IBM to Adopt ODF for Lotus Notes

Mike Barton writes to tell us InfoWorld is reporting IBM has announced that the upcoming version of Lotus Notes, due out this fall, will feature an "ODF-compatible version of OpenOffice embedded in the Notes e-mail application." IBM hopes that this large scale distribution of the ODF standard will help bolster their foothold in the marketplace since "standards live or die on how many people use them"

More on OpenDocument

[eldavojohn]

It looks like the OpenDocument Fellowship will have another application to add to its list [opendocume...owship.org].

If you're a developer, like myself, you may be wondering how you can take advantage of OpenDocument. Afterall, the point of it is not to have to have developing licenses or the inability to generate your own documents for applications that your user uses. Check out their site for developers [opendocume...owship.org]. From there, you can find the resources to begin writing your own code that generates ODF compliant files. If Microsoft ever switches to ODF compliance, you might be ahead of the game!

Re:Inside the email client?

[eggoeater]

That's exactly what I was about to post...what a bloated app!
...and now they're going to embed an entire office suite?

Here's the rub: No large organization is going to want that installed. They will turn off that part of the install.

I work for a large financial corporation and they like things to be standardized (Yes, we use MS Office). I would love it if we moved to open office but it ain't gonna happen soon. The last thing they want are problems with multiple incompatible standards used for business documents.

Suggestions To Your Question

[eldavojohn]

Why not just bundle OpenOffice.org and a couple other free applications with the CD?

Good idea!

The most respectable collection I can find is the OpenCD [theopencd.org] which has both OOo & Thunderbird on it, I believe.

This is becoming [ttcsweb.org] a popular [sunsite.dk] idea.

Having used Lotus Notes before...

[Mad Merlin]

I can only imagine how much hairier it'll become after they embed a copy of OpenOffice in it, which is certainly no slouch when it comes to hairy codebase.

Having said that, I still think this is great news for ODF.

Re:ARRGGHHH

[GoingDown]

Lotus Notes is not a e-mail client, it is groupware application framework. It is just plain stupid to use it only for e-mail.

There is some good reasons to use Notes, but e-mail is not one of them.

Re:oh boy

[brucmack]

If you're in a company with 27,000 employees, and you don't know anyone who doesn't despise Notes, then your company desperately needs som new Notes developers.

I started developing for Notes only about 2 years ago, so I came in with the same predisposed notions as is the norm around here. But when I truly came to understand what Notes is, my opinion changed quickly.

Notes isn't a mail client. It's a platform for database applications, which can be developed by anyone. If you don't like something in the default mail template, you are free to change it, as everything is open!

Sure, you can quibble about features in the client itself, but competent developers can get around that. Notes applications can be excellent if the developers of them are competent, and collaboration between applications in Notes is ridiculously easy.

Furthermore, IBM is now starting to push Notes hard, and focussing on bringing more open source ideas into it, as this announcement indicates. The most recent server release is a huge improvement over the last, both in performance and stability. Notes now has a future, where a few years back it wasn't clear whether future releases would have fewer and fewer new features.

Add that to the fact that the main alternative for most companies is Microsoft, and Notes is a winner...