IBM hopes Notes will live long and prosper with Project Vulcan

Project Vulcan forges next-generation Notes software

IBM has unveiled the future direction of Lotus Notes at Lotusphere 2010 in Orlando, Florida, with its announcement of 'Project Vulcan'.

In a blog dedicated to the event, IBM's product management director for Lotus, Ed Brill, said that 'Vulcan' was "not a brand-new effort" but built on existing capabilities.

A low-resolution screen grab on Brill's blog shows how the Notes client currently being developed will appear. However, readers who have replied to the blog draw attention to the similarity between it and Facebook's user interface. One comment read: "Already got Facebook, if this is the future you are late!"

In his blog, Brill explained that one of the key ideas driving the development was the notion of 'loosely-coupled' services, which he said will deliver a converged user experience to users' Notes client, web browser and mobile devices.

"It represents the future versions of the IBM's Lotus product portfolio including Notes. One of its key themes is social and business analytics combined and applied to industry-specific scenarios," he added.

The technology used to push Vulcan forward will include Web services, xPages [a Notes database design element], HTML5, and RESTful APIs [REST is representational state transfer – the underlying architecture of the Web]."

Brill signed off the blog saying that Project Vulcan would be the blueprint for the future Lotus Notes. "We'll continue to support your existing Notes applications – we have for 20 years – it only makes sense to continue, but we'll add these loosely-coupled services to bring in more value, attention, and focus, " he added.

Will Project Vulcan guarantee a fairytale ending for IBM's push on enterprise collaboration software? Well, the fact that Lotusphere 2010 is being held at Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort in Orlando Florida, might help.