Notes 7.0.2 for Mac eGA today

December 19 2006

The official release date is a couple of weeks away, but starting today, you can download Notes 7.0.2 for Macintosh.  Background and details in this lotus.com interview with Mike Mottola and Jason Dumont:

Mottola reports that Mac customers in the Lotus Notes 7.0.2 Beta program have provided tremendous feedback and are very excited about the product. Many of the same customers are just as excited about Lotus Domino Web Access - because the two are often used together.

"Many of our customers deploy the Lotus Notes client to users' desktops and the lighter-weight Lotus Domino Web Access on users' home computers," says Mottola. "Now organizations can do the same for their Mac users."

Dumont agrees that these are heady days for Lotus Notes customers who love the Mac. "These customers are extremely loyal to the Mac and extremely loyal to Lotus Notes," he says. "They've been asking us for Lotus Notes and Lotus Domino solutions on the Mac for some time, and for us to deliver both Lotus Domino Web Access and the Lotus Notes client on the Mac in the same year is very significant and exciting for them."
Hundreds of customers and partners participated in the beta testing of Notes 7.0.2 for Macintosh, many as a result of reading about it on edbrill.com.  As such, I have a quid pro quo request -- if you were in the beta and happy with Notes 7.0.2, I hope you'll consider being a public reference about it for IBM.  Please contact me @ work if you are interested.

A trial version of the released Notes 7.0.2 for Mac will be posted to the developerWorks downloads in about a month.  In the meantime, Passport Advantage and Business Partners should find it on the downloads site sometime today.

Ed Brill | Chicago, IL USA Category:  Lotus  Add/View Comments [23]

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  1. 1  Stuart McIntyre http://macsfacts.vox.com | 12/19/2006 8:26:12 AM

    Hurrah, great effort IBM.

    Whilst it would have been great to have the Mac client in the same timeframe as 7.0 or even 7.0.2 for Windows (hey you can't expect us to be 100% happy), I myself am plesently surprised at IBM getting this out in Gold this side of the Christmas break.

  1. 2  Stuart McIntyre http://macsfacts.vox.com | 12/19/2006 8:27:38 AM

    Oh, and this has probably been asked before, what is the plan for release of Notes 8 on Mac? At announcement, or sometime later? (A hint, please don't say at 8.0.2!)

  1. 3  Ralf M Petter  | 12/19/2006 8:29:32 AM

    Ok, nice to have, but there is still no java support in the mac client, so our custom notes applications will not work, because we have many java agents in our databases. So the conclusion is Mac users are still second class users of notes.

    Maybe there is hope that with the release of Notes 8 the mac client will be finally on par with the Windows client.

    Ralf

  1. 4  Richard Schwartz http://www.rhs.com/poweroftheschwartz | 12/19/2006 6:28:46 PM

    @3: Exactly right. Everything else in the new Mac client could be wonderful, but the lack of Java is a huge disappointment. I stopped beta testing when an IBMer responded to my question about Java on the beta forum and told me that Java would not be fixed in this release.

    My product is going to have to jump through a lot of hoops to deal with this. Notes is Notes, right? Wrong. Not on the Mac. Java is Java, and Java is everywhere, right? Wrong? Not with Notes on the Mac. It's going to be a bunch of ugly hacks for me to support the Mac, and when customers ask me why... I will have to point the finger at IBM. I'm sure that the problems are hard, I'll bet Apple has a lot of the responsibility for that, and I'll bet working with Apple Corp is probably no picnic, but it is beyond my comprehension how it can be possible that, after so much time working on this client version, and after so much time working with and promoting Java, IBM has still not been able to solve the problems.

    Ah well. I presume that now that there's a release, we'll at least get an API toolkit with support for building for Intel and PPC Macs soon. Or maybe I shouldn't presume that.

  1. 5  Gregg Eldred http://www.ns-tech.com/blog/geldred.nsf | 12/19/2006 9:23:21 PM

    @4 - Do you think that there is an overall issue with Notes/Domino and Java? First, the JVM in Domino cannot be upgraded and now this. I am sure that there are probably other instances of Java and Notes/Domino 'issues.' It's not like Java is some sort of niche product. :-)

  1. 6  Catherine Helzerman http://blogs.sun.com/helzerman | 12/19/2006 11:24:30 PM

    Oh how I would have loved this when I was at IBM and using a PowerBook. Congratulations.

  1. 7  Richard Schwartz http://www.rhs.com/poweroftheschwartz | 12/20/2006 12:41:36 AM

    @5: No, I wouldn't say that there's an "overall issue". I think these are two separate issues. IBM has an appropriate explanation for the lack of customer-upgradability of the JVM: the impact on their own QA requirements and the potential for instability of key product components if untested JVM versions are substituted for the tested version. Many of us don't like it, but it is a defensible position and a completely appropriate position for them to take given their role as guarantor of quality and compatibility for the product. I can't say that about the situation on the Mac.

  1. 8  Anthony Pope http://www.filmfabric.com | 12/20/2006 5:41:05 AM

    The 7.0.2 Mac release is a step in the right direction. There are some significant improvments to the user experience not least that it way quicker than previous versions and Fonts smoothing is no longer required. I'm sure the team work long and hard on this release and do deserve a pat on the back, given what thay had to work with.

    However, I have to agree with Richard. The lack of Java support coupled with incomaptibilies with previous releases are very disapointing. We'd hope for so much and actually got very little. .... Next time..... :-|

  1. 9  Luke  | 12/20/2006 6:56:28 AM

    It's Wednesday and still nothing on the Passport Advantage site.

