I'll admit that in my IBM Lotus Notes 7 review about two years ago, I got Version 8's release date a wee bit off. Hey, the fortuneteller I consulted skipped town right after the reading. But my wrap-up hit the mark, saying Notes 8 "should further support composite applications, such as bringing together e-mail, documents and meetings into a single interface -- a key part of an SOA." Here's my initial impression of how well IBM Lotus engineers met this goal and the way they did it.

 Fundamentally, Lotus Notes and Domino 8 aren't about new mail and calendar features. Rather, this release is about a paradigm shift in the desktop client. Your in-box is now home base for integrating all types of business applications. A lot has already been said about the programming model, Lotus Expeditor 6.1.1, which employs Eclipse.org open standards. So let's spotlight the user experience and collaboration.