Associated Press: IBM to add software for Apple devices

January 15 2008

Looks like the first of many pre-Lotusphere stories to hit the streets...

E-mail software from IBM Corp. will be available on Apple Inc. iPhones and iPod Touch devices under a new partnership that brings together two big rivals of Microsoft Corp.

IBM plans a formal announcement of the Lotus Notes e-mail package for Apple's portable devices at its Lotusphere conference in Orlando, Fla., next week. 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.

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 Macintosh computers.
Link: Associated Press: IBM to add software for Apple devices >

Ed Brill Highland Park, IL USA Category:  Lotus  Add/View Comments [37]

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  1. 1  David Gursky  | 1/15/2008 5:18:30 PM

    Woo hoo!

    At a prior employer, there was alot of excitement for the iPhone when it first arrived, both in the executive suite, and privately among the tech staff. But the thing didn't tie into Domino (let alone any other corporate email solution)

    This needs to be played to the HILT!

  1. 2  Gabriella Davis http://blog.turtleweb.com | 1/15/2008 5:41:59 PM

    That's all I can say. Now if we all turn up at the Mac BOF any chance of getting Designer and Admin for the Mac so I can throw away my Windows VM forever :-)

  1. 3  Ian White http://www.ianwhite.net | 1/15/2008 5:45:50 PM

    Now it gets interesting - 8.5 better be good 'cos you are going to get some serious attention of some frustrated business Execs now and...

    I can really justify the purchase of the iPod Touch next week

    ps

    Gab - chance would be a fine thing

  1. 4  Dan Sickles  | 1/15/2008 5:56:37 PM

    @1 - At a prior prior employer too ;-) More so in the tech staff. This is good news....a real RIM shot.

  1. 5  Rob Novak http://www.LotusRockStar.com | 1/15/2008 6:09:43 PM

    Excellent news...!

    Rob "Live from Macworld" Novak

  1. 6  Paul Mooney http://www.pmooney.net | 1/15/2008 6:10:09 PM

    Oh. My. God.

    I will refrain from bad language but let me just read between the lines here.

    Lotus Domino Traveller will include support for iPhone. This means mail/calandar and PIM. Over the air. Using the native iPhone interface and not some extra interface (ala workplace mobile products in the past).

    Ok... if this is the case, who do I hug in the labs area...

  1. 7  David Gursky  | 1/15/2008 6:13:41 PM

    @4 -- OK. At MULTIPLE prior employers... ;-) And haven't you guys been subject to enough pun-ishment.

    In thinking about this though, here's the $64,000 question.

    The market differentiator for the RIM family is the whole concept of push eMail, that the RIM server sends a message out to the Blackberry device informing the user they have mail. Now if all IBM has done is ensured that DWA 8 plays nicely on Safari, well, this is good, but it's not a threat to RIM/Blackberry. If they've gone that one extra step and done push eMail though, then this combination, iPhone and Domino, technically tears RIM apart.

    Even so, even if IBM hasn't done push eMail, you can get 80% of that by just adding an event to the Mail Template to send an SMS to the owner's iPhone "YO! Check your mail!"

  1. 8  David Gursky  | 1/15/2008 6:26:39 PM

    @3 You raise an interesting possibility, that this is something that works on the iPod Touch as well as the iPhone, although I'm not quite sure it goes beyond the level of a cool parlor trick, since you need to be near WiFi then.

  1. 9  Ed Maloney  | 1/15/2008 6:39:36 PM

    Great News! The Apple "halo effect" can only help Notes/Domino. I already have executive iPhone users waiting for a way to get their Notes mail&calendar.

  1. 10  Rob McDonagh http://www.CaptainOblivious.com | 1/15/2008 7:15:38 PM

    I read this as DWA on iPhone, not Traveller. I'd love to be wrong about that, of course. Any comment, Ed? Not that we can't get the details in a few days...

  1. 11  Jess Stratton http://www.mattandjess.net | 1/15/2008 7:36:29 PM

    @10, It sounds the the Microsoft version of Exchange/PDA Activesync. It uses the webmail version of Exchange and activesync to automatically push mail to the phone, live.

