IBM gives Microsoft angst with Lotus Notes Office

And there is this:

Lotus Notes plug-in for Linux heads up busy day for IBM at LinuxWorld

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By Peter Bochner
09 Aug 2005 | SearchDomino.com

Making good on its February promise to invest $100 million in IBM Workplace software for the Linux platform, IBM on Tuesday rolled out at LinuxWorld assorted software designed to help customers build the front end of a Linux solution.

Included is a plug-in that will allow Linux desktop customers to access Notes and Domino systems with a simple double-click, and run their existing Notes and Domino applications in a Workplace Managed Client environment, including those running on Linux. A beta of the Notes plug-in for Linux will also be available in Q3, with general availability planned for the first half of 2006.

"There's a lot of pent-up demand for a full Notes client as an offering for Linux."
Ken Bisconti
Vice President of Workplace, Portal and Collaboration products, IBM

"There's a lot of pent-up demand for a full Notes client as an offering for Linux," Ken Bisconti, vice president of IBM's Workplace, Portal and Collaboration products, told SearchDomino.com by phone from LinuxWorld in San Francisco. Although IBM has previously offered Web browser access for mail and calendar in a Linux desktop environment, "we have never had a full Notes client running in all its glory on a Linux operating system," he said.

"By supporting the full Notes client on Linux, a whole new set of Linux customers who want the full Notes experience now have the ability to run applications offline," said Bisconti. A similar product was previewed at Lotusphere 2005.

IBM will also announce today an agreement with Linux leader Red Hat that enables customers, particularly SMBs and departments in large companies, to evaluate IBM Workplace Services Express (WSE) v2.5 collaboration software running on Red Hat's Enterprise Linux operating system. With IBM WSE, customers can run a portal, e-mail, team rooms and IM on a single Red Hat Enterprise Linux server.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux and IBM WSE will be pre-installed in a VMware environment and packaged as a virtual machine that can be downloaded, beginning Sept. 1, from Red Hat Network.

IBM also announced at LinuxWorld that the next version of Domino Web Access, which allows users to access Domino functionality anywhere they can find an Internet connection, will add support for the Firefox Web browser. By adding support for Firefox 1.0.X, Domino Web Access joins IBM Workplace Managed Client -- IBM's Eclipse-based, server-managed client -- as part of IBM's client-side Linux offering.

In addition, an IBM Business Partner, Ericom Software, is displaying a Linux-based plug-in for Workplace Managed Client at IBM's LinuxWorld booth. Called PowerTerm Webconnect, the plug-in lets Linux desktop users access applications running on Windows Terminal Servers, Linux and legacy systems. The plug-in provides users with SSO access to multiple enterprise applications, and delivers them within a single portal environment. It also provides access to any document, of any file format, from within IBM Workplace software on a Linux desktop.

"We expect to see a growing number of Linux offerings for our Workplace Managed Client technology," Bisconti said. He told SearchDomino that he expected to see IBM ISVs come up with "accelerators, application plug-ins, forms plug-ins, plug-ins give you access to backend ERP, search plug-ins from end users and systems management capabilities."

Domino Web Access support for Firefox 1.0.X and Ericom's PowerTerm WebConnect plug-in for IBM WMC will be available in Q3.

When asked if he saw any signs that Microsoft was reducing its hostility towards Linux, Bisconti said, "Microsoft has been making a more public display of interoperability in Linux as well as with IBM's collaboration software. Microsoft is continuing to see customers growing their investments in Notes/Domino and IBM portal technologies. They are beginning to recognize that their attack on our customer base has not been working, so they've started carrying the message of interoperability, which, frankly, better serves customers."

For more coverage of LinuxWorld, visit SearchDomino.com's sister site SearchEnterpriseLinux.com.

Interesting. I don't suppose the market could be saturated because of the long gap between versions of both Office and Windows. I would think everyone would just buy a new version of Office at the same time they got a new computer, but they probably haven't done that in some time (at least on a large scale) because there hasn't been any reason like a new OS.

