IBM unveils beta versions of Lotus Notes and Domino 8

Users can now download and try out the beta versions of Lotus Notes and Domino 8 in advance of their full release later this year.

IBM has opened the doors to its beta programme for the e-mail and collaboration applications to showcase a redesigned interface and beefed-up feature set such as the ability to group messages by conversation thread and enhanced search capabilities.

As of last week, more than 12,000 users had downloaded the beta client and server products for a myriad of platforms such as AIX, Linux, Sun Solaris and Windows.

"Organisations are tired of the one-size-fits-all world of proprietary software and are demanding more than search and simple e-mail capabilities to be productive at work," said Ken Bisconti, vice president of Lotus messaging and collaboration.

"Lotus Notes and Domino 8 delivers a high-performance work environment that natively links to other Lotus software components such as social software, collaborative content management, and unified communications and collaboration. This version allows developers to build a new class of Web 2.0 solutions and taps into the latest technologies from IBM Research."

Lotus Notes 8 will also include the IBM Lotus Productivity Editors, which support the OpenDocument Format, at no additional cost. The inclusion of these tools means that users can create and edit Microsoft Office compatible spreadsheets, presentations and documents.

In addition, the new offerings come with extended support for web services and aim to simplify the creation of rich web 2.0 applications.

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