  1. 12  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 1/15/2008 8:44:42 PM

    Ummm.... feel free to edit me Ed, but...

    HOLY SHIT YEAH!!!!

  1. 13  Chris Whisonant http://cwhisonant.blogspot.com | 1/15/2008 8:48:23 PM

    The good: I highly doubt this will be an 8.5 release. With Apple announcing their support for 3rd-party apps via their update today and IBM likely announcing 8.0.1 next week (maybe not, but you never know...) I'll bet that this will be something that's available with 8.0.1. Though I may be wrong, it sounds like everything is lined up that way.

    The other good news is that this is going to drive companies to upgrade to 8.0.1 if their CxO's can have their mail on their precious.

    The bad: OK, have any of you ever tried replying to an email on an iPhone? Honestly?? I've had one for a couple of months and it's nowhere near the speed or accuracy I can get on my BB 8700. QWERTY rulz in this area. I didn't get my iPhone to be my business device. I think this is a wonderful idea and would probably try it out, though! :)

    The ugly: it's iPhone + Domino - there's nothing ugly about it!!! :)

  1. 14  Chris Whisonant http://cwhisonant.blogspot.com | 1/15/2008 8:49:25 PM

    That's scary - now Nathan and I are commenting at Ed's site at the same time... help!

  1. 15  David Gursky  | 1/15/2008 8:49:56 PM

    @12 -- But how do you really feel?

  1. 16  Karen Demerly  | 1/15/2008 8:59:56 PM

    Group - IT. Send. :-)

  1. 17  Christopher Byrne http://www.controlscaddy.com/ | 1/15/2008 9:09:40 PM

    SWMBO still won't let me get one :-(

  1. 18  mark hughes  | 1/15/2008 10:33:12 PM

    I use the IMAP and it works ok, really need contacts and calendar sync. Hope it uses the sdk and not a webapp like I suspect. But great news none the less. Keep up the great work, need any testers? ;-)

    Posted from my iPhone

  1. 19  mark hughes  | 1/15/2008 10:34:34 PM

    I use the IMAP and it works ok, really need contacts and calendar sync. Hope it uses the sdk and not a webapp like I suspect. But great news none the less. Keep up the great work, need any testers? ;-)

    Posted from my iPhone that is waiting for Lotus Notes to make it feel complete

  1. 20  Chris Reckling http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/insidelotusblog.nsf/ | 1/15/2008 10:38:35 PM

    so much for surprises...

    Chris

  1. 21  Gregg Eldred http://www.ns-tech.com/blog/geldred.nsf | 1/15/2008 10:41:08 PM

    This is HUGE! I can't stop smiling.

    @16 - You are so right!

  1. 22  Stuart McIntyre http://collaborationmatters.com | 1/16/2008 3:29:53 AM

    Rock and roll.... Yeehaa!

  1. 23  Volker Weber http://vowe.net | 1/16/2008 5:05:33 AM

    I am with Rob. Is this a webmail interface for the iPhone or can it compete with Exchange ActiveSync?

  1. 24  Peter Wilson  | 1/16/2008 5:40:20 AM

    > The Apple "halo effect" can only help Notes/Domino

    Yeah, maybe Apple's cool ads can rub off on IBM's Domino/Notes ads. Just compare Apple's MacBook Air vs. IBM's ...chalk and cheese.

    Pete

  1. 25  David Gursky  | 1/16/2008 5:45:03 AM

    @24 Bring back ! AM

  1. 26  David Gursky  | 1/16/2008 7:21:02 AM

    While I can't speak to the rest of you, one of the emerging and problematic issues with smartphones is locking them down and protecting corporate data. It seems that every week we read about some new incident where private data is exposed to the public -- just this past week Congress released a scathing report of the TSA and a security breach on part of their web site. This issue has not gone unnoticed in the corporate world, and vendors (such as RIM) have responded with magic bullets that once sent to a phone disable it.

