[680] in comp.os.os2.announce archive
PR: IBM/Lotus Strategy For Integrated Calendaring and Scheduling
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Mick Brown)
Sun Feb 18 12:08:11 1996
To: os2ann.DISCUSS@bloom-picayune.MIT.EDU
Date: 18 Feb 1996 00:18:47 GMT
From: lfirrantello@BIX.com (Mick Brown)
Reply-To: tsipple@vnet.IBM.COM
Reply-To: tsipple@vnet.IBM.COM
Submitted by: Timothy F. Sipples
Source: IBM, Lotus
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IBM/Lotus Announce Strategy For Integrated
Calendaring and Scheduling Across and Beyond
The Enterprise
Lotus to Provide Calendaring and Scheduling
Integration Across Lotus Notes, Organizer
And IBM OfficeVision; Supports the Internet
ORLANDO, FL., Jan. 22, 1996 -- IBM and Lotus Development Corp. today unveiled
a comprehensive calendaring and scheduling (C&S) strategy, based on Lotus
Notes Release 4 and the award-winning Lotus Organizer user interface, that
will include fully-functional C&S support in all Notes Release 4 clients
-Notes Mail, Notes Desktop and full Notes. Lotus also will provide complete
connectivity and interoperability between Notes and Organizer calendars, and
IBM OfficeVision calendars, to enable C&S users to confirm and schedule group
meetings across the enterprise. Scheduling between Organizer and Notes users
across the Internet will be provided through the SMTP/MIME Gateway for Notes
Release 4.
"Our calendaring and scheduling strategy is to offer customers a choice of
clients while enabling them to leverage their messaging infrastructure across
enterprise and inter-enterprise networks," said Michael D. Zisman, executive
vice president and CEO, Lotus Development Corp. "The combination of using
Organizer's award-winning UI with a back-end integration plan that supports
Notes, cc:Mail, and real-time connectivity to IBM OfficeVision calendars,
delivers to millions of users a comprehensive calendaring and scheduling
solution unmatched in the industry."
Users Choose the Client
Users will have a choice of clients, selecting any Notes client that supports
OS/2 Warp, Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows NT, Macintosh PowerPC and 68K, IBM
AIX, HP-UX, and Sun Solaris; or an Organizer client that supports Windows 95,
Windows NT, Macintosh System 7.5 or OS/2 Warp. These clients will be available
in the second half of 1996. Calendaring and scheduling functionality in Notes
clients will be identical with core C&S functionality in Organizer 2.1. The
C&S data will be stored inside the user's mail database and will appear as a
calendar folder as part of the user's Notes mail database. This will provide
Notes and Organizer clients with a common look and feel for daily, weekly and
monthly calendar views, as well as common terminology for creating
appointments or scheduling meetings.
In the Notes environment, Notes and Organizer clients will be fully
interoperable through the Notes data store and common scheduling services,
providing users and administrators with the benefits of Notes Release 4's
scalability, security and mobile enhancements. All Lotus C&S users receive the
benefits of scheduling meetings, synchronizing their calendars or making
appointments remotely using the Notes client, thus eliminating the need for a
real-time connection. When the user replicates his or her Notes client with
the Notes server, the other C&S users are automatically notified about the
meetings.
"The Lotus calendaring and scheduling strategy is a key component of how the
company is redefining the value proposition of messaging," said Bob Flanagan,
director of Inter/Enterprise Applications Research, The Yankee Group. "Lotus
continues to raise the bar in messaging by adding calendaring and scheduling
to Notes, plus integrating C&S with cc:Mail and OfficeVision as well as
supporting the Internet."
Support for IBM OfficeVision
For host connectivity, Lotus will deliver the Lotus OfficeVision (OV) Calendar
Connector which will give users bi-directional access to calendar and
scheduling information between Notes and IBM OfficeVision, supporting OV/VM,
OV/MVS and OV/400. The Lotus OfficeVision Calendar Connector will be available
in the second half of 1996 on Notes servers supporting Windows NT, OS/2 Warp
and IBM AIX.
