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	IBM Makes Collaborative Innovation Real With Preview of Next
	IBM Makes Collaborative Innovation Real With Preview of Next Office Productivity Editors, Increased Open Standards Support, Lead Into Fall Beta Testing Period During a preview of live product code at the Deutsche Notes User Group (DNUG) conference, IBM®, today announced that office productivity editors will be included in the next version of Lotus Notes®, when it goes to planned public beta this fall. These lightweight but powerful productivity editors support the XML based OpenDocument Format (ODF) standard recently approved by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and will offer over 125 million Lotus Notes users alternatives to existing integration with proprietary document formats, such as those in Microsoft® Office. Open standards, like ODF, help provide interoperability between systems - enabling vendors to compete on value and performance, rather than proprietary protocols and formats. The office productivity editors will include word processing, spreadsheet and presentation capabilities, and will enable Lotus Notes users to create, edit and save documents natively in the ODF. The editors will also import and export to supported file formats used by Microsoft Office and previous versions of OpenOffice. The inclusion of these standards-based editors will give Lotus Notes customers the flexibility to base IT decisions on business needs and reduce the risk of being “locked in” to one software platform or vendor. As the first major commercial collaboration client based on the Eclipse open source framework, the next release of Lotus Notes aims to set new industry and customer precedents for openness, value and productivity. The next version of Notes, including the productivity editors, will be available to Lotus Notes users who are current on software maintenance, making it simple for Lotus Notes customers who choose to upgrade to begin using this dynamic platform. Speaking at the DNUG conference in Karlsruhe, Germany, today, Michael Rhodin, general manager, Workplace, Portal and Collaboration Products, IBM stated: “The code that we are showing today demonstrates our ability to deliver on the Workplace vision that makes customers more productive in the context of what they do every day. We plan to have this code in the hands of design partners and beta testers this fall bringing us closer to the most open and real collaborative innovation platform ever available.” “The inclusion of standards-based office productivity tools in the next version of Lotus Notes is great news,” said Jeff Forbes, chief information officer, IntelliCare. “This enhancement will bring tremendous value to our organization by helping us to break free from the proprietary format that has dominated the desktop environment for so long." The upcoming version of Lotus Notes exploits the on-demand capabilities of the IBM Workplace Client Technology™, as server-deployed, server-managed desktop software. The ability to dynamically configure/reconfigure the client interface without physically touching the desktop will help reduce customers' dependence on traditional desktop computing models. This integration of Workplace™-based functionality into the Lotus Notes client will deliver powerful new capabilities while helping to preserve Lotus Notes users’ existing investments. By integrating server-managed client capabilities into Lotus Notes, IBM is delivering a new model for 'composite applications' that extends the value of IBM middleware from the server room to the desktop. With the next version of Lotus Notes, customers will be able to combine disparate desktop applications into reusable services. It will be faster and easier to work with these new composite applications as less data is being sent across the network. In addition, users will be able to work with their composite applications when not connected to the server. The upcoming version of Lotus Notes also integrates a new concept called activity-based computing. Activity-based computing extends the value of content created in the course of everyday work -- e-mails, meetings, documents, chats and notes -- by associating them with specific projects or processes. The ability to bring together all of the content related to an activity in an intuitive shared repository helps ensure team members have the same, up-to-date view of all aspects of the activity, helping to increase productivity and speeding time-to-completion of the activity. In keeping with IBM’s solid collaboration product delivery record, the upcoming version of Lotus Notes is currently expected to enter public beta this fall. IBM, Lotus, Notes, Workplace and Workplace Client Technology are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both. Microsoft is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both. Other company, products or service names may be trademarks or service marks of others.
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