Upgrading to Lotus Domino 8.5

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Lotus Domino Server IconWell, it is finally here (for me), probably one of the biggest upgrades to Lotus Notes since the introduction of the “Domino” moniker back when I was still running it on OS/2.  OK, the 8.x release came out months ago but was missing a key feature that we use (roaming) but the “Gold” 8.5 release came out a few days ago, which put that feature back in.

So tonight is my upgrade of our primary production server to it.  I’ve been a Notes Developer/Admin/User since version 3 and wow has this come a long way since then.  Uber significant UI and functionality changes in the client really shine, never mind the ID vault and things like DAOS on the admin front.

Upgrades to new version of Lotus Domino have always proven way to simple (finding a large piece of wood to knock on) and as tested, this one should be no different.  I’ve done upgrades as a consultant to a certain other mail server and it was much more painful to me.  Am I against Microsoft Exchange, no, and as just a mail/calendar type server, it is fine, but for the way we use Notes here, doing it in the Microsoft world would be a massive undertaking of all sorts of other servers and applications.

People who “get” Notes, love it, and therein lies the problem – getting people to “get” it.  When IBM took over the Lotus brand, I didn’t expect the marketing to get better, and sorry IBM, but you have thus far proven to meet that expectation.

On a recent tweet by @chrismarquardt, he asked about year planner software for a Mac to which I said, “Lotus Notes is very happy on Macs these days” and his reply, “Lotus Notes? I had almost successfully forgotten it” and my reply, “You’d probably be surprised at what you see. IBM/Lotus made a rather large announcement at Macworld [2009]”.  After that, a few responses about how people hate Notes, wishing they never had to use it and other general derogatory remarks about it, my favorite, “Lotus Notes? Please do not mention it!! *&%$+” which just furthers my point about the lack of understanding of an otherwise great piece of software.

Do I work for IBM, nope, am I paid to say these things, nope, do they sponsor this site, nope – call me a Lotus fanboy if you like, but me, I like things that just work, and my Notes setup does just that.
Have a look at some other type of Lotus Fans.

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