The Client story
Before I cover WebSphere, Workplace and Java, though, let's try to clear up the Client story. Part of the Workplace product line is to be a new Rich Client, which will make its first appearance in Workplace 2.0, scheduled for around May this year.

This will be built upon the IBM-founded and now open-sourced Eclipse technology, using open Internet standards. It will run on Windows and Linux, and is expected to be available for the Mac. Initially the Rich Client is to provide a client experience for Workplace, meaning that serious Workplace users avoid many of the perils of browsers, the poor performance and frequent trips back to the server, mainly.

It incorporates a local data store, using the local Java 'DB2' called Cloudscape. SyncML is used to synchronise this with servers using the SyncML standard. This means that a full-function off-line experience, similar to that enjoyed by Notes users, can be provided.

IBM sees the ability of this client to deliver a client-side portal experience -- one where the assembly of components is managed at the client rather than at the server -- as a valuable differentiator. The traditional portal is all assembled at the server and sent as a whole to the client. Client-side portal capability can be a better way in many cases of tying disparate applications from different servers together than doing it at the portal server, and of course this is functionality that the Notes client already has.

This Rich Client is most likely to be used as the basis for Notes 8 and beyond. Screenshots, like that shown in Figure A, were displayed showing how this is expected to appear.

FIGURE A


Here's a rough screenshot, in the best resolution we were able to come up with. Roll over picture for a larger image.

The Lotus people I spoke with were a little coy about how this will actually work, saying that they have two alternatives being evaluated; the choice is over exactly how they will make this functionality work on Linux.

It seems that right now it works in the lab on Windows by actually using current Notes client components to do the work -- and of course right now there is no Linux Notes client. But the commitment to make it work on Linux, and the intention also for the Mac, was there. What we don't yet know is how it is planned to deliver Designer capabilities in the Notes 8 and beyond releases.

The W and J words
Now, let's discuss WebSphere, Workplace and Java.

Workplace is Lotus's new family of products, aimed at delivering the collaborative, people-centric functionality that Lotus have delivered in the Domino family, in a new, Internet-standards based manner, based on WebSphere Portal and J2EE standards -- that's the Java bit.

At last year's Lotusphere this was spoken of as the NextGen family, with the underlying message that it's the Notes and Domino replacement -- even though they didn't actually say that. Now the message is that the two product lines will continue side, by side "for the foreseeable future" and "as customers demand it,",though, as we have just seen, the Notes client is going to converge with the Workplace client within a couple of years or so.