Sneak Peek @ Notes 8.5 client

It (unsurprisingly) looks very much like Notes 8 but the developers have thrown in a couple of extra features. What I really liked was :

o Widgets in the client - Connections, QuickR, Sametime, etc. all accessible via the Notes client (not new, I know) but the way a user can seamlessly slide into the next collaboration tool with a simple click was quite impressive.
o The To Do's - you can in Notes 8.5, when writing up a mail, create a table of tasks allocated to people. When the mail is sent out, those tasks get separately sent as To Do's to the allocated people's mailboxes. I see in my crystal ball major uptake of this functionality in meeting-crazy Mars.
o Also cool is the ability to drag and drop emails from the mailbox to the To Do's list or even funkier, to the Calendar! And that, abracadabra, creates a meeting for you with the subject line <-- subject line of email, invitees <-- To's and cc's of email. Don't you love it.

It's funny though how much similar Notes 8 and Outlook look, and apparently it's not even by design ; )