The joint venture under negotiation between Lotus Development Corp and AT&T Co (CI No 2,357) is reportedly intended to bring the Lotus Notes software to a mass market by creating publically-available services based Notes servers. The idea is that Notes could be used to make things like estate agents’ houses for sale lists or threatre listings freely available on-line via Notes clients installed on personal computers.AT&T would run the Notes servers as central resources. The attraction is that once the Notes client – and a low-cost Notes client is not yet available, was installed on a user’s machine, no further installation would be required to gain access to a wide variety of services.The services would be offered via hand-held wireless devices and on the Internet as well as over direct dial lines. Those close to the talks say that nothing has been signed yet, but InfoWorld expects agreement in as little as a month.