"With the Lotus OV Calendar Connector, customers can leverage Lotus' strength
in desktop collaboration and IBM's expertise in host and client/server
calendaring to bring together their OfficeVision and LAN environments," said
Steve Mills, General Manager, IBM Software Solutions Division. "This will give
organizations the ability to effectively manage people, time and resources
across the enterprise."
Lotus will also provide a full-featured C&S client for cc:Mail users, taking
advantage of the next generation cc:Mail DB8 message store as the back-end
database for C&S data. In addition to the integration of Organizer with the
cc:Mail client and the cc:Mail DB8 message store, cc:Mail users will also have
C&S interoperability with Notes through the use of the cc:Mail Connector
running on the Lotus CommServer.
Schedule Meetings over the Internet
Lotus' advanced, messaging-based calendaring and scheduling architecture will
allow connectivity and integration across enterprise and inter-enterprise
networks. Notes and Organizer users will be able to schedule meetings with
their colleagues, vendors, customers and suppliers, across the Internet via
the SMTP/MIME Gateway, a high-fidelity Notes messaging gateway being designed
for the Lotus CommServer.
How It Works
The IBM/Lotus calendaring and scheduling solution seamlessly integrates Notes,
cc:Mail and OfficeVision environments. If users want to see the free and busy
timeslots available on other users' calendars, even for colleagues situated
halfway around the world, they simply point and click. A scheduling dialog box
prompts users for the meeting attendees' names--the very same names by which
those users are identified in the Notes Name & Address Book or cc:Mail
directories. From the data store, to the directory, to the client, the entire
automated scheduling process is integrated.
Lotus Notes is the leading client-server platform for developing and deploying
strategic groupware applications that help organizations communicate,
collaborate and coordinate strategic business processes within and beyond
their organizational boundaries to achieve improved business results. More
than 8,000 companies and 4.5 million people use Notes to improve key business
processes such as customer service, sales and account management, and product
development. Lotus Notes supports all major operating systems including IBM
OS/2 Warp, Apple Mac OS, UNIX platforms including IBM AIX, Sun Solaris, HP-UX,
and SCO OpenServer, and Microsoft Windows and Windows NT. Notes is also
available as a NetWare loadable module for the Novell environment.
Lotus Organizer is the industry's leading personal and group scheduler. Since
Organizer's introduction in 1992, the product has received more than 30 awards
for its usability and calendaring and scheduling functionality. Most recently,
Organizer has won PC Magazine's Network Edition Editors' Choice award for
group scheduling; Computer Shopper's "Tenth Annual Best Buy of 1995" award;
and PC World's "Best Buy" award. Lotus Development Corp., a subsidiary of IBM
Corp., offers high quality software products and support services that reflect
the company's unique understanding of the new ways in which individuals and
businesses must work together to achieve success. Lotus' innovative approach
is evident in a new class of applications that allows information to be
accessed and communicated in ways never before possible, both within and
beyond organizational boundaries. The company also provides numerous support
services, both from its consulting division and its award-winning 24-hour
support center.
-------------------------------------------------
All prices and terms are for the U.S. only. Notes prices are estimated retail
prices for volume purchases through Lotus' Passport Program.
Lotus, Lotus Notes, Lotus cc:Mail and Lotus Organizer are registered
trademarks of Lotus Development Corporation. Notes, cc:Mail and Organizer are
trademarks of Lotus Development Corporation. All other company names and
products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective
companies.
Editor's note: All Lotus news releases are available on the Internet, via the
Lotus Development Corp. Home Page at http://www.Lotus.com. The Lotus Home Page
is an easy way to find information about Lotus and its business partners'
products and services.
A copy of this release and other company information is also available via fax
by dialing 1-800-57-LOTUS within the U.S. and Canada or 201-946-2336 outside
the U.S. and Canada. Questions concerning the service should be directed to
Lotus' corporate communications department at 617-693-5625.
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