By Melanie Turek, Collaboration Loop, June 28th, 2005

IBM gave customers a first look at the future of its Lotus Notes client in Hannover, Germany, June 14, the stated goal being to paint a picture of just how IBM plans to extend the capabilities of Lotus Notes. The announcement came none too soon—IBM, on the leading edge of collaborative technologies when it first introduced Notes more than 15 years ago, has been remarkably ineffective when it comes to getting its message out on real-time communications. Furthermore, the company has been criticized for offering a murky picture about the future of Lotus Notes and its newer Workplace technologies.

The introduction in Germany answered some questions and raised others. It ends IBM’s relative silence around presence-driven communications, but it doesn’t eliminate the confusion IBM has created around the future of its Notes and Workplace products—if anything, it makes that situation even less clear. Yet overall the software looks to be a good move for both the vendor and its users. Code-named “Hannover,” the application has a dramatically new look, refreshing in itself, but it also boasts some welcome (indeed, required) feature changes. (Note that this is not Lotus Notes 7.0, IBM’s most immediate upcoming release; Hannover extends further into the future.)