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ZDNet - Ultimately, Lotus Notes is the favoured product .

Ultimately, Lotus Notes is the favoured product (provided that is linked to a Domino server!). Notes has a broad range of features and expands into a full, customisable office productivity tool suited to a range of platforms.

ZDNet has tested many alternatives to Microsoft Outlook, and Lotus Notes comes out on top.

IBM Lotus Notes 8.5

When Lotus Notes was first launched,it did not appear to be anything special — a standard-looking email client with calendar function, To-Do list and a built-in web browser. However, the application is actually much more than just an email client.

Whole applications such as customer relationship management packages have been built on Lotus Notes. CRM packages benefit greatly from having such tightly integrated email and calendar systems.

Lotus Notes is better compared to Microsoft Office or OpenOffice than with Outlook. It includes word processing, database,spreadsheet and presentation functionality. It differs from Microsoft Office only because everything is tightly integrated into a single application (instead of an application suite).

Lotus also includes a module called Sametime, which supports instant messaging, and voice and video calls similar to Skype. Sametime in its basic form is a free add-on, but more advanced features (such as telephony)require an additional outlay of cash.

Once open, clicking on the home button gains access to all the other installed components. The spreadsheet, presentation and word-processing components were not considered as part of this review — they constitute a package in their own right (called Symphony). This is a free and optional feature, which can also be used as a stand-alone product. (It can save files in Microsoft and OpenOffice formats.) Mail merges can make use of contact lists in Notes.

We expect that a product with a built-in web browser should not have problems with HTML emails, but some failures were observed with CSS elements. The Email Standards Project classes Lotus as"Poor" in this regard, but adds that this performance is greatly enhanced if Lotus is used in conjunction with a Lotus Domino Server. Better performance when matched with its mail server would hardly be a situation unique to Lotus.

Calendar features intended for use with email server interaction included multiple shared calendars. Purely local calendars are possible, but need to be set up separately to the account used for mail to prevent futile attempts to connect to the non-existent copy on the server. Email and calendar is stored locally and can be accessed while offline; synchronising with server occurs as soon as a connection is present.

The greatest assets of Lotus Notes remain integration and flexibility. The vast majority of users could easily complete all of their daily tasks without ever leaving Notes. It includes multifaceted communication and collaboration tools (including email, IM and video calls) as well as a full office suite (Symphony) and even web browsing.

Each application in use is only a tab away and finding unopened components is only as hard as clicking on the home button. Locating the workspace tab will grant further access to all components, including custom-built applications capable of harnessing diverse applications and Eclipse Java programming.

IBM offers 24/7 support for mission-critical problems and business hours support for less significant issues. The basic per user price is AU$160, but this can be reduced substantially when rolling out the product in a large organisation. Lotus operates under Windows, Linux and Mac operating systems. IBM also offers hosting services for desktop and web-based clients.

(Credit: Michael Palamountain/ZDNet.com.au)

(Credit: Michael Palamountain/ZDNet.com.au)

(Credit: Michael Palamountain/ZDNet.com.au)

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