By Melanie Turek, Nemertes Research Inc.

June 17, 2005

IBM (NYSE: IBM) gave customers a first look at the future of its Lotus Notes client this week, and the software bodes well for the vendor and its users. Code-name “Hannover,” the application has a dramatically new look, but it also boasts some welcome (nay, required) feature changes, too.

The key words for IBM are “activity-centric collaboration.” In Hannover, users will get access to collaboration tools regardless of where they’re working within Notes. And the company has caught up with the competition on presence, making it pervasive within the application, so that whenever users see a name, they can always see the presence of the contact, then click to start an IM session, write an e-mail, or call over an IP-enabled phone.

“Activity-centric collaboration” is IBM’s term, but it boils down to contextual collaboration—a concept Microsoft, Nortel and others have been promoting for some time. The goal in either case is to let users create, manage and share information—regardless of type (e-mail, IM, PowerPoint, voice call)—around a particular issue or group. Frankly, it’s high time IBM got into the real-time collaboration game. The good news is, Hannover promises more content-management capabilities than its competitors, which bodes well for collaborative companies whose employees routinely share documents across projects or teams. Hannover will let them store and manage all the information affiliated with a project in one place (one that is decidedly not the user’s inbox).

The complete Impact Analysis is available to Nemertes clients. For more information, please contact Christine Zimmerman at christine@nemertes.com