wissel.net

A customer recently asked: "How difficult is it to migrate from Domino 8.0 to Domino 8.5". I gently had to remind him that we upgrade while others migrate. So what's the difference: A migration often involves new hardware, while a upgrade usually happens in-place (unless of course your box is rusty and you want a shiny new one). A upgrade doesn't alter data (a lot) while a migration typically requires data conversion. A upgrade can be rolled back very fast (in Domino: just start the server from the old binary directory - you might need a little help from the compact task beforehand). A upgrade also typically coexists very well with older releases. A migration comes with coexistence challenges.
Got it? Our colleagues from the Websphere brand came up with a very interesting model for new functionality. Instead of releasing a new version altogether they publish feature packs. Taking this train of though you could look at Domino 8.5 as a combination of a maintenance release and a feature pack. It will include more than 3000 fixes since the release of Domino 8.0 and a set of new features

• DAOS which stores attachments one time per server regardless of the number of users it got sent to
• ID Vault which help you to manage that Notes.ids once and for all (I haven't come across a better PKI store yet
• XPages which allow you to do web2.0 with elegance and ease. XPages is actually not new technology. It has been available for Websphere Portal as Lotus Component Designer for quite a while. New is the deep integration in the Domino stack (and Domino Desginer, but this is a server post)

Of course you want to check the Official Pages once 8.5 has been released.