhone by the end of the year, making Domino email, calendars and contacts accessible to iPhone users. While the software is "planned" for 2008, it sounds like there could be some iSlippage into 2009.

Lotus Notes is IBM's pioneering groupware application handling email, calendars, contacts and custom applications, and is used in concert with Lotus Domino servers - and now IBM wants to bring it to the iPhone.

Even though the growing functionality of Microsoft's Exchange and Outlook has led to some erosion of the Notes/Domino user base, it is still a force to be reckoned with.

Unless you've been living under a rock, you probably know that the iPhone has built-in email, calendar and contacts applications, and since the arrival of the 2.0 software can even synchronise with Exchange servers as well as the mail component of Apple's own MobileMe service, which had a rocky debut.

But IBM sees an opportunity to extend the Lotus Notes business and take advantage of the iPhone's undeniable popularity - and implementing the link as a web app may offset some of the security concerns with the iPhone that have been expressed by some analysts.

What's iNotes going to look like? A series of screenshots showing various features and functions of iNotes is available on IBM's web site, and it appears that the software will instead rely on Lotus Mobile Connect to provide a VPN connection back to the corporate server.

What sort of features does IBM have planned for iNotes? Find out on page two.