IBM Outlines Plans To Bring Next Generation of Collaboration to Millions of New Users; Lotus Software Portfolio Increases Customer Choice

ORLANDO, Fla., Jan. 27, 2003 -- IBM Corporation's new General Manager of Lotus Software, Ambuj Goyal, kicked off the tenth-annual Lotusphere today to an audience of customers, business partners and developers from around the world. Goyal reaffirmed IBM's pledge to help customers achieve the highest levels of human productivity by fully integrating collaboration technologies with the end-to-end business processes necessary for an e-business on demand.

"In today's constantly changing business climate, it is important that we provide our customers with a scalable, flexible and secure set of solutions which enable them to easily integrate our products into their existing software infrastructure through open standards," said Goyal. "Additionally, it's imperative that we provide our ever-growing developer community with the knowledge and skills to continue developing industry-leading solutions on our core products and create equally-powerful next generation solutions."

IBM's commitment to standards is reinforced by today's announcements, focusing on providing customers with the additional means to more easily integrate and mix and match the capabilities of the current Lotus portfolio with other business applications and processes in a unified infrastructure. In doing so, IBM's goal is to make access to information much more portable across multiple platforms and devices.

Delivering on Lotus Next Generation Portfolio

The next generation of Lotus software applications move the comprehensive offerings from monolithic products to components that can be integrated across the portfolio and provide customers additional choice. In support of these initiatives, IBM announced the beta version of a cost-effective, standards based e-mail solution that enables organizations to easily extend enterprise e-mail to users who are currently without a dedicated workspace or e-mail access. This is the first e-mail solution built to run on IBM WebSphere and IBM DB2 technologies, while complementing existing Lotus environments.

In addition, IBM announced a flexible, standards-based portfolio of e-learning components, the Lotus Learning Management System. This true enterprise-class learning management system enables integration with existing infrastructure as well as other e-learning systems.

To assist companies in accessing vital information and expertise in an increasingly portal-based environment, IBM also announced additional collaborative tools within the IBM WebSphere Portal Extend offering. These tools make available a collaborative portal that provides an on-line company directory with built in awareness and instant messaging.

IBM is also providing the development tools needed to smoothly integrate next generation applications, which are based on a common standards-based programming model and single open infrastructure. Addressing the development communities' needs for flexible, extendable development tools, IBM announced a toolkit designed to make it easier for Lotus Domino developers to utilize their development skills in the new J2EE environment.

Lotusphere 2003, which runs through Jan. 30, provides attendees with a forum for sharing technical and business knowledge about successful implementations of Lotus solutions from IBM and its business partners around the world. The conference also showcases hundreds of IBM and business partner solutions for e-business and collaborative commerce in the Lotusphere 2003 Exhibition Hall.

About Lotus Software from IBM

Lotus software from IBM sets the standard for truly innovative software and services that reflect the brand's unique representation of the new ways individuals and businesses work together to achieve success. Lotus software is further redefining the concept of conducting business through practical knowledge management, e-business and other ground-breaking ways of connecting ideas, thinkers, buyers, sellers and communities around the world via the Internet. Lotus software is marketed in more than 80 countries worldwide through direct sales and extensive Business Partner channels.

Lotus, Lotusphere, Domino, Lotus Notes and Sametime are trademarks or registered trademarks of Lotus Development Corporation and/or IBM Corporation in the United States, other countries or both. IBM is a trademark or registered trademark of IBM Corporation. Java and all Java-based trademarks are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States, other countries or both. All other trademarks are owned by their respective companies.

EDITOR'S NOTE: All news releases and related information issued at Lotusphere 2003 are available on the Internet, via the Lotus software press room at http://www.lotus.com/pressroom.

      --30--DS/bo*

      CONTACT: Lotus Software                                         
               IBM Software Group                                     
               Mary Rose Greenough, 617/693-1039                        
               mary_rose_greenough@us.ibm.com
               or
               Text 100 Public Relations       
               Cora Lee, 617/399-4910                 
               coral@text100.com