IBM’s effort to make its Notes/Domino platform relevant for the future kicks up a gear this week, as the company prepares a second beta of a new version 10. Notes combined messaging and an application development environment, which set hearts a-fluttering in the early-to-mid 1990s. IBM laid out a then-record $3bn to acquire …

Episode 18 "You know what Google has that we don't have?" the new Boss asks, wandering around Mission Control like the lord of all he surveys. "No conscience?" the PFY asks. "A sh*tload of cash?" I respond. "Much better PR?" the PFY adds. "A global presence?" I suggest. "A tax-avoidance philosophy which is second to few?" "NO!" the …

If you think your IT role is demanding, imagine needing to do a major install every couple of weeks. You only have a day to do it, you can't visit the site before, and it may be in incredibly hot, wet or dusty conditions. What you install has to deal with huge quantities of data and be 100 per cent reliable. Nine nines is not …

EMC is providing skads of storage to Formula One wannabee winner Lotus for a chance at Grands Prix glory. F1 regulations are going to change in 2014, mandating hybrid, turbo-charged V6 engines instead of the current normally aspirated V8s. So Lotus decided it need a wholesale storage refresh to help with the changeover. The …

I remember Lotus 1-2-3 very well. It really was as widely used as all the history-of-Lotus stories claim it was. In fact, back around, say, 1984, when almost no software package had a monopoly, Lotus already had its particular niche locked up tightly. That’s right: WordPerfect was still a serious competitor to Microsoft Word …

AnalysisLotus 1-2-3, released on 26 January 1983, was not the first spreadsheet. That achievement belongs to VisiCalc, invented by Dan Bricklin at Harvard, programmed mainly by Bob Frankston, and released for - surprise - the Apple II in 1979. But as I fired up 1-2-3 on its 30th anniversary, I was reminded that while it wasn't an …

Before Apple and Google turned computing into a webified, personalised and mobile experience, there was Microsoft. It was Microsoft that set the computing paradigm with a layer of software called Windows, which made computing personal, powerful and affordable when married with Intel chips. But before all of them, there was Lotus …

UpdateLotus Notes is no more and will henceforth be known as ... drumroll please … IBM Notes. Big Blue quietly let it be known the Lotus brand will disappear in the forthcoming version 9.0 of Notes and Domino, products that back in 1995 were so desirable it wrote a check for $US.3.52bn to acquire them. That acquisition was …

One of the key brand names tossed around in relation to smartphone and tablets this year has been Corning's Gorilla Glass. Next year, it may be Lotus Glass. Corning announced Lotus' commercial availability yesterday, and immediately began touting the display material's suitability for "cutting-edge technologies", including …

Team Lotus started out with four people in late 2009, and has grown to 200 people and two Formula One cars today. It only got a guaranteed place on the starting grid in December 2009 - and then had to create a team, a car and an infrastructure in four months. Sorting out a normal office network and backup systems in that time …

A new study from German web analytics firm Webmasterpro.de shows that adoption rates of open source productivity software suites swings wildly between different countries. According to the study, over 20 per cent of Germans, Czechs, and Poles run OpenOffice or other open-source productivity suites, while the UK and US lag …

You have to leave it to IBM and Microsoft. The two won't let a small thing like a shrinking market douse the fire of a heated rivalry over business collaboration wares. The business collaboration market is hot right now. Red hot! Well, hypothetically red hot. But that's reason enough for these software giants to make some very …

Another Lotusphere is behind us, with news for IBM's business hivemind and collaboration software aplenty. But why does Big Blue host its shindig way over in Orlando, Florida, when it's easier to peek at Google's portfolio on the other coast? Lotusphere 2010 was a bit unusual in that it didn't completely revolve around the …

IBM isn't forgetting about Google's mobile OS after squeezing Lotus Notes onto the iPhone and the BlackBerry. Big Blue has said that an Android-based app for Lotus Notes is now in the works. Deadline: before Microsoft makes its own Android-based app for Exchange. Lotus Notes Traveler Companion, IBM's first application for the …

IBM is giving its researchers a new pipeline to show off early versions of net-based Lotus collaboration tools. As part of its annual Lotusphere conference on Monday, the company also provided a peek at what it sees as the future of the business collaboration suite, a thing called "Project Vulcan." Taking a page from Google …

Open source vendor Alfresco Software is rolling its enterprise content management (ECM) system into IBM's Lotus collaboration products to serve as a stronger counterpoint to Microsoft Sharepoint and reach smaller-sized business customers. The company is also teaming with RightScale's software-as-a-service cloud management …

IBM is sinking its teeth deeper into government IT today with a new software framework that joins the company's expansive middleware portfolio into a neat package for The Man 2.0. The new IBM Government Industry Framework is designed for government citizen services – a market that covers nearly everything fed except defense …

Leccy TechThe evidence that Lotus may launch a leccy version of its Evora sports car is mounting, following a leaked company presentation highlighting how the model could be used as the basis for a sporty e-car. Lotus' Evora: is a leccy model be in the works? Lotus’ engineering document outlines the Evora’s suitability as an electric …