IBM announced on Thursday that it has joined the Enterprise Desktop Alliance (EDA), a group of enterprise software developers collaborating to promote integration and management of Macs Windows IT environments. IBM, the largest company to join EDA to date, is a boost to the group, which includes Absolute Software, Centrify, Group Logic, and Web Help Desk.
John Beck, Program Director Product Management Lotus Software told MacWindows, "we joined based on the intelligence that their surveys are providing," referring to EDA user surveys of large enterprise sites.
"Fully one-third of our 30 million seats are downloading Mac [Lotus Notes client]," he added.
IBM offers the Lotus Notes Mac messaging and collaboration client for its Lotus Domino Server, which the company demonstrated at its booth at Macworld Expo.
Last year, EDA released survey results of large enterprise sites regarding the use of Macs in those organizations. The group is currently collecting and analyzing new data, which it plans to release in the coming weeks.
Macworld Expo visitors also got a preview of Lotus Symphony 3 Beta 2, the latest version of IBM's office suite.