Lots of things happening in efforts to get some of the Microsoft market.

Was just looking at this:

ODF Workshop

******************************************************

Platinum Sponsor:

Silver Sponsors:

Media Sponsors:

ODF Workshop

Date: Feb 10, 2006
Location: Los Angeles Airport Radisson
Registration: E-mail

In partnership with The Open Document Fellowship, the Southern California Linux Expo (SCALE) has announced plans to host a workshop on open standards in government at their upcoming conference, SCALE 4x. The focus of this workshop will be on the use of OASIS OpenDocument Format for Office Applications (ODF) and document accessibility standards in state and local government. The goal of this event is to foster a discussion about choice in software and open standards at all levels of California government. The workshop will be held on February 10, 2006 at the Los Angeles Airport Radisson and will lead into SCALE 4x, the 2006 Southern California Linux Expo.

Topics to be covered at this workshop include:

Benefits of open standards versus their proprietary counterparts.
Technical merits of OpenDocument and XML-based file formats.
Avoiding vendor lock-in: The importance of choice in software for government organizations and their constituents.
The security benefits of heterogeneous software environments.

February 10th: ODF Workshop Schedule

Time	ODF Workshop
12:00pm-12:50pm	Check In
1:00pm-1:50pm	Keynote - Peter Quinn (Former MA CIO)
1:50pm-2:00pm	Break
2:00pm-2:50pm	Doug Heintzman (IBM)
2:50pm-3:00pm	Break
3:00pm-3:50pm	Gary Edwards (OpenOffice.org)
3:50pm-4:00pm	Break
4:00pm-4:50pm	J. David Eisenberg (OpenDocument Fellowship)
4:50pm-5:00pm	Break
5:00pm-6:00pm	Susy Strubl (Sun Microsystems)
6:00-7:00pm	Questions and Answers

About The OpenDocument Format (ODF):

OpenDocument (ODF) is a file format developed by OASIS, a standards body focused on structured documents and XML. ODF is intended as an open, cross platform, and vendor independent standard for editable office documents including: text documents, spreadsheets, charts, graphical documents, and databases. The format competes with Microsoft's Office 2003 and Office 12 XML file formats.

ODF is supported by a wide range of software companies, government organizations, and open-source projects including: Sun Microsystems, IBM, Novell, Adobe, Corel, The National Archives of Australia, and others. Applications which currently support ODF include: OpenOffice.org, KOffice, Sun's StarOffice, and IBM Workplace. The royalty free and open license under which ODF is released will allow any individual or organization to develop competing products based on this format, without restrictions. This openness prevents vendor lock in, increases marketplace competition and provides consumers with a wide variety of choices in office suites.About the Southern California Linux Expo (SCALE):

The Southern California Linux Expo is the premier grass roots Linux and Open Source Software conference in the United States. SCALE 4x, their fourth annual event, will be held on February 11th and 12th, 2006 at the Los Angeles Airport Radisson. SCALE will includes seminars by leaders from the open source community, tutorials for beginners, and an exhibit hall with both vendor booths and non-commercial booths. Linux Expo of Southern California, Inc. is a non-profit organization currently comprised, but not limited to, members of the USCLUG, UCLALUG, and SCLUG. For more information see http://www.socallinuxexpo.org

###

Media Inquiries:
Orv Beach
info@socallinuxexpo.org

Workshop Registration:
Ilan Rabinovitch
odf@socallinuxexpo.org
818-442-1865 Voice

Event Sponsorship:
Ilan Rabinovitch
ilan@socallinuxexpo.org
818-442-1865 Voice

Great! They're bringing back Ami Pro!

Now IBM can claim to again have a worthless office suite no one will again bother to buy.

I have no idea how they are getting a figure of more than 1 out of every 3 people in America as having a valid license for Lotus Notes.

The company I worked for some years ago bought a large batch of Notes licenses, but users complained the environment was too frustrating to use. The licenses sit, unused, as I would imagine with most other entities.

