Lotus Notes8 and a Phoenix rises from the Ashes

Well it came out, finally, and no complaints.
Sure it crashes, what beta doesn't?

But the UI is fluid, cool(really) and highly productive.

I haven't been able to sit in one spot to do almost everything since the days of QEMM and Direct Access Menus.(If you remember those, you like me have been doing this for a LONG time).

Anyway, the sidebar is now for the first time since R5 able to much more than email pieces.
It handles Sametime and the Phoenix rising, "reborn/renewed" Lotus Smartsuite or e-suite which has a word processor, spreadsheet and presenter.
And of course your calendar, and will do much more.

But it's the Rss feeds/reader which is most impressive IMHO of the sidebar functionality.
Why?
Because I was using "my yahoo's page" as a reader(bad) or MS clients which I am beta testing(not bad but yet another piece of sofware).
Now it's not only in one spot, but provides listings, opens in the Lotus client or my browser, pops up when something new is posted from one of my followed sites and well, just makes the day to day of the executive who is a little techy, much more useful.

The downside might be many more calls to the helpdesk until the exec gets it right and setup.

But hey, office 2007's ribbon is no less confusing so I guess the new UI is the old time UI of "guess where/what the function you need is hiding".
And I thought software should make your life easier.

Again it's BETA people, get over it, these things will be worked out before it goes live.
Well, not in Office 2007's case :-P