I promote this idea... but the Adminclient should also include the designer ;-)

In the Bloggers Q&A with Mike Rhodin at Lotusphere it was hinted at very strongly that both Admin and Designer clients for Linux and Mac were on the way in the 8.5 - 9.0 time frame.

@Matt - Admin, too? My interpretation of that question/answer in the Q&A was a bit different. Designer, yes, because it's going into eclipse, which lets them target Linux/Mac more easily. Admin, though? I heard IBM say something to the effect of, "We understand the interest in this, and for various reasons we would like to get there, but nothing is in the immediate pipeline."

I'm not saying it won't happen, or that there's no way it will be in 9.0, mostly because I have no idea when 9.0 will come out, but we'll definitely see Designer on non-Windows platforms much sooner than Admin. And I didn't hear a positive commitment that the Linux/Mac admin solution won't simply be the web admin client. To me, is sounded like developers can be confident we'll get our wish; administrators should not be quite so sure.

I agree with Rob. I believe Designer will hit Linux and Mac after the 8.5 release (not going to say 9 but sometime after 8.5) and it will be a testing and support issue more than a technical one.

My gut on the Admin client is they will put more effort into making web admin have all of the Admin functionality and work on all three platforms. That is if I was a betting man ;)

I agree with John. It is much more likely that they will make the web admin client do everything you need so that they do not need to port to different platforms.

While there is a segment of admins that use Mac and Linux exclusively, it is probably not a large enough market to warrent the work. For Macs on Intel, simply run a virtual windows sesstion to get admin client, and I would think there is a similar option for Linux. I would rather the developers spend time giving new features in Admin client.

I agree and have been asking Lotus for this for a very long time only to be told they hate Microsoft then in the same breath support only windows for all client tasks. This would be another huge step in the right direction!

If you vote this down I would have to ask you why you would want to stop forward progress of the Lotus Product.

@Randy: Why is the segment of admins who use Mac and Linux exclusively small? It's because of applications like this that require Windows. Catch-22.

It's not fun at all to tell a customer "That's correct, in order to administer this complete enterprise Linux solution, you need to buy a Windows license and maintain a Windows image to administer it."

It can't simply be the web admin client, since there are a few things that need to be done locally with the admin client - signing local templates for one thing

Admin client on Linux will be wonderfoul.. so IBM please do not force admin to use win...

Thanks

Who the hell is demoting this? The developers? ;)

big up 4 this 3d i don't want use vista anymore!

plz make admin client on ubuntu

As a Linux guru and utilize this OS for almost all of my non-Admin tasks, I would like to have it, but it is doubtful.

Looking back over the past 1.5 years (to some of the early comments to where things are now), Lotus has issues with the web admin client, and have done little to improve this client due to resource allocation over the past year or so. In fact, I rarely use it, due to my being burned badly with the N8.x verions. I like that the web client allows one to roll-out just the tabs a jr admin needs (example only provide the People tab to the person who creates new users), and that it provides real-time stats. So, if you use it, just as a read-only option.

We learned during Ed Brill's session at IamLUG this week, that they now plans to roll-out a Linux or Mac admin client, but that Designer is more probable, as it is DDE already. The strong Mac supporters in attendance seemed to agree with this direction as well.

It would make my job easier, but I can use an XP VMware host vm as a work-around for now. So, it's a nice to have, rather than a need to have.

Man... I wish there was a comment edit option. Apologies for the typos above...more tired than I thought today.
(1) 3rd P :: "...that they have NO plans to roll-out a Linux..."
(2) The rest are trivial in nature...

Yes, this would be very handy. The more you can allow people to do natively on non-Windows based machines, the more you could help shrink Microsoft's Empire. Biggest reason why most people use Windows, "it's compatible, and there is tons are software for it". Take this away from Microsoft and I believe you will see a bigger migration.

@11: Completely agree