And upgrades supplant prior licenses, IBM, it doesn't add to them.

Bring back Lotus AGENDA!!!! The best free form database ever!

BUMP!

That send me on a googling travel,...found this:

Lotus Agenda Wannabe?

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Ten Reasons Why

Unclarifying the issues since 2000 (off and on)

« New Year, New Design | Main | Pet Peeve #73 »

Lotus Agenda Wannabe?

One of my ongoing pain points is managing the crapload of information I have to track. To do lists just don't cut it for me and I've managed to narrow my Inbox down to about 1500 items (and about 1800 in Sent Items). Manually organizing them into the several hundred folders I now have in Outlook has ceased to be productive. So here's my request: does anybody know of an alternative to Lotus Agenda that is affordable (preferably free or at least has a free trial) built on relatively modern (e.g. post-DOS era) technology for Windows?

Remember Lotus Agenda from way back in the DOS days? That would be the perfect tool. And, yes, I know you can still dig it up online, but I'm not so desperate (yet) that finding it and dealing with the awkward install and lack of documentation just to be stuck in DOS hell outweighs the Outlook hell I'm in now. If you don't know what Lotus Agenda was/is, here's a description [source]:

A typical Agenda screen is divided into three columns: one in which you enter the specific piece of information ("Call Mom," "Sell Yahoo stock," "Memorize Hamlet," etc.), one for date, and one for priority. Those left-side specific pieces of information can be further divided into categories ("Calls," "Memos," "Ideas," etc.). Without doing any manipulation of your data structure, then, Agenda lets you view your data in four ways: organized by category, specific piece of information, date, and priority. Then you can assign your specific pieces of information to more than one category. And without noticing it, any words in a specific piece of information that are also names of categories automatically are filed into that category as well as any others you want to stick it into. For example, if you have categories called "Mary," "Sally," and "Sales" and you have a specific piece of information that reads "Tell Mary that Sally needs sales reports today," the item will automatically show up into those three categories--plus, because you used the word "today," Agenda will file the item by date, too.
This may seem like a lot of redundancy, but it turns out to be an efficient way of storing and deploying information. By placing specific items into multiple categories, any view you choose will reveal all relevant items. In other words, Agenda manages its database of information in the opposite way of traditional databases. In relational database-management programs like Access and Paradox, you build a structure for your data first. Only after the structure is set can you enter data. With Agenda, you input your ideas while they're hot, and then work with the program to figure out where they belong in your structure-in-progress.

And, yes, I know Chandler is supposed to be able to provide some of that functionality, but since it's a really thin 0.2 release at this point, that doesn't help me much.

Ideas?

Posted by Greg on January 30, 2004 06:20 PM | Permalink

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Comments

I totally agree. Have you found anything yet. I used Agenda back when and have never found anything anywhere close to as good.

I need the same solution NOW.

Looking forward to hearing what you find.

Posted by: Rod Deter | February 16, 2004 08:30 PM

Even if the new Lotus suite is not popular (or is just as
unpleasant to use as the legacy suite), this is welcome
news. It will boost the uptake of ODF, which MS will be
very late in supporting (and may never support for
round-tripping and/or all features).

Anyone who wants to be able to read their own format-rich
documents in 10 years, without paying continuous tribute
to Redmond, is seriously looking at what native format to
use. .Doc has never been a credible standard for this.
PDF is not round-trip. HTML is insufficiently featured.

But HTML was powerful enough to drive all other page
formats from the nascent web. ODF may do likewise.

We have Word on a machine at home, and I've worked where
it was standard, but .doc is too risky to send to people.
Even if they have Word, it doesn't need to be too many
revs old and they can't read your document. Sure, you can
send as .RTF, but .ODF is already beyond what .RTF can do.

More searching:

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Running MS-DOS on the Linux Operating System

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Note! This documentation has likely become dated, but hopefully serves as a general guide for building Dosemu up to versions 1.0.x from source.

