But e-mail, as dependent as we've become, is not a great tool for collaborating. Today's businesses need to collaborate efficiently and cost-effectively with employees, customers, and partners. They need to do it quickly, right from the PC, and without scheduling conference rooms or installing new software.

Collaboration in today's enterprise starts with e-mail. As imperfect as it is, e-mail is still the most popular way to communicate business information to the cubicle six feet away or the office on the other side of the world. But e-mail needs to do more than allow you to type in e-mail addresses and type. It needs threading capabilities so you can follow conversations instead of a list of messages.

Instant messaging, another popular collaboration tool, earned itself a bad rap when millions of employees around the world used open IM systems from AOL and Yahoo! in the office to speed up collaboration and keep in touch. As IT managers struggled with the security and legal implications of unauthorized IM use, the benefits of the technology were overlooked. IM can play a crucial part in enterprise collaboration when deployed correctly.

Web conferencing often requires the installation of software or a costly fee. But Web conferencing available at a click from the desktop applications that contain all the work and information we need is far more conducive to today's collaboration needs.

A collaboration history that tracks calendar appointments, e-mails, instant messages, and meetings helps users track their interactions and projects in one application, rather than having that information spread across multiple hard drives or online repositories.

There really isn't anyone to blame for the mess that is enterprise collaboration. The various tools were added piecemeal over time, often from different vendors, and often led by employees trying to find a way to collaborate beyond the tools supplied by IT. With the advent of new collaboration tools like blogs, mash-ups, and RSS, the potential exists for even more confusion, but software vendors are moving toward collaboration products that allow employees to incorporate all of the tools at their disposal in a single, easy-to-use application.

IBM Lotus Notes and Domino 8 is the latest version from one of the pioneers in the e-mail and collaboration suite arena. In addition to e-mail and calendar applications, integration with Lotus Sametime instant messaging adds presence to collaboration applications so users know the availability of co-workers, customers, and partners. Lotus Sametime includes many of the features users know and love from consumer IM applications, like emoticons, rich text, and spell check, but it also provides automatic chat histories, easy-to-use Web conferences, and built-in video conferencing.

Lotus Notes and Domino also provide fast and easy access to productivity applications, including the Lotus Symphony suite -- which includes a word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation creator -- meaning users are never far from the documents and data they need to collaborate.

None of this improved collaboration is any good, of course, unless users can access it regardless of their location. Using IBM Lotus Notes and Domino, users can access all of the information they need to collaborate from their desktop, a corporate portal, a Web browser, or a mobile device.

For enterprises looking to build custom applications on top of the collaboration capabilities of IBM Lotus and Domino 8, and the developers who build them, IBM's commitment to open standards means maximum flexibility and no shortage of options. Lotus Web Conferencing, for example, supports multiple server and client operating system environments. Standards-based Web services allow IBM Lotus Notes and Domino 8 to applications using technologies like Microsoft's .NET. Support for a component-based service-oriented architecture (SOA) lets developers connect to enterprise resources.

IT managers can take advantage of server-based provisioning to roll out custom applications and upgrades without time-consuming desk-side visits. Monitoring tools help managers monitor system performance and watch for potential problems. A layered security model helps keep all of the information used in Lotus collaboration safe, and advanced security features such as role-based security, virus protection, file encryption, digital signatures, access control are built in.

The end result is comprehensive collaboration capabilities, including e-mail, calendar, instant messaging, and collaboration and document management in one suite of tools. That's all the reminders, notes, meetings, and correspondence is takes to collaborate on a project, right at your fingertips. Just like it was on our desk in the days before e-mail.

Users can easily customize the e-mail interface of Lotus Notes 8. The side preview mode is shown here.