Ok, this could be interesting.
In the wake of IBM’s releasing its Lotus Notes Traveler Companion software for the iPhone and an announcement at Macworld Expo that Lotus Connections for social networking inside companies and Lotus Quickr for sharing documents would be coming to the iPhone, an IBM official told Forbes that the company not only wants to reach out to the small-but-growing number of iPhone users in the enterprise, but also use the new applications as a starting point from which to build App Store software for the forthcoming iPad.
“Our customers are looking at the iPad and they’re excited about it,” said Alstair Rennie, IBM’s manager of Lotus software. “No one quite knows its use patterns yet, but it’s our intention to deliver as much of our portfolio as possible on it as fast as possible.”
The applications from the corporate collaboration software will be designed specifically for use on the iPad, and are planned to see release sometime near the debut of the hardware, scheduled to arrive in late March. Rennie said IBM expects the iPad to be popular among executives who plan to use the device for both personal and business purposes.
The news follows comments from Microsoft representatives who have stated that the company is considering bringing its Office suite to the iPad.
Sources have also stated that Apple intends to target business users by offering added features on the iPad, including direct network printing from within applications and support for accessing shared files from a local file server.