I'm sure IBM and Novell marketing will be very pleased with the story, but it doesn't tell us if this is a new version of SLED (SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop) with bundled apps, or the same one with a bundle.

Yes huge numbers of business desktops aren't Vista-ready and if the businesses have any sense they'll never see Vista. But if the enterprise business quite sensibly accepts that a radical change is necessary for the vast majority of their PC users, those who don't need a full function max power fully customisable individually managed Window box on their desk, just Office/Email/browse and other standard business tools, why would that radical change be to SLED or even to any similar desktop Linux, which is basically the same cost of ownership hassles as Windows, just scaled down a bit.

If corporate IT folks accept they need a paradigm shift to control spiralling ongoing costs, why would the majority of corporate desktops not be more cost effective (and more secure) if they were (whisper it quietly) thin clients or whatever one is allowed to call them these days, with the expensive kit (and expensive people) confined to the computer room where it/they belong?

Once upon a time there was little cost saving to be had by going thin; the bandwidth wasn't affordable and PC jockeys were cheap (albeit they often turned out incompetent too). Now the LAN bandwidth is cheap, but energy (to power hundreds of clients and associated aircon) isn't and (despite the hype) large scale desktop outsourcing contracts usually aren't the real answer either (does expensive and incompetent sound like a good deal?).

Good luck to Novell and IBM anyway, it's time for a change.

My company has been selling out Nitix and NitixBlue with great success; this to resolve the one-touch server solution. As far as desktops go, it's going to be a hard sale for customer running current MS products or third-party, industry-specific applications that are Windows only. We have customers running sign-making apps that the company who owns it didn't write it and the guy who put it together's already dead; who's gonna port that properly to Linux? Is WINE the only hope for the people going for the SLED ride?

where does it mention a new SLED? All this article talks about is a new *yawn* Notes client for Linux. Big deal.

lets wish them lots of success. the desktop OS industry is in dire need of some competition.

just a shame they have to take Linux. BeOS would be such a nice revival candidate.

I can't believe you lot haven't done a review of Lotus Notes / Domino 8 yet. It takes a press release from some Linux distro for you to notice? It's also supported on RHEL.

Notes probably won't help a lot with sign-making, but there are a lot of Notes applications out there and getting access to them through Linux desktops should be attractive.

You have a free operating system (with enterprise support available) as opposed to Microsoft. You have a Domino server and a Sametime server, giving you email, IM, and most importantly applications. You have a Notes client that gives you access to all that with an ODF compliant document editor and a spreadsheet package built in. There you've replaced Outlook, Office, and MSN Messenger. They just need to include some kind of Mozilla and it's a one stop shop for eliminating Microsoft from your network. (Web access for Firefox was already supported, but there's a lot more you can do with the Notes client, which actually first came out for Linux at version 7)

Linux is not just for commies and pirates anymore ;-) These are real first class business applications. That run on pretty much any OS. From a big name company - IBM. I think this is a huge part of the story about the rise of Linux / decline of Microsoft, and I'll say again that I'm surprised there hasn't been any kind of review of Notes 8 on el reg yet.

Really rate SLES, could see myself trying SLED, but not Notes - it's manure.

Take a look at this YouTube video demonstrating Notes8 on Linux, plus a lots of the great desktop features of Linux. Very cool...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-qK34CzKjM

Matt, this isn't the Lotus Notes that you've used before - take another look...

I used Notes on Mac OS X and Linux in 2002! Ok, it was beta, I believe it was version 7, as you pointed out Mike! Anyway, I really liked notes, since I moved to a different - Exchange- shop, I see myself longing for Notes ...

But a press release about this new partnership is cool! Technology-wise it's almost 5 years old, though .... rofl! well, no, not really, they did not have SLED then, I think ...

Anyway, el Reg - I never look at the names of your scribes, but I bet you must have fired/lost a few of the good ones, recently or were they just off on a holiday? I hope the latter .... ;-)