    Did you mean another beta was released? Or was this supposed to be the gold cd?

  1. 10  Peter LaComb  | 12/20/2006 7:44:35 AM

    <gripe>

    Now if only the entry for "IBM Lotus Domino Enterprise Server and Notes 7.0.2 for Multiplatforms eAssembly English(CR4D0EN)" would show a more recent date so that the download would be easier to find.

    That and the "Not found on server" that we're all so fond of seeing for the first day or two that a download is "available" on the PA site.

    </gripe>

    But seriously, if this does for our Mac user(s) what it says, it's welcome.

  1. 11  Mike Brown  | 12/20/2006 8:32:40 AM

    Good stuff, Ed. I hope to do a brief test at the end of the week.

    Cheers,

    - Mike

  1. 12  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 12/20/2006 9:25:10 AM

    I sometimes wonder why Ed even bothers.

  1. 13  Thomas Hinders  | 12/20/2006 11:49:43 AM

    @9

    I just checked on PA and it sure seems like it is there:

    IBM Lotus Notes Client 7.0.2 for Mac OS X English

    File name c977wen.dmg

    Platform(s)

    Language(s) English

    Related information

    Estimated download duration

    File Size 155,840,182 bytes

  1. 14  Bill Brown  | 12/20/2006 12:03:37 PM

    In order to find it, I could not go through my prefered downloads, I had to view all downloads, expand Lotus Software, etc.. Hope that helps others find the file.

  1. 15  Luke  | 12/20/2006 5:02:24 PM

    Following Peter's instructions, I found the file.

    Searching by date or platform returned nothing.

    I can understand Charles's frustration, but it's easy to find things on PA only if you've made it through the initiation ritual. Thanks to Peter I now know.

  1. 16  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 12/20/2006 7:55:02 PM

    My frustration had nothing to do with Passport Advantage. I curse that site (and virtually everything in the ibm.com and lotus.com domains) regularly myself. I was venting more about the people who overlooked all the effort that went into updating the Mac client and only focused on what it didn't have.

  1. 17  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 12/20/2006 8:33:01 PM

    @16 there is nothing unusual about good news being met with criticism, skepticism, or smugness. :-o

    I know the team knows they put in a huge effort to move the Notes / Mac experience forward, and I've been e-mailed and pinged a few times since posting this from people who indeed do want to be references. We get all kinds here, nothing different than any other aspect of a community...

  1. 18  Richard Schwartz http://www.rhs.com/poweroftheschwartz | 12/21/2006 11:55:23 AM

    @17 The reason, in this case, that the good news is met with criticism is that IBM's own rules dictated the timing. Trust me, I didn't really want to throw cold water all over the good news. I would have liked to have said my piece months ago, but the beta program was subject to NDA. The criticism could have been old news by now and the celebration of GA could have gone undisturbed (by me, anyhow), but instead I complied with IBM's rules and I withheld the criticism until the NDA was no longer in effect.

  1. 19  Mike Brown  | 12/22/2006 7:07:36 AM

    Only been able to test briefly, but looks very good. Very snappy response times and the fonts are so much smoother (and bigger!) than with Mac Notes 6. So, thanks to all involved for their hard work on this.

    Sadly, not been able to test the integrated message part of it yet.

    Cheers,

    - Mike

  1. 20  Peter LaComb  | 12/22/2006 11:58:41 AM

    For anyone getting the "file not found on server" in PA - change your preferred download site to one of the US sites.

    Can't imagine how mine got set to Ireland.

  1. 21  Peter D Cox http://www.tmpl-online.co.uk | 12/24/2006 1:10:21 PM

    I have posted this in the discussion forum - but perhaps there are some Mac/Notes savy experts reading this thread (hope so).

    >>>

    Thanks for the arrival (at last) of the Mac client! I have successfully installed on a MacBook (new, intel) but it fails to install on an iMac 17in (intel) with an error saying - Notes 7.02 cannot be installed on this machine. Any ideas anyone - cannot find any documentation to explain!!

    >>>

    First impressions on the (working) mac Book - ok. No intermittent crashes (as per 6.0.5) and the fonts are beaut! Can't see the differences in templates yet 'cos forbidden to upgrade them until ALL machines working .....

  1. 22  Peter D Cox http://www.tmpl-online.co.uk | 12/26/2006 11:40:40 AM

    Successful installs now include

    MacBook (the cool black one) 2 mhz with 2 meg memory

    Ibook 12in with two usb ports - 800 mhz with 640 memory

    - the first was an upgrade from 6.0.5 the second a new install 'cos my colleague gets the iBook as a hand me down ...

    Suggests memory and or speed are not issues, nor intel dual core

    Unsuccessful - two 17in intel iMacs (one very recent, the other year old) both with loads of memory

    - the 15in swan neck iMac

    ALL machines are standardised at 10.4.8 with latest upgrades.

    So two out of five install - 40% success rate

  1. 23  Peter D Cox http://www.tmpl-online.co.uk | 1/21/2007 8:33:37 AM

    In case anyone finds this thread while searching for a solution - there is one: the current installer is picky and doesn't install except from Admin accounts (it doesn't offer the chance to Authenticate an install). So either install from Admin or up the status of the user and then install.

    This version seems solid (compared to the 6.5 ones) and the proper fonts are great. And at last we've been able to upgrade our blogs to the Blue Rinse version in 7.0.2 .