Users of Lotus Notes 8.x are frustrated with the slowness of the Eclipse platform. Java based new client creates performance problems in older computers due to its memory consumption. IBM Lotus development team provides performance improvement at every new versions. IBMers assure that the performance issues are top-priority for their agendas. The team is focusing especially on start-up times. The first outcomes has been experienced in version 8.5.1 where start-up sequence of some components was reordered to improve end-user usability.

Version 8.5.2 beta phase is approaching to the final and there are good news about the performance improvements. Perhaps, the most important advance is the installation option to pre-load some eclipse processes with the operating system. If you noticed before, Lotus Symphony has the same option which speeds up the opening by over 50%.

Ed Brill posted in his blog about 8.5.2 performance improvements. You can see some links and videos in comments.