Lotus Sets High Standard, High Price for Groupware
 
Microbytes Daily News Service
Copyright (c) 1989, McGraw-Hill, Inc.
With its record-setting price tag of $62,500, the new Notes
groupware product from Lotus signals a new type of
microcomputer software. With the promise of a new style of
productivity, and with mainframe-style prices, Notes reads
like a radical new style of personal computer software.
 
Groupware has gotten so much press and publicity that the
term has almost been trivialized and the concept obfuscated.
Lotus Development Corp. pushed groupware into the limelight
when it first divulged Notes in early 1988. Last week the
company started shipping Notes, and thus defined its idea of
what groupware is. It's likely that Lotus has also defined
what everyone else's idea of groupware will be, just as the
company did with the PC spreadsheet in the '80s.
 
But where the spreadsheet is meant to increase individual
productivity, client/server software like Notes is meant to
increase group productivity. In this respect it's what we
might call anti-personal, or impersonal, computer software.
(In the promotional film Lotus showed before its press
conference, writer Bob Johansen, author of The Groupware
Book, said the personal computer "is too personal.")
 
Lotus describes Notes, which has been in development since
1984, as "group communications software." Lotus president
Jim Manzi says it's "a system designed to harness the
knowledge and expertise that already exists in a workgroup,"
which it does by enabling people to create, collect, and share
information on a local-area network. Lotus officials and
other proponents of group-oriented software paint a picture
of connected coworkers in a harmonious, industrious
environment. The easier it is for the workgroup to cooperate,
the more productive the workgroup will be. However, the
disappointing news was that this groupware isn't just for any
group; it's for well-heeled workgroups. The software alone
costs $62,500, requires its own server, and does not work
with low-end PCs.
 
This might not be so disappointing were Notes not so attractive
and promising. Although claims that this kind of software will
make businesses more productive, responsive, and competitive have
not been proven yet, it's clear that any group of collaborators
could benefit from Notes.
 
Just what is Notes? Very simply, it's a combination of database
and teleconferencing software that coworkers can use to pool and
share information and communicate with each other across a
network. All the data that a group compiles -- data that can
consist of text and graphics -- resides on the server, where it's
sorted and arranged according to criteria that the group has
established. The software can sort all these documents in various
ways, including by predetermined fields, keywords, and hypertext
links. Notes works as a "data synchronizer," keeping all the
information in the database consistent and updated across the
entire network; the software includes functions for distributing
and automatically replicating every database. Any user on the
system (unless the administrator chooses otherwise) can search
any database of documents on the server. They can also append
comments to documents, replacing paper that gets circulated
manually with an electronic version called up on the computer
screen.
 
The other main component of Notes is its person-to-person
capabilities, including a fully integrated e-mail system, that
let it function as an electronic conferencing and discussion
tool.  In this mode, the system operates as a teleconferencing
network, letting users exchange messages of any sort with
each other. You can send a message to anyone else on the
network by pulling down a messaging menu, filling in the
recipient's name, typing the message, and clicking a "send"
button. Those messages can be compiled and shared with
other people on the system or kept between a certain number
of users.
 
As a means of communication, Notes allows for different types of
interaction, according to Frank King, senior vice president of
Lotus' Software Products Group: "1-to-1 or 1-to-few interaction;
many-to-1 interaction; 1-to-many interaction; and many-to-many
interaction." People working together on a project can pass
around compound documents, access the same information, send
messages to each other, and conduct meetings without being in the
same physical space.
 
Notes also includes tools for building databases, either from
scratch or from applications templates that come with the
software. An @function library consists of 90 functions for
working with and presenting document information; these include
string, math, time-date, logical, view statistics, and list
functions.
 
The Notes database, the well of information to be compiled,
sorted, and shared, can consist of text and images, which can
come from external word processors, spreadsheets, graphics
packages (TIFF and Metafile formats), or be produced with Notes'
basic text editor. The program arranges the data according to
categories the group sets up and then presents it according to
different views or criteria. The information can be stored in a
freestyle way or in structured forms, depending on how the group
or system manager has set it up. People working on a report or an
article might want to quickly type in comments to someone's first
draft, for example; people working in sales might want invoice or
order forms that they can fill in. The structure of the
information itself is left up to the users. Notes is the engine
that sorts and categorizes and updates all that information. Of
course, before Notes can do its work, people have to get all that
information in there in the first place, which means for most
people a new style of operating.
 
Lotus says Notes has extensive security facilities, conforming to
National Security Agency requirements. Access can be controlled
by the author of a document or by a centralized administrator.
The server software includes the components that handle security,
network management, the catalog of all databases, and a log of
server activity.
 
 
OS/2 on the Server, Windows on the Workstation
Notes runs under Novell, 3Com, or IBM network operating systems,
on Ethernet or Token Ring LANs. It takes about 20 minutes to set
it up "if the wires are already laid," said Larry Moore, general
manager of Lotus' Communications Products Group.
 
