QUICK LINKS ON THIS PAGE

Click one of the following bulleted items to jump to that selected topic area on this page.
(These are just the main topics. There are many other topics, too numerous to list.)

• Notes & Domino Directions / Hannover / Domino Next
• Notes Architecture, Internals and History - including The Lotus Museum
• Technology Choices / Career Directions - Lotus Notes & Domino versus Microsoft Exchange / Outlook / .NET / Groove / Zope / WebSphere - Moving from Domino to J2EE technologies - Extending your Job Market and Skills
• Notes & Domino Performance and Infrastructure Management
• Management of Mail / Room & Resource Reservations / Anti-Spam / Governance / Legal Issues
• Extending Lotus Instant Messaging (Sametime)
• Notes/Domino Security
• Disaster Planning - Recovery - Continuity
• IBM Lotus Notes and Domino on IBM System i (previously called iSeries or AS/400)
• User Groups & Communities - Notes/Domino Blogs - Forums - Training & Certification
• Lotus feeds from IBM developerWorks
• Some "trusty old Lotus Notes applications" - FREE

LOTUS & IBM - GENERAL LINKS

• IBM Lotus Notes and Domino 8 Deployment Guide
  and What's new in IBM Lotus Notes client 8.0 and Notes 8.0.1
  and What's new in IBM Lotus Domino server 8.0 and Domino 8.0.1
   
• Lotus Support - Maintenance updates, fix lists and fix packs:
      http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/lotus/support/fixlists.html
   
• Lotusphere 2006 ...
  • Lotusphere 2006 - Opening General Session webcast
  • Lotusphere 2006 Presentations and Samples
  • IBM Lotus Notes and Domino: "Hannover" and Beyond


• Lotus Notes - Case Studies (success stories)
• The Top 8 Reasons Why You'll Love IBM Lotus Notes 8 - Register for a replay of this webcast with Ed Brill, Business Unit Executive of IBM Lotus Notes/Domino sales, worldwide, who shares the latest "wow" factors of the next major feature release of Lotus Notes. Understand how these collaborative advances are helping users work the way they want for the better.
   
• Composite applications in Lotus Notes 8 ...
  • Library of 22 components for developers to build composite applications
  • YouTube videos showing examples:
    • IBM Lotus Notes 8 - Banking composite application - Part 1
    • IBM Lotus Notes 8 - Banking composite application - Part 2
    • Lotus Notes 8 Composite Application Capability: Lead Manager
    • Lotus Notes 8 Smart Assist Composite Application Demo
       
• IBM Lotus Notes and Domino 7 - Cool Stuff! - Webcasts, videos, demos, presentations, screensavers, roadmaps, white papers, brochures  ... "Innovate, Collaborate and Dominate!"
• Webcast -- Ferris Research and IBM review Lotus Notes and Domino 7 features and TCO - how Ferris defines TCO and how the new release might measure up, as well as a comprehensive view on how new features and capabilities can help you work smarter by improving collaboration and productivity.
   
• “Hannover”: The next release of IBM Lotus Notes - On Tuesday, 14 June 14 2005, IBM Lotus software unveiled some of the features it plans to build into future versions of its Lotus Notes software.
• Hannover FAQs
• With the unveiling of the next release of Lotus Notes, code-named “Hannover,” IBM articulates roadmap, demonstrates commitment - "New look, new capabilities" ... "Focus on activities, drive projects to completion" ... "Extending Lotus Notes to a new class of open, role-based applications" ... "Lotus Notes: A core element of the IBM Workplace family"
• (review) IBM sees innovations in Notes - IBM unveiled some of the features it plans to build into future versions of its Notes software, previewing a number of new tools aimed at helping people share information across applications
• "Hannover" to include word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation capabilities - will include a set of office productivity tools which support the Open Document Format (ODF) standard. These productivity tools include word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation capabilities. "Hannover" users will be able to create, manage, edit, and import documents in ODF. The IBM productivity tools can also import and edit Microsoft Office documents and export those documents to ODF for sharing with ODF-comliant applications and solutions.
   