Page index

Introduction
Installing dosemu
Configuring dosemu
- /etc/dosemu.users
- /etc/dosemu.conf
- CONFIG.SYS
- AUTOEXEC.BAT
XDos
Nits and errata

1. Introduction

The Linux Operating System right now is the hottest OS in the PC world. Perhaps you've heard of it and wanted to give it a try, but don't care to give up your favorite MS-DOS programs. Since Linux is based around the standards and file formats of the UNIX world, it is not designed to run MS-DOS or MS Windows programs natively. However, efforts have been under way now to provide Linux (and some other Unices) a way to run MS-DOS programs. The Intel x86 series of microprocessors since the 80386 have contained a feature known as Virtual 86 that allows the microprocessor in conjunction with supporting software to mimic the behavior of an 8086 based computer (in fact multiple virtual 86 machines can exist at once). This combination of hardware and software allows an environment to be created that allows MS-DOS programs to run as if they are being run by themselves on an 8086 machine. MS Windows uses this technique to run DOS programs and multi-task them with Windows programs. Such a program written for Linux is known as dosemu, or the DOS EMUlator.

Dosemu isn't so much an emulator of MS-DOS as it is a PC emulator as it creates a virtual 8086 PC in your computer's memory and boots DOS. Once DOS is running many programs written for DOS (including Windows after a fashion!) may now be run. Dosemu provides programs access to real hardware including the serial ports and disk drives. Much of the configuration is done by editing a few text configuration files. Two of these reside in the main Linux directory for configuration files and the rest reside in a special file dosemu creates which DOS accesses as a bootable disk drive.

Top

2. Installing dosemu

If you are lucky, your Linux distribution has already installed dosemu for you, if not, then you'll want to get the latest source (or rpm or deb file if your distribution supports either) from http://www.dosemu.org/ Go to the stable release page and get the latest version (0.98.4 was current as of this writing. Later versions may require subtle changes). After downloading, you need to uncompress the archive. A good place to do this is in ~/src (use the mkdir command to create the directory "src" under your home directory. Copy the archive to ~/src, change directory to ~/src and extract it using the following command:

~/src $ tar xvfz dosemu-0.98.4.tgz

This will create a directory dosemu-0.98.4 in ~/src and create a number of other sub-directories and put all the necessary files in the right places. Next change directory to dosemu-0.98.4 (or whatever the name is for the version you're installing) and look for the file called QuickStart (the ls command is your friend and is similar to the DOS dir command). You can use the less command to view this file like this:

~/src/dosemu-0.98.4 $ less QuickStart

less is a program that allows you to page forward and backward while viewing files. A real friend when getting started with Linux is the GNU Midnight Commander. This a Norton Commander clone that makes file management a snap and also has a built-in file viewer. Later versions include a text editor as well.

You should be able to print the QuickStart file with this command:

~/src/dosemu-0.98.4 $ lpr QuickStart

This assumes your /etc/printcap file is configured for your printer. If not, consult the Printing-HOWTO and the Printing-usage-HOWTO. If they weren't installed by your distribution, you can find them at the Linux Documentation Project at http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/ along with a number of other HOWTOs. You may also want to print out the README.txt file in the dosemu doc directory as it documents the configuration files.

If you have used Linux for a while, QuickStart will provide most of what you need to know to compile and install dosemu and get it running. Otherwise a good place to start is the dosemu-HOWTO in the doc directory. Keep in mind this program is in rapid development and good documentation is a bit scarce. Following the steps in the QuickStart file should at least get dosemu compiled and installed in such a way so that you can play with it and get DOS programs up and running. Fine tuning can be done later.

If you have X running, there is a TCL/Tk script file that eases configuring and compiling dosemu. I assume you have an XTerm window open. In the dosemu directory type the following command to start the script:

$ ./setup-dosemu

A window should open allowing you to change some default settings in dosemu. You shouldn't need to change anything so just click OK.

Next click the Configure/Make button.

After configure is done a window will open showing configure's output.

