#dominoforever – IBM Notes and Domino V10
Frankfurt turns yellow – Now it’s time to take off!
Since the birth of Lotus Notes 1.0 on December 7, 1989, new versions of IBM Notes have been released at regular intervals. In October 2018 (almost 30 years later) the long-awaited release of version 10 took place.
The world premiere of Domino V10 took place on 9 October 2018 in Frankfurt Cape Europe in front of a tense Notes and Domino community. The event drew over 350 spectators to Frankfurt and over 7000 spectators followed the live broadcast. This event was not only about the Domino V10, but also about the recently announced partnership between IBM and HCL as well as Notes V10, Verse on Premises 1.0.5 and Verse Mobile 9.5.1.
What is so special about this update?
Domino V10 is also so interesting because the Indian company HCL recently started a cooperation with IBM Notes: HCL took over the departments product, development and support, sales and marketing remained with IBM.
In addition, IBM Notes has been polarizing very strongly for a long time. There is an inveterate community of Notes fans as well as passionate opponents. Discussions take place regularly in forums, with one argument appearing again and again: Anyone who perceives IBM Notes as a pure mail program has not understood Notes/Domino or underestimated the possibilities it offers. Furthermore, the software has long had the prejudice that it is not particularly modern and even bulky.
For quite some time now, rumors have been circulating that IBM Notes as a product will no longer be pushed forward or even discontinued in the future. But as they say: There’s life in the old dog yet.. IBM Notes in cooperation with HCL has now returned and released Domino V10, a big, eagerly awaited update.
The idea of a community is pushed forward
With this release, IBM Notes shows itself to be much fresher and more modern. This is also shown by the hashtags that have been put into circulation in this context. They show clearly: The The idea of a community is pushed forward. Large events are organized by IBM and HCL to gather input from the community. This strengthens the cohesion of the yellow fans and creates the idea that everyone can participate in the product. Customers and partners are involved in the product development. The community idea is particularly evident in the regular “jam sessions”, in which customers are questioned about their wishes, including design thinking workshops and a 3-day online jam.
Hashtags on the topic
The basic idea of Domino V10 – What’s new?
In retrospect, we can summarize by saying that this update was expected with particularly strong excitement, anticipation and curiosity. Apart from the cooperation with HCL, this was also due to the fact that there had only been FixPacks and Feature Packs for about 5 years before and therefore there were no significant innovations. There have been voices accusing IBM of losing its passion for the product. Then version 9, which was released in 2013, was called the “Social Edition”. This version was supposed to be more modern and brought development support for mobile devices and applications. Nevertheless, it seemed that it was the collaboration with HCL that gave the new impetus and has now really brought a breath of fresh air with the release of version 10:
Main highlights of Domino V10
- Central basic idea: One should be able to develop Apps comfortably and fast / focus with Notes V10 should lie on the self-developed applications
- The speed since the cooperation with HCL has been significantly increased: V10 will be followed by V11 in 2019.
- HCL emphasizes: Notes applications are often used where they have been individually adapted to the business processes; this should be supported.
- The central idea of V10 should therefore be application development, its provision and operation. This has become faster, more modern and scores with lower total cost of ownership.
- IBM Notes to be used on the iPad in the future
- Domino Designer is optimized for mobile presentations and adaptations and should no longer address purely specialized Notes developers
- Notes client and Verse get new features and workspace improvements
- Many companies are less interested in the cloud and want to store their data internally. This should be supported by Notes.
- Another important point is that customers naturally want to continue using their existing code and data. This is now supported by Node.js, JavaScript technologies and the Domino Query Language (DQL).
- Specialized Domino programmers have become rare and are in great demand, this problem is now to be improved by the fact that Domino applications can now be created via JavaScript. This should appeal to many, new, especially young developers.
- With the client solution IBM Domino Mobile App for the Apple iPad, it will now be possible to access existing applications offline from mobile devices.
- Another new feature is the “container technology” with docker (applications are only bundled with parts of the operating system, which ensures greater efficiency).
- There is a new browser-based HTML5 interface with a modern design.
- Domino 10 brings some new customization options for the Notes user interface: For example, you can adapt Workspace Background and Custom Color Themes, i.e. adapt them to the corporate design of the company.
- Also important for developers: You can now take advantage of any REST API and perform full-stack web development with Domino. So you can extend any Domino application with the tools you already know well, or access data within a Domino database.
And now it’s getting exciting: Is there going to be a huge comeback or not?
It’s still too early to judge, but the next few years will show whether IBM Notes/Domino can score with the brand new Version 10 and the cooperation with HCL. Will it even experience a huge comeback? How will the new functions be received in practice and what will the V11 update bring? It is certain that Domino V11 will continue to focus on what was once the origin of Notes, namely end users who develop applications themselves. So concentrate on the former strength, the basic idea and thereby use modern solutions and nevertheless bring along an openness for cooperatives.
Important Events & Reading Tip
Before the 30th anniversary of Lotus Notes aka IBM Notes will be celebrated on 7 December 2019, there will be some events that are important for Notes/Domino users!
Our event recommendation for all those for whom the „Bleed Yellow Party“ of DNUG in october was not enough:
DNUG Domino Day on 15 November 2018!! This is about usability for Domino administrators and Notes/Verse users. In addition, Domino for JavaScript developers will be improved. Furthermore it is about the integration with Microsoft and further collaborations. (This is a concrete preparatory work for Domino V11!) – The results and the further procedure will then be announced at the IBM Think in february 2019 in San Francisco.
– The 46th DNUG Conference will take place this summer: #dnug46 on june 4 and 5, 2019 – annual conference in Essen, Germany.