Aviator Software announced with its distributor, KnowledgeArc, that Aviator R2.3 is ODMA compliant. Open Document Management API or (ODMA) allows for office productivity applications like Word Pro, Word, PowerPoint and other ODMA compliant applications to be integrated with Aviator’s Lotus Notes and Web browser clients.

Lotus announced the ASP Solution Pack, a hosted applications offering that provides a Lotus Domino- and IBM WebSphere-powered platform. The ASP Solution Pack combines Web application servers with differing core competencies and manages them via a common Hosting Management System.

NetIQ announced that it has enhanced its AppManager management suite to monitor additional features of Lotus Domino R5 and Domino Partitioned Servers. This enhancement enables MIS personnel to monitor additional performance, reliability and scalability features in Domino R5. AppManager can also monitor Domino Partitioned Servers running multiple instances of Domino on multi-processor, fault-tolerant Windows NT systems for high availability or in server consolidation scenarios.

Lotus Development announced the shipment of Mobile Services for Domino (MSD) Release 1.0. MSD 1.0 allows Notes and Domino users to send and receive messages and access their Domino server-based information from small, mobile devices using global wireless data networks.

IT Factory announced version 5.0 of its ITF Software Development Kit (SDK) and suite of business applications. The new software, collectively named ITF 5.0, delivers a host of enhancements designed to build Web-enabled enterprise applications based on Lotus Notes/Domino R5.

Lotus Development Corp. and AVT Corporation announced that the two companies have signed a global strategic alliance agreement. The companies will provide comprehensive unified messaging solutions for the Lotus Domino Release 5 (R5) server and Lotus Notes R5 client, as well as for the millions of seats of version 4.6 within the Lotus installed base. A completed offering, that will enable users to access all message types from virtually any device, including the Notes client, is planned for general availability in Q499.

Tivoli Systems announced new Enterprise and IT Director editions of Tivoli Manager for Domino and the introduction of Tivoli Data Protection for Lotus Domino.

IT Factory and Origin announced a strategic alliance. The alliance is aimed at bringing the next generation of Lotus Notes enterprise applications to Fortune 500 companies worldwide. Under the terms of the agreement, Origin will use IT Factory’s business application suite and component-based development architecture to bring Web-based Notes/Domino business solutions to large enterprises worldwide.

Computerworld Australia has this story on how enterprise customers face a 50 percent increase in their Microsoft budgets each year until 2002.

PC Magazine takes a look at ten email and groupware solutions. Domino R5 Server and Lotus Notes R5 received the Editor’s Choice in the Groupware category.