• Lotus Guarantees Notes/Domino's Future Next to Workplace - "there's ... been the fog surrounding the future of Notes/Domino with the introduction of Workplace. But with as many curves as Lotus customers have had to maneuver, the loyal followers may finally have come to a straight highway, and iSeries users of Lotus products are finally being rewarded with versions that support the solid server right from the start."



• Lotusphere 2005
  Articles from Lotusphere 2005 (or just before/after the conference) ...
  • "Envision Decisions" - IBM leads the way to fundamental change in software - "Envision decisions where you have a clear and present choice in the front-end of computing, a choice in everything you do, whether it is in messaging and collaboration, in document editing and management, in access to information and expert, and in executing business transactions."
     
  • Here to stay! Notes begins evolution into premier rich client for IBM Workplace - While change will remain a constant, so will Notes — and so will IBM’s commitment to protecting customers’ existing Notes investments. ... "There is a lot of change in store for the Notes client. Notes 7 and 7.5 and 8 will be different and significantly more valuable – just as the current Notes 6.5 is different and significantly more valuable compared to Notes 4 and 4.6. So this kind of change is nothing new; we’ve done it in the past, and it’s how we’ve consistently delivered new business value to our customers. And as in the past, these upcoming versions will remain true to the Notes tradition of supporting and protecting the investment our customers have made in Notes functionality, training and application development."
     
  • New tools will help Domino developers create Workplace applications with skills they have, ease they expect - Workplace Designer takes existing skills to new Workplace collaborative environment
  • Gartner reports that IBM's Workplace Strategy Gains Credibility at Lotusphere 2005
  • IBM Workplace - More than Just Notes on Steroids
     
  • Domino, Notes, Workplace... What's A Developer To Do? (March 2005) - If you're one of the many who have been confused during the last two years by the sometimes conflicting messages coming from IBM about the future of Lotus Notes/Domino and what it means for your future as a Notes/Domino specialist, read this article and be assured that IBM is not leaving you in the lurch. ... As the song goes: "Don't Worry, Be Happy!"
  
  

  YOU need NotesTracker! Purchase a copy for all your IBM Lotus Notes and Domino database application usage tracking needs! Find out about about NotesTracker here or here.

• IBM WORKPLACE ...
  • New to IBM Workplace - Workplace is a family of IBM products, technologies, and solutions for creating adaptive work environments that you can customize based on users' unique roles in your organization. It is designed to transform productivity and to enable people to make more informed decisions faster. ... IBM Workplace combines new and existing IBM products and technologies, including Workplace Collaboration Services, Workplace Client Technology, Workplace Designer, Workplace Managed Client, Workplace Services Express, Workplace Solutions, Workplace Web Content Management, Lotus Notes® and Domino®, WebSphere® Portal, and WebSphere Everyplace®. You can provision these high-performance, role-based environments to users to combine the productivity gains of the desktop with the cost advantages of the network.
  • Introducing IBM Workplace development tools (March 2006) - Get started with Workplace application development with an introduction to the Workplace development tools, including Workplace Template Editor, Workplace Designer, Workplace Forms, Workplace SDK, and Workplace Managed Client Developer Toolkit.


