Lotus Development Ireland has played a central role in winning a world award for the localisation of its new product, Lotus eSuite. It is the first time this award has been presented to a group outside IBM's development groups and is a first award for Lotus from IBM. Lotus Ireland worked with teams in Asia and Japan to localise Lotus eSuite into 22 languages, 16 of which were developed in Dublin.

IBM chose Lotus Ireland, which employs over 500 people here, from among its many development groups in 14 laboratories around the world. The eSuite development is believed to be the fastest rollout of a software product in the industry. The new software was made simultaneously available in 22 languages on the World Wide Web.

According to Ms Carmel Somers, development manager for Lotus eSuite in Dublin: "This award recognises the ability of our Dublin staff to work on leading edge technology and to co-ordinate an international localisation project with fellow teams in Asia and Japan."

The eSuite family of products features a complete set of business productivity Java applets built specifically for the network computing environment. Formerly code-named Kona, Lotus eSuite software allows organisations to gain control of the desktop computing environment, reduce total cost of ownership and build more powerful, interactive Internet, intranet and extranet applications.

The eSuite engineering team in Dublin already set a new Lotus standard by providing 10 language demos for the eSuite launch events around the world last November. Now the Irish eSuite development team of 16 will share in a $5,000 prize, which Ms Somers says will be used for a celebration party in Dublin.