Lotus Notes now available for Linux

Lotus Notes, IBM’s former top titan of groupware, is now officially available for Linux. Notes which had previously been available to 125 million Windows and Mac users will now also run under the Eclipse Java framework inside of Linux machines. Existing users can freely port their licenses over to Linux.

Lotus Notes 7.0.1 client for Linux will ship officially ship later this month. Previously, companies had jury-rigged Notes to run on Linux machines through emulators like WINE or CrossOver Office. IBM’s move is significant because some companies and many consumers have put off switching to Linux because of the lack of native groupware software.

Notes for Linux won’t be entirely native Linux code because it will run inside of IBM’s Eclipse Java framework. According to IBM, developers can write programs once and have it run across many platforms. The same claims have been made by Java developers, claims which have been met with varying degrees of success.

Notes which allows people to email, chat and coordinate calendars requires a Lotus Domino server on the back-end. In contrast with the client software, Domino has been available for Linux for a while.