Next click OK.
Next click Compile dosemu.

dosemu will now be compiled. When it is finished a window will open showing the output of make and gcc and will allow you to exit the script.

Now you'll need to log in as root or superuser. you can do this from your XTerm by using the su command and entering your root password. Now you may continue with section 2 of QuickStart and perform the tests outlined there.

Next from the dosemu directory type:

/home/yourusername/src/dosemu-0.98.4 # make install

This will install the dosemu files in all the right places (hopefully) so you may now configure dosemu, test your configuration and run dosemu as a normal user in the future.

Following each step closely should result in a working dosemu. If something goes wrong, don't be afraid to back up a step or two and do it again. Sometimes doing it over a time or two makes for a better install! (Remember this program implements DOS ;-) )

Top

3. Configuring dosemu

Even though I have run dosemu 0.66.7 for some time, this document will deal with configuring the later stable release, the 0.98.x series.

Okay, everything has been installed, you can start dosemu with the dos -C command and you are able to boot the hdimage partition. Now you'll have to get things a bit customized. I'm no expert at getting dosemu configured in every situation, but have managed to get my system running. Here is a basic layout of my hard drives which will help explain my files and the choices I made.

Linux Device      mounted as     DOS Drive
/dev/hda1          /DOS/C/           C:
/dev/hda2          /                --
/dev/hda5          /DOS/E/           E:
/dev/hdb1          /DOS/D/           D:
/dev/hdc           /cdrom/           F:

The programs I use are installed in /DOS/D/. I think this made it easier to get dosemu going as I didn't have to have to deal with the hassle of re-mapping drive C: to /DOS/D/ after booting to the hdimage.

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`/etc/dosemu.users`

Configuring my dosemu installation consisted of editing four files. The first is /etc/dosemu.users and it is touched on briefly in section 3 of QuickStart. Copying dosemu.users.easy from the dosemu etc directory as per QuickStart should get you going.

This file will suffice to start, however, if your machine is on any kind of network, be sure to follow the security advice in the dosemu documentation.

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`/etc/dosemu.conf`

The file you will really need to change is /etc/dosemu.conf Be careful as some of the settings fundamentally change the way dosemu behaves. Here are the lines I changed from the supplied file that seems to work reasonably well.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

$_cpu = (80486)         # CPU emulation, valid values:  80[345]86

$_speaker = "emulated"  # or "native" or "emulated"

$_term_char_set = "ibm" # Global code page and character set selection.
                        # "" == automatic, else: ibm, latin, latin1, latin2

$_rawkeyboard = (1)     # bypass normal keyboard input, maybe dangerous

$_com2 = "/dev/cua1"    # e.g. "/dev/modem" or "/dev/cua1"

---------------------------------------------------------------------

The cpu setting may or may not make a difference, but it's what is in this box.

Emulated speaker allows PC Speaker sound to be played very well in this version.

Setting the terminal character set to IBM allows programs to display its graphics characters as in DOS/Win.

Raw keyboard seems to work better and I haven't had any problems with this parameter set.

If your program needs to use the serial ports, configure those here. I've configured COM 2 in DOS which translates to /dev/ttyS1 in Linux.

I didn't do any special mouse configuration and found that it does work in DOS EDIT running in XDos (more on that below).

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`CONFIG.SYS`

Just like a bootable DOS disk, the hdimage has a CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT. Here is what my CONFIG.SYS looks like.

files=20
device=c:\emufs.sys /DOS/D/
device=c:\emufs.sys /DOS/E/
device=c:\emufs.sys /cdrom/
device=c:\ems.sys

The emufs.sys driver maps the Linux path you specify to a DOS drive, kind of like the DOS SUBST command. Note I mapped the CD-ROM which allows KaGold (a DOS based packet radio program) access to my QRZ callbook. These mappings present the same drive structure to KaGold as under DOS/Win except that drive C: is only 1 Meg under Linux as opposed to 400+ under DOS/Win.

