I am currently setting up my boss's new blackberry to sync with his lotus notes on his laptop to get only his contacts and calendar transfered. We do not need to sync wirelessly and does not want to set up a BES. Is that necessary to transfer the calendar and contacts, when I open the desktop manager it prompts me for lotus but tries to log into the server, which we do not have set up. Is there something I am missing in this connection phase?

Sounds like the BlackBerry Desktop Software is in the BES mode. It needs to be in BIS mode. Not sure how to change it after the fact. Try re-install and select BIS.

I reinstalled the desktop manager and selected the option other than BES mode. Now I cannot figure out how to sync with lotus to pull in contacts and the calendar. Did I miss a step along the way?

Did you go into Synchronize applet and configure it?