• All the right answers for customers with Lotus Workplace and Notes and Domino
• Lotus products to the rescue when a city's infrastructure locks down
  and Lotus innovation makes working at home a way of life
• Defining processes in your Notes/Domino environment - discusses a number of processes, including application development and deployment, quality assurance, performance and sizing, and root cause analysis (RCA) that can help ensure reliability and availability in your Lotus Notes and Domino environment.
• IBM White Paper - Protect and enrich Domino investments with a collabarative platform to drive productivity - "IBM is committed to supporting and advancing the Lotus Notes and Lotus Domino messaging server and application-development and deployment platform for years to come. So you can feel confident that your Lotus Notes and Lotus Domino investments are protected."
  • Download the full PDF document
     
• IBM developerWorks Technical Library for Lotus
  • developerWorks Technical Articles for Lotus
    A few of the more recent articles ...
    • Lotus Domino and IBM WebSphere integration for developers - How you can build applications that take advantage of the relative strengths offered by both Domino and WebSphere.
    • IBM Workplace: A technical summary
    • New features in release 2.0 of IBM Lotus Workplace - including IBM Lotus Workplace Documents and IBM Workplace Client Technology.
    • IBM Workplace Client Technology architecture - how you can use its standards-based technologies to build and manage IBM Workplace client applications.
    • IBM Lotus Notes/Domino 7 Public Beta
    • New features in Notes and Domino 7.0 Beta 1
    • Lotus Notes/Domino 7 Web Services - Introduces the new Web Services design element in ND7, showing how to create one in Domino Designer, and describes how to implement Web Services with both LotusScript and Java code examples.
    • Create your own Lotus Notes template storage database with revision history - Keep track of your Lotus Notes/Domino database templates with the handy Template Warehouse. This article describes how to create the Template Warehouse, and includes a complete working example you can use at your own site to manage and store copies of your design templates (NTF files).
      • See also MartinScott's Notes/Domino development version control strategy - a model that "supports distributed development and structured build releasing among developers, testers, and users."
  • Lotus feeds from IBM developerWorks
     
• Lotus Documentation portal - read the documentation online, or download the files for printing or viewing.
• Lotus Notes documentation (alternative portal) ...
  • Version 8.0 - Version 7.0 - Version 6.5 - White papers, Redbooks, and more

 
• Viewing the Lotus Developer Domain in its native Notes format - LDD is Domino-based, and if you connect to it using a Notes client (Notes 6 recommended) you can use Notes features like replication. This article walks you through the steps involved and offers troubleshooting tips for making the connection.


• IBM Project Manager Survival Kit
• IBM Community Tools - a [free] suite of applications for interacting with various communities through instant and broadcast messaging. ... locate subject matter experts, start impromptu discussions, and to alert and survey large groups of people instantly, all in real time.
• Knowledge Collection (according to IBM) - "A focused compilation of documents that educates Analysts and Customers about a specific product or topic and serves as a source for general reference and as a supplement for training material."
• Knowledge Collection: Notes/Domino 6.x Migration
• New opportunities for Lotus Domino developers - plus a new set of tools - the market for enterprise applications is changing, bringing with it a new world that expands the opportunity for Lotus Notes/Domino developers.
• RSS feeds for Lotus Support - RSS provides a quick, easy, and lightweight way for you to monitor new content that is added to the Lotus Support Services Web site.

• Lotus Support Services
• IBM Support & Downloads
• Lotus Redbooks
• Lotus Knowledge Management
  • Lotus Discovery Server
• Lotus tutorials
• Lotus Industry Solutions
• Lotus IT Managers forum
• Lotus Executive Central
• Lotus LearningSpace / Virtual Classroom / Learning Management System
• Lotus iNotes
• Lotus QuickPlace
• Lotusphere - home page
• Domino URL cheat sheet
• Using XML with Domino - tutorial
• Domino on IBM iSeries (AS/400) Servers
• Domino Designer QuickStart Tutorial
• NotesBench Consortium
   
• FREE Notes database design templates
  NOTE: see other free templates from sites elsewhere on this page
   
• FREE Quick Guides (registration required) - for Lotus Notes, iNotes/Domino Web Access, and Sametime
   
• Domino Search & Discovery
  
  • Site Search (R4.6)
  • Domino Extended Search (R5)
  • Introduction to Extended Search
  • Lotus Discovery Server (R5)
  • What's new in Lotus Extended Search 3.7
  
