When I tell people what I do, they say "what is lotus notes?". They expect the answer: It is a word processor or it is a database or it is an email program or it is a website builder. Of course it does all of those things and much much  more...

What is Lotus Notes?

Where do you start? Well Lotus Notes started in 1989. A long time ago, and it is still going strong.

What is in the Lotus Notes client? Email, bookmarks, web browser, word processing, calendaring, scheduling, database catalogues, database linking, tabbing of windows, searching, replication of data and email and address books to use it off line, or use replication to use a server in another country if you move around a lot, it alos includes a lot of readers for many different data formats such as MS Word and Excel and Powerpoint etc and many graphic formats including TIF, PDF and postscript.

If you add in Sametime which is very easy in Notes 6.5 you also get online presence, chat , audio and or video communication and screen sharing.

What does the Lotus Notes Server do then?  The server routes email and does SMTP, IMAP and POP3, authenticates users, is a http and https SSL web server and allows web authentification using Lotus Notes or LDAP directories, runs reports and background routines such as data compaction, search indexing, user registration, replication with other servers, design refresh through out enterprises, interfaces with SQL and ODBC and JDBC data sources and more. It does clustering quite nicely to.

If I wanted to do everything that Lotus Notes does what would I have to download and install? Email, web server, web client, database system, online presence, chat, audio and video and screen sharing, and word processors, login and authentification tools, graphics tools and some sort of integrated design Environment or software coding tool, and a Java tool, and an XML tool.

Then of course you have to get them working together..... : )

Other Links

Wiki says that Lotus Notes is a proprietary, client-server collaborative software and email system owned by Lotus Software, of the IBM Software Group. Read more at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Notes

Understanding Lotus Notes and its Developers. by Sam Strachan
How many times have you heard it said that Notes is no good... that it’s a useless piece of software ...   Read more at: http://www.epistemia.net/technical_articles/articles/understandingnotesdevelop.html