Well, it’s about time. It has always surprised me that you could get the Lotus Domino server for Linux, but were not able to install a Lotus Notes client. At least, not without some finagling with WINE or an emulator. According to this SearchEnterpriseLinux.com interview with IBM’s Notes/Domino manager Art Fontaine, we may see a client sometime next year.

That’s the good news. The bad news is its only going to officially support it on the enterprise Linux systems, namely Red Hat and SuSE. That said, I can’t imagine it would be terribly difficult for a determined hacker or a skilled IT staff to get a client up and running just as reliably on other systems.

Fontaine also reminds readers that Mozilla has been fully supported for Domino Web access as of Domino 6.5. This is well and good, but in my experience, it’s much easier to get things done in the client than wrestling with the Web access. (At least, it was on version 5.) This is especially true for clients who may be doing database manipulation and development.