IBM releases its own branded version of Notes

IBM said today that it has released its own branded version of Notes, that one that replaces Lotus Notes.

Big Blue pointed out that Notes' social media features and its ability to create embedded experiences in a new email package that aims to let you spend more time each day doing email.

Of course, there are some in the business community that will tell you spending more time each day doing more emails may not be your best way to achieve more productivity, but IBM's goal to have you spend more time using an email client is not an act of sadism.

Instead, the company believes that many knowledge workers already spend up to 80 percent of their working day in their inbox. Pumping apps into inboxes (the essence of embedded experiences) therefore makes sense to Big Blue, as it means less time wasted moving between various applications and more time being productive inside email communications.

It's possible to create embedded experiences in IBM Notes and Domino 9.0 Social Edition, thanks to the use of Open Social APIs to view applications' screens calling for user interaction into email or calendar items.

This arrangement seemingly offers the chance to build various workflows that rely on email correspondance as their carrier but don't require the application to be deeply integrated with the email/collaboration services server.

IBM Australia's messaging and collaboration executive Chris Haylock said that this could even mean the likes of SAP making an 'appearance' inside email. IBM's using the term “social business” with an alarming frequency these days, insisting that sharing data is the new key to productivity.

Notes 9.0 therefore offers a Twitter-like internal social network, integrated into the email client itself, so the social-style interaction is never more than a click or two away.

In fact, IBM says that bringing in other social media networks should be possible if they're wired for OpenSocial.

Haylock is optimistic that these new features are just what business wants. He added that 2012 was an exceptional year for Notes/Domino inasmuch as the platform secured over 1600 reinstatements from users who had previously abandoned it for other email client solutions. Haylock said that's the most such reversals IBM has ever seen.

The company has other social and collaborative solutions coming soon, with Haylock saying an on-premises version of personal productivity suite IBM Docs is already under development. That suite will be using the Cloud.