The best technical solution would be to replace the Domino Servlet Manager completely and thus allow both Domino and WebSphere application developers to create more portable and better servlets.

Porting servlet-based Domino applications to WebSphere
Replacing the Domino Servlet Manager with a version of WebSphere would mean that servlet-based Domino add-ons would either evolve into WebSphere applications or be replaced by superior applications built on WebSphere: including Sametime, Domino Everyplace Access Server (DEAS), Domino Everyplace Enterprise Server (DEES), and other products. This requires a well-developed set of Domino Java APIs, and further Java integration will certainly be a significant part of NextGen.

Portals of the future
This would also go a long way towards solving the problem of overlapping intranet portal solutions across Domino and WebSphere. Initially we can expect Web access to Domino mail and applications to move over from the current Domino Web architecture (which still reflects aspects of R4.6) to WebSphere. Domino's core IT applications will become a plug-in for the WebSphere Portal. This means that customers with WebSphere can drop in Domino to provide an integrated intranet portal and that Domino customers can extend their Domino infrastructure to an industrial-strength portal platform with broad functionality.

Although replacing the Domino Servlet Manager with WebSphere, introducing a new set of native Java APIs in Domino, and unifying servlet-based Domino add-ons with those of WebSphere into a single collaborative application suite is more than sufficient to fully define NextGen, further integration remains possible.

Unified middleware connector architecture
Among other things, Domino is also a middleware platform. It might make sense to converge the middleware connector architectures of both Domino and WebSphere into a single middleware product. This would result in a single code base for Domino and WebSphere connectors and improve code reusability and portability of middleware components between Domino and WebSphere.

Ron Herardian is CEO and Chief Technical Consultant at GSS (Global System Services). You can reach Ron via email at rherardi@gssnet.com, or via his web page at http://www.gssnet.com.