Erik Brooks

So, I'm reading blogs this morning and on Ed's blog I see the following Twitter:

"Google announces offline mail support for gMail.  Wow, Domino Offline Services was only 10 years ahead of its time!"

True.  But: How many people out there have used DOLS?  How many people reading this blog have used DOLS?  I have.  I'd bet large sums of money that I have one of the most complex, multi-NSF Domino web apps in history running on DOLS, with quite a bunch of distributed users.  And based on a couple of DOLS-related support tickets that I've had to open, I'm pushing the envelope with it.

In my opinion DOLS is (and has been) the greatest unknown secret of Notes/Domino.  DOLS can allow users to access their mail offline in their browser, yes.  But it can do that with ANY OTHER Notes/Domino databases, too.  It's fairly easy to set up and administer (though it could be easier), is fairly easy for users to work with (though that could be much easier, and *this* is where Google will likely leapfrog Lotus in the future), and although it has its share of problems it is an incredible tool.

Simply put, DOLS is a packaged-installation of the Domino HTTP server and a small Windows-desktop app for launching said HTTP server to do work offline.  It also has a mechanism for replicating NSFs back to the corporate office.  Your users work in a browser as they would online; they're just connecting to the local HTTP server on the laptop instead of your corporate server.  It's all core Notes, through-and-through, and is a brilliant re-use of existing technology.  Click here to read Damien Katz's similar comments.    If you've got a Domino web app that you want to enable for offline use, it's literally only a couple of hours to put DOLS support into it and try it out.

So is IBM continuing the advance of this fantastic add-on?  It's a bit uncertain. They've kept re-packaging it with each release since its launch (back in R 5.x!) But it has had only minor bug fixes since then, and the release of Notes/Domino 8.5 has a fairly glaring omission: DOLS doesn't currently support xPages offline. 

I wouldn't be surprised if this was a decision of "we gotta ship 8.5, we'll do it in 8.5.x".  I also wouldn't be surprised if it was simply overlooked - the DOLS packaging is so straightforward it probably easily builds automatically whenever a new update is released.  It should be the case that the xPages engine just needs to get packaged in with everything else, and it would Just Work (tm).

With xPages as the obvious future of Domino web dev, DOLS now runs ths risk of becoming a mail-only utility unless it's brought up to the present with xPage support.  If it can't run the new wikis, blogs, discussion databases, custom apps, etc. that IBM and the community are creating its usefulness will be severely diminished.  Then the question becomes: How long will it take Google to extend their offline functionality to other areas, e.g. Google Apps?

The good news, though, is that adding xPages support should be fairly simple for IBM/Lotus to do:  they're already packaging the full HTTP server as it is.  Can you imagine: xPages-enabled Domino apps running offline?  Mmmmmm....

If you haven't yet tried DOLS, check it out.  You will be surprised.