  
• WebSphere Developer Domain - Lotus Domino Zone
• Domino.Doc 3.5 technical overview
• e-Metrics - How Lotus Measures e-Business Value
• Designing accessible Notes applications
• Ed Brill's personal weblog >> Ed Brill's Lotus weblog
   

• IT Central - home page
  • 24 x 7 webcast Technical Briefings
• Domino Global Workbench (for multilingual e-Business)

•  Notes Architecture, Internals and History  ...
  • The History of Notes and Domino - IBM developerWorks article (20 December 2005)
  • Notes: A sustainable platform architecture - An in-depth examination of the Notes/Domino architecture, which it presents as a series of layers radiating out from a central core of operating-system-style services -- object store, security, replication, directory services, and more.

  • Video ... 20 years: The story of Lotus Notes

  • IBM Lotus Notes and Domino Milestones (poster)
     
  • Roots of Notes - The important ideas behind the Notes client and server can be traced back as far as the early '70s, almost a decade before the wide commercialization of PCs in business. ... (Plato Notes, released in 1973, and Plato Group Notes released in 1976)
  
  
  • Happy Birthday, Notes - Venerable collaboration application turning 20. (Plans for the revolutionary collaboration software or groupware were announced Dec. 7, 1984. And exactly five years later, Lotus Development Corp. launched Notes Release 1.)
  • Light the birthday candles for Lotus Notes - "Lotus Notes turns 15 on December 7 [2004]. Iris Associates, the software development company from whence Notes emerged -- on the Lotus dime -- was founded five years earlier to the day. That's reason enough for Network World’s columnist Paul McNamara to get Ray Ozzie on the phone, given Ozzie was the headliner for both productions before leaving Notes Nation in 1997 to start Groove Networks."
  • Lotus Notes Turns 15 Years Old Today - Why Should You Care? - "Compliance cannot succeed without collaboration. So what tool would you want to use? ... Why you ask? Because after 15 years, the members of the Notes/Domino community get it: The software has succeeded because it is that good and it is only going to get better. Obviously, it is not the right tool for everything, but people need to hear what it is good for and how it can help them."
  • Despite False Death-Knells, Notes Reaches 15th Birthday - "Notes still sets the standard in its own market category, fending off challenges from the voracious competitor Microsoft and a host of lesser adversaries. And it has continued to thrive and evolve as technology has changed."
  
  
  
  • What Is Lotus Notes? - by Julian Robichaux (revision 1.1) - one of the briefest. most accurate summaries that you're likely to find anywhere!
  • What are the strongest aspects of Lotus Domino? (by Stephan Wissel)
  
   
  • The Truth About The Cost Of Leaving Notes (by Richard Schwartz) - "Leaving Notes is cheap. Restoring the value that you used to have in Notes is expensive."
    
    
  • Lotus Notes - from Wikipedia ... " Lotus Notes is a client-server collaborative software and email system owned by Lotus Software, of the IBM Software Group. ..."
  • Why Domino is suitable for Learning Environment support - why Domino is used as a Learning Environment platform at Lancaster University.
  
  
  
  • Inside Notes: The Architecture of Notes and the Domino Server - "In 1989 Lotus® Notes™ made the world a little smaller. ... Describes the internal architecture of Notes and Domino in sufficient detail to enable you to make optimal deployment and programming decisions. ... It provides a single place where you can quickly learn about the overall architecture of Notes and clearly presents the gist of Notes design, without getting bogged down in details." >> View online
     
  • Formula Language's Dirty Secret
  • Damien Katz tells us all about how he carried out the Lotus Notes Formula Language Engine Rewrite (for Notes R6)
    • Follow-up article by Damien
       
  • What it takes to be #1 - why the market continues to recognize Lotus as the vendor to beat in collaboration.
  
