IBM's Lotus Notes Users Access SAP Apps
Soon users of Lotus Notes will have the same access to SAP’s business applications as Microsoft Outlook and Exchange users have today. The jointly developed cross-platform application, announced at IBM’s Lotusphere in Orlando, is in answer to customer’s demands. With over 135 million users of Lotus Notes and a majority of its top customers using SAP, what seemed inevitable will finally come to fruition. Both companies will offer this application in the 4th quarter.
SAP's CTO, Vishal Sikka, stated in a press release:
Lotus has been an innovator in collaboration for 20 years. This agreement is a great example of how SAP enables our customers to empower their users by providing easy access to SAP business processes and data through productivity tools and user interfaces of their choice.
The new application is entitled “Atlantic”. Larry Barrett reports in his article IBM Teams Up With SAP on ‘Atlantic’:
While Atlantic will first provide support for SAP workflows, reporting and analytics, the two companies plan to include other tools in future releases to extend and adapt these collaboration capabilities and leverage additional offline features found in the Notes and Domino product lines.
In August, IBM began shipping Lotus Notes and Domino 8, the company's latest refresh of its flagship communications suite. Along with a snazzier user interface, Lotus Notes and Domino 8 included custom applications and Web 2.0 features such as mash-ups in the hopes of providing a more interactive user experience.
The integration of SAP’s business suite coupled with the new function-packed Lotus Notes 8, which allows independent software vendors the ability to develop new applications from their Notes dashboard, will further IBM’s quest to overtake Microsoft’s competitive advantage in unified communications and collaboration.
