2. Notes and Domino is a powerful (and open) application development platform.

A goal of many organizations want to avoid getting too closely tied to any single vendor or technology. If not careful, the proprietary nature of the technology can limit the future choices of the company when it comes to upgrading or integration with other platforms.

Applications built for Notes incorporate a wide variety of open standard technologies, such as JavaScript, HTML, Java and LotusScript (a close relative of Visual Basic). Developers who already know some of these technologies can quickly come up to speed in Notes application development, producing complex workflow applications very little time.

To build Notes applications, developers use the Designer client to create and modify all the different parts of a Notes application, such as forms, views and agents. It can be viewed and tested in the Notes client or in a web browser for instant feedback. In terms of productivity, developers get a lot done with very little effort.

But useful Notes applications don't always require attention from the IT department. It's common in Notes for power users to develop applications that meet a tactical need, with little assistance from IT.

On the other hand, Designer's easy-to-use interface historically can be a frustration at times to high-end developers. The latest version of Notes/Domino (version 8) has an Eclipse-based IDE, making it easy for some of those developers—for whom Eclipse is their native environment—can easily grasp the environment and produce high-quality applications.

3. Notes is the client, Domino is the server.

Notes, Domino, Notes/Domino... What is this software really called, anyway?

The full name of IBM's software offering is IBM Lotus Notes and Domino. Lotus Notes refers to the Notes client, which is installed on the user's personal computer, and is used to access both mail files and Notes applications.

Domino is the server component of the Notes/Domino team, and it runs on a variety of operating systems. When a user connects to the server replica of their mail database using the Notes client, it's the Domino server that is serving up the content from the user's mail database. The Domino server is also responsible for controlling access and security to mail files and application databases.

The Domino server has a robust security model that can control access in Notes documents down to the field level. This includes both user access based on the user's Notes ID, as well as database and network traffic encryption.

Notes and Domino run on a number of operating systems: from an Intel Pentium 2 desktop machine to the "big iron" of IBM mainframes. The Domino server is available for Windows Server 2003, IBM AIX, Novell SUSE and RedHat Linux distributions, Sun Solaris, IBM System i, IBM System z and IBM z/OS. This attention to multi-platform support means that IT departments can use existing servers and data center architecture to consolidate hardware and keep a tight rein on costs. The Notes client is supported on Windows XP, Windows Vista, Mac OS, and SUSE and RedHat Linux desktop distributions.

4. Notes has a long history of backward compatibility.

One of the most impressive features of Notes is its level of backwards compatibility between versions. It's possible to take a Notes application built in version 1 back in 1989, and run it in the current Notes 8 release without any need to convert or rewrite the application. We're not talking about showcase "proof point" applications, but real-world legacy applications which are still giving good value to the organization and do not need any feature enhancements. Few software applications can boast about compatibility across versions like Notes can. This means your application development investment continues to return value long into the future.

Often, a Domino server migration consists of running the install utility for the latest version. In as little as 15 minutes, the server is upgraded. All the applications built in prior versions of Notes still continue to run with no conversions necessary.