IBM's Open Collaboration Client Solution is designed to help organizations increase collaboration among employees, improve productivity, and lower costs. It is personal computing software based on open standards. Moving away from proprietary software to a platform based on open standards lets businesses select the right mix of software for their organization.

The marketing initiative with Red Hat combines Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced Platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop, IBM Lotus Notes client with Lotus Symphony, and IBM Lotus Domino server. Business partners that are Red Hat Advanced Business Partners and Lotus-authorized IBM Business Partners may sell the Red Hat and IBM Lotus products with a Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced Platform Premium subscription and a six-month Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop trial. In addition, Red Hat will be providing a value-added services offer to qualified Red Hat Advanced Business Partners to provide customers with implementation services for solution deployment. Jumpstart services and desktop/application migration services are provided by IBM Regional Systems Integrators.

By combining the user experience of the Ubuntu platform with Lotus Notes 8 and Lotus Symphony, customers should get greater ease-of-use and comprehensive desktop management. Full support for Ubuntu in Lotus Notes and Lotus Symphony is planned with Lotus Notes 8.5 in the second half of 2008. The Lotus Symphony office productivity suite is included with Lotus Notes 8 and is available for free as a separate download. Ubuntu is released on a regular six-month cycle in more than 50 languages, and is backed with commercial support from Canonical.

The Open Collaboration Client Solution includes e-mail and calendar capabilities, unified communication and collaboration functionality, and word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation capabilities with Open Document Format (ODF) support. Because the Open Collaboration Client Solution is built on Lotus Expeditor, which is based on the open source Eclipse Rich Client Platform, organizations can use it to add business ready social networking, team collaboration, and portal technologies to a Linux PC user's desktop.

IBM's Open Collaboration Client Solution powered by SUSE Linux Enterprise from Novell was announced in August 2007. Novell offers a single click install process for SUSE Linux Enterprise from Novell and IBM's Open Collaboration Client Solution, as well as migration and integration services from Value Added Distributors (VADs) around the Open Collaboration Client Solution.

"Today's announcements show the growing importance of openness and choice in the computing environments of our customers and partners," said Jeff Smith, vice president of open source and Linux in IBM Software Group. "IBM's market insight shows that collaboration is key to driving innovation in day-to-day business. These offerings combine IBM's strengths in collaboration, SOA, and Web 2.0 with our partners' strengths in open operating environments."

IBM's Open Collaboration Client Solution includes:

• IBM Lotus Notes e-mail and collaboration software.
• IBM Lotus Sametime unified communication and collaboration platform featuring a business instant messaging solution. Integrated Lotus Sametime with instant messaging and chat comes with Lotus Notes is part of the core solution. Customers have the option to buy additional Lotus Sametime capabilities.
• IBM Lotus Symphony (beta) productivity tools for creating documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.
• IBM WebSphere Portal server-based foundation for building portal applications and services, with optional accelerators, accessed through a common entry point via browsers.
• IBM Lotus Connections social software for business.
• IBM Lotus Quickr team collaboration and document management software.
• IBM Lotus Expeditor, an Eclipsed-based Rich Client Platform (RCP) for developing and deploying applications.