Notes jumps on Suse Linux, hurdles remain

27.10.2006
Despite all the announcements IBM made about its intention to port the Lotus Notes client to Linux in recent years, the release for Novell's Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED) 10 this month passed with surprisingly little fanfare.

The release of Notes 7.0.1 for SLED 10 makes it more cross-platform, with Windows, Mac OS X, and Fedora Linux already supported, and removes a significant barrier to Linux on the enterprise desktop.

IBM's Lotus regional executive for Australia and New Zealand, Jonathan Stern, said while the Domino server has been available for Linux since 1998, moving it to the Linux desktop is indicative of offering flexibility to customers.

Stern is anticipating more announcements surrounding the Notes client, including the introduction of a Notes USB memory stick that allows employees to take the "whole Notes experience" with them.

The next generation of Notes, codenamed Hanover, is in beta testing and will support the Open Document Format (ODF) and also be cross platform.

Stern said in a recent presentation to a Victorian government department in Australia, the audience believed it was done with Microsoft's PowerPoint but was actually ODF within Notes running on a Linux PC.