IBM’s Lotus division has added support for Linux to its Lotus Sametime collaboration tool. The move enables firms to cut costs by using Linux servers as a collaboration platform, while a native client brings instant messaging support to Linux desktop systems.

The Lotus Sametime desktop client is due by the end of this month when Lotus Sametime 7.5 ships, IBM said. Linux server support is expected early in 2007.

“We’ve been hearing customer requests for a Linux Sametime server for a long time, ever since we shipped Domino on Linux,” said Darren Adams, Notes/Domino business consultant for IBM in the UK, Ireland and South Africa.

Meanwhile, more companies are starting to look at Linux on the desktop, according to Adams. “Now we have Notes on Linux as well, the barriers to adopting Linux are falling rapidly,” he said.

IBM announced a native Notes client for Linux in July, allowing Linux systems to fit more easily into a corporate Notes infrastructure.

Lotus Sametime already provides presence, instant messaging and web conferencing capabilities across various platforms, including Windows, Solaris, and IBM’s own iSeries and AIX-based systems.

The new Linux client will support corporate distributions such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 and Novell’s Suse Linux 9. IBM said it plans to ship a native Mac OS client in the near future. Distributions supported by the Sametime server are expected to be similar to the client.

Lotus Sametime 7.5 has a number of new features, said Adams, including rich text support, spell checking of instant messages, the ability to send spreadsheet charts as pictures, and voice over IP support.

IBM said it will provide a public gateway to enable Sametime to connect to other instant messaging systems, which will allow customers to link to other Sametime systems, plus third-party services such as Yahoo. Interoperability with Microsoft-based instant messaging is planned for the future.