KM blossoms

Citing dramatic new efficiencies and reduction of total cost of ownership, IBM Lotus has released Notes and Domino 6. The company says new cost-management features and functions in Lotus Notes and Domino 6 include technology that helps consolidate server hardware, reduces disk space use and minimizes network traffic. The company has also upgraded its Sametime, QuickPlace and LearningSpace offerings.

New policy-based administration and client-upgrade automation tools in Notes and Domino 6 can help lower administration costs, while improved inbox management and advanced calendar and scheduling functionality can help save time and increase user productivity, says Lotus. Plus, Notes and Domino 6 includes new information control features such as improved mail archiving, mail journaling and new spam control to help increase worker productivity and conserve IT resources.

In addition, integration with existing IT solutions can help Lotus Notes and Domino 6 customers protect their current IT investment, claims the company. Closer alignment with IBM's entire software portfolio, as well as greater support for Microsoft's Active Directory, will allow customers to blend Notes and Domino 6 into their current infrastructure to help maximize business benefits, Lotus believes. Further, it offers support for open standards initiatives such as J2EE, Linux and XML.

Lotus reports productivity enhancements for users include:

• simplified user interface and virtual elimination of user configuration requirements;

• increased inbox and information management productivity with new attachment handling options, replication improvements, color-coded views and drag-and-drop capabilities, while on or offline;

• improved ease of use for Microsoft Office users through toolbars, new templates and dialog boxes;

• new calendaring functionality with features that include Executive Calendar management, multiple time zone support and online e-meeting technology; and

• improved mobility and wireless access via supported PDAs, pagers and WAP-enabled mobile phones.

Lotus adds that cost effectiveness for administrators is enhanced by the following:

• heightened reliability, scalability, performance and security through improved transaction logging, clustering, network compression, replication and increased support of security standards;

• tools that simplify IT management tasks such as “smart” upgrade for centrally updating the client environment and policy-based management for creating and managing user settings and configurations such as user registration, password and security controls and e-mail archiving;

• centrally managed mail archiving, journaling and spam control to help optimize IT resource utilization and meet organizational policies; and

• ease of integration with existing supported infrastructure through tighter alignment with other IBM and Lotus software technologies, including Sametime, DB2, WebSphere and Tivoli software.

The company adds that Notes and Domino 6 also offers the following for application developers:

code checkout and code sharing technologies for team development;
• reduced time required to build and deploy multi-platform, mission critical applications;

• the ability to build applications that are open, secure and Web-enabled with multi-platform support and workflow, all with easy-to-upgrade capabilities;

• support for industry standards to leverage developer skills, including J2EE and XML;

• increased ability to create business applications for a Web services environment; and

• Real-time data access to relational databases and ERP systems through Lotus Enterprise Integrator 6.

IBM Lotus Sametime and QuickPlace

IBM Lotus Sametime 3 and QuickPlace 3 offer a number of new features to help customers get a rapid return on investment:

Lotus Sametime 3 features::

• new purchasing options for e-meetings;

• additional developer support with enhanced Sametime toolkit;

• support for mobile workers;

• an enterprise meeting center; and

• flexible calendar integration.

IBM Lotus QuickPlace 3 features:

• the ability to search and enter team work spaces quickly and easily;

• easy-to-embed team collaboration for developers;

• threaded presence awareness;

• team Calendar and personal calendar integration; and

• support for Microsoft Office.

IBM Lotus Learning Space – Virtual Classroom

Built on IBM Lotus collaborative technologies, Lotus LearningSpace - Virtual Classroom is said to be an easy-to-deploy, cost-effective e-learning system that enables real-time collaboration between instructors and learners.

LearningSpace - Virtual Classroom offers among its features whiteboarding and application sharing that provide students with virtual hands-on training and allows users to conduct real-time sessions with collaborative capabilities, including awareness and chat features that allow students to interact with each other and with the instructor.

The administrative features of the offering allow instructors to develop class outlines, track attendance and certify completion of courses and to secure immediate feedback on the effectiveness of courses to help ensure that learners are consistently involved and learning within existing budget constraints. Additionally, the record and playback capabilities can allow students and instructors to archive sessions for later use.

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