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`AUTOEXEC.BAT`

Here is my simple AUTOEXEC.BAT.

@echo off
set path=c:\;d:\ham\kagold;d:\ct
set CTPATH=D:\CT

Not much there. Notice the CT configuration? Just testing for now...

These are the settings in the various files that allow me to run KaGold in X using the xdos program to start DOS and then I simply type kagold at the C:\> prompt to start it.

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4. XDos

Dosemu can be run from a virtual terminal on the console and will look just like a full screen DOS application. Alternatively, you can use the XDos program provided by the Dosemu package. If you built Dosemu while still in the X Window environment, you'll want to restart X as two VGA font files are installed and X needs to reread its fonts.

Now that X has been restarted, you can start XDos from an XTerm or add it to your Window Manager's menu. Check to be sure everything starts normally and you should be able to run your DOS programs along side your X programs. Exceptions will likely be those programs that use the graphics hardware.

Since I use IceWm, there is an option you'll need to add to ~/.icewm/winoptions so that functions are passed to the application, so, add the following line:

XDosEmu.fullKeys: 1

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5. Nits and errata

Okay, dosemu is evolving and some things may get fixed or broken between releases. Even though 0.98.4 is the "stable" branch it is still beta software as it is prior to version 1.0.0. Mostly I can tell little difference between the first version I tried, 0.66.7 and 0.98.4, but here is a short list of what I've found.

Serial comms speed seems to be improved slightly.

Morse announcements were not audible in 0.66.7 and work fine, better than Windows, in 0.98.4.

The cursor which should appear in the transmit text line at the bottom of the screen is not there in 0.98.4. It remains in the upper left hand corner of the screen. Connect to your mailbox and you'll see it. This problem didn't exist in 0.66.7 so I hope it will be one of those version specific bugs.

There is hope....this Dos Emulator thing is still active:

DOSEMU.org

********************AN EXCERPT ****************************

NEWS NEWS NEWS

DOSEMU 1.2.2 is out and can be obtained here.
The new developers version DOSEMU 1.3.3 is out and can be obtained here
Subversion is now used for source code management.

Lotus AGENDA!

And Lotus Improv - the best spreadsheet for modeling ever.

And Lotus Approach - best personal database ever.

And Lotus Magellan - best desktop search tool ever.

But especially Improv.

Wow, did these articles take me back. I'd long forgotten about most of these programs that I had experimented with (of course, as a stockholder, I also tried IBM's Warp). Fun memories, actually.

I still have my discs for Agenda and Improv. I didn't use Improv much, but I do remember that I liked the program. I remember many good comments about Magellan, but I never used it. Lotus had some awfully good stuff!

I really liked OS/2 , course it wasn't MVS level stuff, but always hoped for VM on the PC's...

Next time someone tells me I'm overpaying for a Mac and could be running Linux for less money, I'm sending them to your post. I think it's cool for guys who want to get under the hood on these systems, but this almost reads like a Dilbert Parody (To call up the help menu, press CTRL+ALT+F4+Delete. You can then edit the source code directly.)

I still use Improv, as my primary spreadsheet, now on Windows XP SP2. The program files are dated between April 1991 and January 1993.

Now don't make fun of us, if we had waned a total cocoon we would have bought a Mac.....barf.

had wanted....sorry about that.

If you have some old games, ....found this:

Package: dosbox (0.63-2.1)
A x86 emulator with Tandy/Herc/CGA/EGA/VGA graphics, sound and DOS

****************

Dosbox is a x86 emulator with Tandy/Hercules/CGA/EGA/VGA graphics, sound and DOS. It's been designed to run old DOS-games under platforms that don't support it. (Win2k/XP/FreeBSD/Linux)

The folowing legacy sound devices are emulated: PC Speaker, Creative CMS/Gameblaster, Tandy 3 voice, Adlib, Sound Blaster Pro, Disney Soundsource and a Gravis Ultrasound. MPU-401 is forwarded to the host.

Homepage: http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/