IBM launches Notes client for Linux desktops

There are two sides to every story, and two sides to every email, too. While IBM Corp has supported its Domino groupware and messaging environment on the Linux operating system for years (starting with Domino 6.5 back in the fall of 2003), the Notes client end of the Lotus marriage has only been available on Windows and, more recently, Macintosh clients. But, as of today, companies that want to use Notes/Domino on an entirely Linux stack will be able to do so.

Starting today, IBM is making Lotus Notes for Linux a part of the Domino 7 groupware stack. It will initially be available on clients running Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS 4 Update 3, and IBM says that within 90 days it will have it available for Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 desktop distribution.

Customers who are currently licenses users of Notes on Windows or Macs can switch to Linux at no additional cost. Why the software doesn’t run on Red Hat’s high-volume Red Hat Desktop distribution, which is sold in blocks of 10 or 50, is unclear. But I would bet IBM and Red Hat will figure out how to do it if customers ask them to.

The graphical user interface embodied in the Linux Notes client is based on the Eclipse open source toolset, and will be at the heart of the future Hannover Notes release, due in 2007, which will use the same technology to support Windows and Mac clients.

Linux shops are getting an early taste, and note the least of which because IBM is in the midst of an effort to move shops running Outlook/Exchange on Windows to Notes/Domino running on Linux through a marketing campaign called Migrate to the Penguin. IBM partners who do such migrations get a bounty of up to $20,000.

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