IBM ripens notes for Macintosh

IBM's Lotus Software Group revealed a major shift in its Notes for Mac strategy with the unveiling of a new version of the collaboration software at last week's Lotusphere 2006 conference in Orlando.

Kevin Cavanaugh, vice president of development for Lotus clients, solutions and tools in IBM's software group, acknowledged that the updates are overdue. "We have sort of let Mac versions slip, so we're fixing that," he said.

Version 7.02 of Notes for the Mac, slated to ship in the third quarter, will include Lotus Sametime instant messaging software and support for Macintosh computers that run on Intel chips. Notes 7.02 for the Mac will run on the Mac OS X 10.4 operating system, also known as Tiger.

"We're committed to it," Cavanaugh said of the Notes Mac version. "We're going to be consistent across Mac, Windows and Linux in functionality and releases."