(I trimmed a lot of text out of my last blog entry to make sure that it's something people would read, rather than fall asleep during. Hence this "number 1.5" entry - with something that was too important to leave out, but too long to leave in.)

I mentioned that a Notes Light endeavour is doomed, and that we should pick iNotes instead. And I firmly believe that is the best use of everyone's time and effort here.

I think it's very important to say that I'm discounting the idea that a cut-down consumer version of Notes will do any good - becaus ethat cut-down consumer version is what some people think of as "Notes Light".

Most people I know are using webmail at home now, and the few that aren't are on Mozilla Thunderbird - which is better suited for light home use than any other (cross-platform) mail client I know of.

The personal email client battle is still raging, but webmail is winning by miles. Outlook is a holdout for people that have Office and never use more than one computer. Thunderbird is a distant third that's popular amongst the more literate.

We should not get into the personal email space.  It's a waste of time and effort.

So I'm going to address the issue of a Notes Light client from a corporate viewpoint.

I mentioned that we need to improve the portal experience. I know that IBM have provided an iNotes Web Access redirection database, but that's not really much of a portal.

However, not everyone wants a portal. Maybe you do want each application to be somewhat seperate.

In which case, I have a solution for you.

Mozilla Prism.

Prism is best thought of as an embedded version of the Mozilla Firefox browser, except it has no browsing controls. Prism gives your applications:

• Its own icon both for start menu/dock/Applications menu
• The ability to handle file associations and URIs Its own icon in the Task List/on the window decoration as it runs
• Process seperation - if one Prism application dies, it won't take out other running Prism applications with it
• Extensions to allow system tray notifications and minimizing to the system tra

Basically, Prism does its best to make web applications first-class citizens on the desktop. See their Features page for good visual examples.

Prism is currently a beta, but it's very much a beta in the long open-source tradition of "more stable than some company's gold code".  I've used it in Ubuntu for Facebook, GMail and others and had no problems.

Based on the discussion that Developers were having last week, I've come to a conclusion that's bordering upon conviction:

IBM NEEDS PRISM.

They need to get involved with the project and get it to a stable place on Windows, Mac and Linux. They need to offer a simple wizard-based kit ("Prism for Lotus Applications") that allows you to make a deployable package so it's easy to drop Prism applications to desktops in locked-down environments.

And they need to amend iNotes and other Notes applications so that if they detect they're in Prism, they use those integration features properly and feel "more native".

Prism is the Notes Light client. It's the best possible option, and it's something we could have very quickly too.

This doesn't mean we don't need a better portal, as I also mentioned in my last blog entry.

But in MY ideal world, IBM would be involved enough with Prism that it has a Greenhouse project soon, and an actual product shipping early in the Notes 9 timeframe. 9.0.1, perhaps?

If they don't, then I think that IBM are missing out on a huge trick here. They're missing out on an opportunity to clarify that Domino Server is for applications, regardless of whether they're through the Notes client or the web browser.

And that the web browser applications do not have ot be second-class citizens. With xPages, they can be capable and scalable, and with Prism for Lotus Applications they can be like any other desktop application.

And that's got to be a good message for Notes Developers, for IBM's customers and for the end users.

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