Rob's Blog

3/3: Lotus Foundations getting ready for the mainstream

This year I went to Lotusphere for the first time.  What made me go this year when I couldn't justify it to myself in previous years?

Well one key reason was Lotus Foundations.  Lotus Foundations is the IBM branding of their acquisition of Net Integration's NITIX brand over a year ago now.  A Lotus Foundations appliance is a clever combination of hardware - including an integrated back-up solution - with software.  The software is based on Linux but has been designed for simplicity of operation.  It basically suits small businesses and also branch offices or sites where there is no I.T. support.  It deals with the complex networking that a small office requires as well as security, e-mail, office software etc.

I bought a Lotus Foundations box and I love it!  My company, Inter Weavers, has now become a business partner here in the UK so that we can start to sell these appliances.

The latest version 1.1 of the Lotus Foundations Start software out shortly includes free VMWare server support so that you can install any Windows software (in addition to Linux distributions) in a VMWare partition. So if you needed you could install a Windows Server OS in your VMWare partition.  When your Windows server blue screens, you can still access your Lotus Foundations server and you can restart your Windows server remotely!

It also includes better support for branch offices allowing the server to integrate better with other offices in the company.  The server is designed to use Lotus Domino for e-mail and the new version uses the latest 8.5 release and allows a Lotus Foundations Server to integrate with an existing Lotus Domino domain.

My clients work in Engineering and they tend to set-up site offices with between 3 and 20 people working in portacabins for two year durations.  Lotus Foundations is perfect for them.

I am able to provide Lotus Notes applications for my clients on top of Lotus Foundations.  It combines the power of Lotus Notes/Domino with the simplicity needed to support without travel.

Please click on the graphic below to see a video all about Lotus Foundations.  It can take a while to load but it is well worth watching.  If you're interested in more information, please let me know here or on the Inter Weavers site and I'll get the information you need.