Notes expands its client options.(Product Development)

Lotus Development's second public beta of Release 5 (R5) of the Notes client and Domino server adds impressive improvements that will help dispel the notion that Lotus is a proprietary groupware solution. With the addition of Internet standards, the Notes client can now be used with or without a Domino server. Likewise, the Domino server can support clients other than Notes.

Internet standards support in the R5 version of Notes, Domino, and the development tool known as Designer pits Lotus against some familiar as well as some new rivals. In some areas, such as the addition of lightweight directory access protocol support, Lotus is playing catch-up with rival clients from Microsoft and Netscape, which already have the feature.

This beta version adds integrated search capabilities to the Notes client. This feature allows the end-user to seek data whether stored locally, on the Web, or in Domino databases. These searching capabilities raise the ante for rivals such as Microsoft Exchange and Outlook.

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