    But if I'm reading the Yahoo! story correctly, the IBM solution does an end run around that. It seems that regardless of whether this is Traveler or DWA made Safari friendly, the data is not on the mobile device, thus dramatically reducing the likelhood of a security breach. Sound right?

  1. 27  Robert Harris  | 1/16/2008 8:36:47 AM

    This is the kind of GOOD news that my management needs to hear about. We've got a majority of our users on Macs, and the iPhone (even though not supported for corporate use) has been a device we've been playing with since its release.

    Thank you! This should help take a few steps forward in repairing relationships with Mac users... who've always felt like less than second class Notes citizens.

    Will we hear a commitment to a date for Notes 8 for the Mac next week???

  1. 28  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 1/16/2008 8:40:00 AM

    OK, lots of interesting speculation here... not sure I can confirm or deny at this point except to say that I do not expect this to be part of 8.0.1.

  1. 29  Lars Olufsen http://www.olufsphere.com | 1/16/2008 9:49:56 AM

    Never mind what version - get the story out there:

    Lotus Notes is sexy enough for the iPhone!!!

    Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

  1. 30  Ian White http://www.ianwhite.net | 1/16/2008 10:06:10 AM

    Ed, you are such a tease - would care to confirm whether the AP story is accurate or misleading - then we can dissect every consonant and vowel and speculate wildly

  1. 31  Jon Johnston http://www.cornnation.com | 1/16/2008 10:25:38 AM

    Actually, the news that the Symphony stuff will be released on OS X is pretty exciting. All of my customers hate Office 2007 with a passion. Many are buying OS X at home, and if they can avoid paying outlandish prices for Office 2008, that's even better news.

    Coolsville!

  1. 32  norm van bergen  | 1/16/2008 11:15:05 AM

    Wow. Excellent news. Now if only they'd get the darn thing (iPhone) available in Canada (well, not hacked anyway...)

  1. 33  MarvinK  | 1/16/2008 5:06:49 PM

    I do think this looks like good news--hopefully its not just DWA or some lame hack that requires enabling POP/IMAP.

    It will be even cooler if it includes some sort of remote management piece. With BlackBerry, the big appeal is secure push email AND device management (ie: remotely wipe lost device, enforce encryption or camera policies, passwords, etc...).

    It will be interesting to see what we get with Notes iPhone support--I hope it will be substantial enough for hardcore RIM shops to look at alternatives!

    Typing on an iPhone is quite the task, though! :/

  1. 34  Tripp Black http://www.mindwatering.com | 1/17/2008 7:25:23 AM

    That is awesome news! We have the iPhone and they work GREAT. It checks multiple IMAP accounts (which Domino, of course, supports) and uses SSL. The only things missing were contacts and calendar entries. (Exporting the contacts the first"load" from Notes into iMail and syncing works but that doesn't keep them in sync.)

  1. 35  Greg H  | 1/17/2008 8:23:00 AM

    I hope the announcement is for more than just DWA. It would be a great boost for Lotus if we could synch iphones with our Notes calendars and address books like Outlook users can.

    Over-the-Air synching and push email would be even better but I'll take the first option for starters. If Lotus could come up with push email for the iPhone before Micrsoft does it for Outlook, that would really help them keep customers from defecting to Outlook.

  1. 36  MarvinK  | 1/17/2008 1:17:45 PM

    Nice post from an Engadget user who claims to work at IBM, and has a handy (and presumably TOTALLY against corporate policy) way of handling his confidential corporate email on an iPhone:

    "I am a software architect for IBM and I am already using Lotus Notes on my iPhone. It's available to anyone who wants it. Here's what you do:

    1. Sign up for an email account on gmail.

    2. Go into Lotus Notes and create a new rule to forward all email to your new gmail account.

    3. Go into your gmail account and configure the "reply to" to be your lotus notes email account (note, gmail will send a confirmation email to your lotus notes account which you have to confirm)

    4. Set up the new gmail account on your iphone.

    5. Profit"

    nice...

    { Link }

  1. 37  Timothy Briley  | 1/18/2008 9:52:11 AM

    The title says it all:

    IPhone with Lotus Notes: IT manager's nightmare?

    { Link }