Lotusphere 2000: Lotus ports Notes for mobile devices

Lotus is to offer a version of its Notes groupware software for mobile and Internet-based devices.

Speaking at the seventh annual Lotusphere conference, Jeanette Medlin, director of marketing for Notes and Domino, announced the availability of Mobile Notes and I-Notes.

She said mobile users were a potentially important market for Lotus and predicted that within two to three years, the number of non-PC devices connected to the Internet will outstrip the number of connected PCs.

Mobile Notes will provide Notes software on all mobile devices including PDAs and WAP phones. I-Notes is designed to offer Notes to Internet-based devices enabling users to access mail and calendar services from the Domino server.

However, the Sametime applications needed for collaborative working will not feature in the software in the foreseeable future.

Rob Ingram, product marketing manager for Mobile Notes, also warned that users will only be able to connect to the corporate Domino server to retrieve or send mail and not Internet email.

Lotus is currently working with Nokia in a joint engineering agreement to port Mobile Notes to its smartphones. Medlin said the company is also negotiating a similar deal with Ericsson, but further details will not be announced until the end of March at the annual German CTExpo.

Lotus claims it is committed to industry standards in developing the Mobile Notes and I-Notes platforms.

"Java is very important on the server side and eventually we hope it will run efficiently on these services but right now you will not see us exploit it on the client side," Ingram said.

Richard Wendland, analyst at Durlacher, praised Lotus' efforts. He said: "It's a start. There are a number of technologies bursting onto the mobile market such as instant messaging and online collaboration."

Lotus' Ingram said the company is negotiating a number of contracts with service providers to offer the handset and services but declined to name the ISPs or comment on when the services will be available.