  
  
  • The Lotus Museum - "the world's first virtual museum for software. ... Museum Hours: The Lotus Museum is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Admission is free. Children under the age of 12 should be accompanied by an adult."
     
  • Here's a little bit of LOTUS NOTES NOSTALGIA (a demo originally distributed by Lotus on diskette, way back in 1993/1994) ...
    • Discover Lotus Notes - "The Fastest Way to a Responsive Organization" (a zipped file)
      Unzip the file contents to a floppy drive, open a DOS command window, then run INSTALL.COM from the floppy.
       
  • A Database Perspective on Lotus Domino/Notes
  • The History of Notes and Domino
  • Lotus Notes in 60 seconds
  • Quick Guide to Lotus Notes/Domino - "What is it, and why should I use it over open-source solutions like Apache?"
  • Lotus Notes - from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  • The Architecture of Lotus Notes (an old article, but still very instructive)
  • The Architecture of Unread Marks in Lotus Notes
     

  YOU need NotesTracker! Purchase a copy for all your IBM Lotus Notes and Domino database application usage tracking needs! Find out about about NotesTracker here or here.

  • A first look at DB2 integration with Domino Designer 7 (August 2005)
  • Integration of IBM Lotus Notes/Domino with ERP Systems - "Lotus Notes/Domino represents the most successful non-relational DBMS among those offered in the market. This success is ensured by a number of factors, such as record level security, replication, close integration with mailing and Web systems, and integrated infrastructure for using public key and private key encryption and digital signature. ... Lotus and ERP are not competing systems, but rather complementary ones...."
  
  
  
  • Groove Networks (from the key inventor of Lotus Notes)
    • Ray Ozzie's Weblog >> Why "collaboration"?
    • Gartner interview with Ray Ozzie - "20 years ago, I didn't have the grand vision one might imagine. I surely knew what I was trying to accomplish in terms of enabling individuals to work together online more seamlessly - that is, in terms of collaborative productivity. But I didn't fully grasp the importance of such tools, for example, to such things as business process re-engineering at an organizational or cross-organizational level. These tools have had a tremendous impact, and to be sure, I'm amazed at how far things have come — particularly when recalling that we were using IBM PC AT computers in character mode when we began this journey. ... What really does disappoint me is that we as technology users keep forgetting the lessons we learn; we've got very short memories. For example - issues of centralization versus decentralization, control versus empowerment. There's a pendulum that appears to keep swinging back and forth, and we keep polarizing the issue, when in fact we should have learned that both are necessary. ... ... ... ... The greatest amount of value that Lotus Notes ever provided, besides the email infrastructure, was as a rapid application development platform that people at the edge of the organization - in a business unit - could use to whip up an application that solved their problem instantly. Just-in-time, disposable solutions. As Notes was more embraced as central infrastructure, IT buyers demanded that end-user design capabilities be re-shaped to target the needs of professional developers. Notes environments became "locked down", and people closest to the needs lost their ability to do "self-service" solution development. With Groove, we've brought that back."
    • Microsoft to buy Groove Networks (March 2005) - Microsoft said it will acquire Groove Networks and make Groove's founder, Ray Ozzie, chief technology officer at the software giant.
    • Q&A: Microsoft, Groove Networks to Combine Forces to Create Anytime, Anywhere Collaboration (10 March 2005)
    • Ozzie jumps to Microsoft -- what does it mean for Lotus?
    • Combat Over Collaboration
    • Oz Joins the Empire
    • Gartner - Microsoft Pursues Future of Work Vision with Groove Deal
       
  • C API programming for Lotus Notes/Domino - Learn the ins and outs of programming with the Lotus Notes/Domino C API. This article explains several important features found in the C API toolkit and offers working examples you can adapt to your own needs. This article is intended to highlight the capabilities of the Lotus C API for Lotus Notes/Domino and to help developers rediscover its immense potential.
  • Driving Lotus Notes From an Apple Macintosh Application (via the Notes C API)
     
  • <