IBMs Lotus Software division announced on Monday at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco that the forthcoming version of Lotus Notes, code-named Rnext, will support Apple Corp.s next-generation operating system, Mac OS X, also known as Mac OS 10.
Mac OS X support will be available with the next beta of Rnext, scheduled for release within the next 30 days.
Although that will be the fifth beta of Rnext, officials at Lotus, of Cambridge, Mass., remain non-committal about when the final version of Rnext will ship—beyond saying sometime this year. Rnext will succeed Lotus current Release 5 or R5.
Lotus officials said the Mac OS X version of Rnext will be a “complete” Notes client, with the same features as the Win32 version. Lotus has supported the Mac OS since the 4.1 release of Notes. R5 supports versions 8 and 9 of Mac OS.
Company officials said more than 1,000 organizations use Notes with a Mac client, mostly those companies or departments working in graphic design and publishing.