The OS/2-based server software requires its own dedicated
machine, with either an Intel 286, 386, or 486 CPU and at least 5
megabytes of memory. ("The server must be OS/2-based because of
the multithreading," Frank King said.) The client part of Notes
runs on 286- or 386-based systems with hard disks and at least 4M
bytes of RAM to use the OS/2 Presentation Manager version or 640K
to use the DOS version. (Lotus recommends a megabyte of memory on
a DOS machine, so you can figure that's what you'd be best
having.) At its press conference last week in Cambridge, Lotus
demonstrated the software using a Compaq Systempro as the server
and two 386 machines as workstations. The DOS version of the
client software runs under Microsoft Windows, making Notes the
first Windows product for Lotus. ("We're pragmatic and recognize
what customers want," King said.)  On the screen, a Notes session
looks similar to a typical OS/2 or Windows session, with a menu
bar across the top and selections such as View (for looking at a
document or collection of document), Compose (for writing
messages), Mail, Help, and Design (for constructing a database).
 
 
Priced Like Mainframe Software
The $62,500 price licenses use of Notes on 200 machines, in any
mix of servers and workstations. Besides software, that price
brings training, six months of maintenance and upgrades, phone
support, and ten sets of documentation. Lotus is "in discussion
with VARs to bring Notes to smaller companies," said one company
official. Just how Lotus' new (and first) direct sales force will
deal with smaller groups is not yet clear. A Lotus spokesperson
said sales will be handled "on an individual basis" and that she
didn't know "if people will be turned away or what." She pointed
out that companies interested in Notes don't have to put it on
200 machines at first; "they can start out with 10 or 20," she
said, and build up from there. A small sales force can't handle a
lot of "onesie and twosie sites," she said. Lotus will probably
make different arrangements for selling this software.
 
If a site installs Notes on the maximum 200 systems, the price
breaks down to about $313 per user, which isn't bad; in fact,
it's perfectly in line with what they'd pay for most business
applications. Add in $20,000 or so for a decent file server and
the price jumps to about $400 per user. Software as complex and
remarkable as Notes is worth every penny of that. The question
is: How many companies will need 200 Notes machines? How many can
justify the considerable hardware and software expense?
 
To be able to afford this package, you probably need to have some
mainframe involvement. In fact, Notes may actually be a mainframe
software package in disguise. It is priced like a mainframe
package. It works with a large number of users, just like a
mainframe package. But it doesn't run on a mainframe, which is an
advantage. Lotus did indicate that links to mainframes are likely
next year sometime.
 
One company that is buying Notes on a grand scale is Price
Waterhouse, which said it has licensed 10,000 copies. Notes
"really does what people expected computers to do -- organize
information," said Sheldon Laube, national director of
information and technology for the finanial firm, at last week's
press conference. Laube said most of their Notes workstations
will be running Windows, until the 386 edition of OS/2 comes
along.
 
Computer sites not used to buying mainframe software will look
for a lower-priced, trimmed-down alternative. But then, Lotus
isn't aiming Notes initially at small computer sites, even though
there are many that could benefit from this kind of software.
Fortunately, Lotus seems to be willing to deal privately with
smaller companies, especially if it's through VARs. No doubt
Lotus would like to offload on to the VARs any customer service
problems that this software might generate.
 
Notes is an impressive accomplishment, a technological
achievement that could, if used to its potential, transform the
way people -- or at least some people -- work. In much the same
way as it did in the spreadsheet market, Lotus has set a high
standard for groupware, an area that has not yet lived up to its
promise, but an area that could affect almost every computer
user. You don't have to be in the Fortune 1000 to appreciate a
computer system that can help workers collaborate, cooperate, and
communicate. But -- for now -- you do if you want to be able to
afford it.
 
 
Notes Groups Limited to DOS, OS/2 Users for Now
Although Lotus officials say Notes provides for "many-to-many
interaction" among groups of geographically and personally
diverse people -- Jim Manzi said it can "reach across space and
time" -- the Notes vision of collaboration does not yet include
people who use computers not based on Intel processors. Macintosh
or Sun users, for example, can't be a part of a Notes workgroup.
Lotus is considering plans for bringing Notes to non-DOS or OS/2
systems, "but we're making no announcements," said Larry Moore,
general manager of the Lotus division that brought Notes to
market.
 
It's technically feasible to adapt the software to Macs or Unix
systems, said one of the developers who's worked on the program
since its inception in 1984. (Notes was conceived and developed
originally by Iris Associates, of Westwood, MA.) Lotus will "make
those decisions in order of which will produce the most revenue,"
he said.
 
 
Notes Won't Bring "Immediate Miracles," Manzi Warns
"The only problem with Notes," says Lotus chief Jim Manzi, "is
how to market it and how to support it."
 
"Notes is not a product that you can just buy and put it up on a
screen and expect immediate miracles," Manzi said last week at
the Personal Computer Outlook conference in San Francisco. "It's
not even clear to us that Notes is even a product. It may in fact
be a service in itself. In fact, one of our earliest customers
will use it to deliver service to its customers."
 
(That customer is Reuters Information Services, which is using
Notes in conjunction with its satellite-based system, to deliver
personalized news feeds to its subscribers. The Reuters system
uses Notes to grab and sort news stories and present the
subscriber with information according to prespecified criteria;
it would collect and deliver all stories related to computers,
for example, package them, and send them to the user's Reuters
terminal.)
 
Lotus has formed its first direct sales force to sell Notes.
However, Manzi admitted the new groupware product isn't something
you "put on the shelf at Egghead Software" and expect customers
to snap up.
 
"One of the people who developed Notes compares it to the
telephone," Manzi said. "Like the phone, Notes will help solve
problems that people didn't even know they had."
 
Contact: Lotus Development Corp., 55 Cambridge Pkwy., Cambridge,
MA 02142; (617) 577-8500.
 
                              --- BYTEweek Staff
 
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