Unfortunately, as many people have learned, the IBM web site can be an overwhelming experience for an individual user that simply wants to download and try or buy Lotus Notes. Here's some information which you may find helpful:
How to experience Lotus Notes for free:
You can evaluate Lotus Notes for free, with the Lotus Notes 90-day Test Drive.
Lotus Notes Product Manager, Dwight Morse, recently posted a detailed tutorial that explains how to use Lotus Notes to retrieve your personal email (e.g. from a hosted account.) Dwight provides detailed screen shots for each step. If you are a first-time user of Lotus Notes and you want to use Notes as your personal information management system, I think you will find this tutorial helpful.
When you are ready to purchase Lotus Notes:
1. Go to the Lotus Notes Product Page & click the green "View US prices & buy" button
2. Select "IBM Lotus Notes with Collaboration Authorized User License"
I hope this information is helpful.
Eric
Discussion/Comments (10):
I believe that's a start, yes! I'd also point to this blogpost from the Get Started on eProductivity.com.
- Patrick
Ed Brill (http://www.edbrill.com): 6/4/2009 3:30:59 PM
Thanks for posting this, Eric. You forgot my home phone number too. :-)
I'm very focused on how to better enable individual users to experience Notes. More to come.
Eric Mack (www.ica.com): 6/4/2009 4:11:26 PM
Thanks, Ed. I'm pleased to see what you and Dwight and the Notes team are doing to make it easy for end-users to get started with Lotus Notes.
If anyone want's Ed Brill's home phone number for after-hours Lotus Notes support (including holidays and weekends) get in touch with me. ;-)
Timothy Briley (): 6/4/2009 6:04:50 PM
The direct link returned an error. I went to the first link and clicked on the green button. This got me to the right page. Here are the choices IBM listed:
IBM Lotus Notes with Messaging Authorized User License + SW Subscription & Support 12 Months (D5CPILL) 84.00
IBM Lotus Notes with Collaboration Authorized User License + SW Subscription & Support 12 Months (D5CS2LL) 116.00
IBM Lotus Notes for Messaging Limited Use Authorized User License + SW Subscription & Support 12 Months (D53T5LL) 109.00
Not exactly descriptive are they. Thankfully I don't need to buy one. For those that do, do you have a clue as to which of the three they should buy?
Eric Mack (www.ica.com): 6/4/2009 6:55:07 PM
Thanks, Tim. I have edited my page and added clarification to show which version to purchase.
Bill Malchisky (http://www.EffectiveSoftware.com): 6/4/2009 11:45:05 PM
Nice post, Eric. I'll be certain to mention the tutorial as appropriate. Continued success to you and your team. Great to see the interest in your solution.
Lisa Duke (http://www.simplified-tech.com): 6/5/2009 4:41:54 AM
This is a great time to get started with Notes, as IBM has it on sale for 25% off retail!
For those getting started who have questions, keep in mind there is a vibrant partner community ready to help. You can find us through Google or on IBM's site at { Link }
Just put in your zipcode and select Software: Lotus.
Michael Roach (http://www.LeadCopy.com): 6/5/2009 1:04:23 PM
Thank you very much for the info, Eric. Much appreciated!
Eric Mack (http://Cross-post from David Allen Forum): 6/5/2009 1:11:28 PM
aavanderbilt wrote: Great blog Eric!
One thing that went wrong when I set up Notes is that I tried to use an IMAP mail server, which causes the initial databases that get set up to go completely crazy. Setting it up with a POP server worked perfectly though, so now I'm on my way to possible zealotry.
Marcia (): 7/10/2009 7:41:08 AM
Hi, Eric -
This is tangential to your blogpost, but your site has the closest information I've found so far.
My organization uses Lotus Domino Docs, and our license is expiring soon, possibly sooner than we manage to get the funding to renew it. Lotus isn't very forthcoming as to what will happen if we don't renew in time -- we can't tell from them or from anywhere I've been googling whether the system will simply stop working at all, or whether we won't be able to get support, or whether we won't be able to make changes.
Do you have any idea what happens?
Thanks for any comment you might have,
Marcia