I have earlier blogged that IBM had licensed ActiveSync from Microsoft, and that I am using Active Sync towards Google’s Calendar and Addressbook from my iPhone. Yesterday IBM announced the beta release of Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5.1 collaboration software, with Lotus Domino with automatic syncing capabilities for e-mail and calendaring for the iPhone. The first thought I had when I first read about IBM licensening Active Sync was “If you can’t beat them, join them!”.

This seems to me to be a complete rewrite of Notes Traveler for Nokia and Windows Mobile, and the introduction of Traveler for iPhone/iPod Touch. Am I right? One problem here seems to be that they have been configuring and testing it for the iPhone (and iPod Touch) 2.0 software, just that Apple recently announced that they are not accepting any more 2.0 software in iTMS and that all future software releases for iPhone now have to be 3.0 compatible. Well, shouldn’t be to hard for IBM, but I am not sure how people would be able to test this …

Good thing is that I will not have to use Notes Pro and/or Lotus iNotes Ultralite in the future, and by that, get a better user experience!

Small update: You can both read about Notes Traveler for iPhone, and better, test it over at Lotus Greenhouse.