Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!novavax!weiner
From: weiner@novavax.UUCP (Bob Weiner)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Subject: Re: Questions about knowledge broker
Message-ID: <1461@novavax.UUCP>
Date: 9 Sep 89 03:44:49 GMT
References: <1989Aug29.161420.2016@quintro.uucp> <1457@novavax.UUCP> <457f0213.205d9@apollo.HP.COM>
Organization: Nova University, Fort Lauderdale, FL
Lines: 70
In-reply-to: jtj@apollo.HP.COM's message of 7 Sep 89 14:00:00 GMT


   >    We are currently looking at getting knowledge broker and would like
   >    comments from people who are using it. 

   I am the product team leader for Knowledge Broker, and
   am happy to have an opportunity to respond to your questions.
   I'm giving you the perspective of the product developers, of
   course. Please feel free to contact me directly if you need more
   information.

You said so little about KB in your reply?  What interesting hypertext
capabilities does it have?  Can one dynamically create links while
viewing documents?  How does it compare to other hypertext environments?
Does it provide live or hot links (yes, I know data is stored 'in
place', but the KB still might need to recompute some data in order to
display in a view that meets the user's need)?  What is the cost?  Is it
DM-based or will you make it portable to encourage widespread use?

   >  I mostly interested in
   >    
   >    	1. How is the speed of the product?

   Speed depends entirely on your site configuration.

Here you provided a bunch of 'ifs' and 'buts' yet no data.  Compare its
retrieval and link following capabilities to other packages.  Choose a
platform that you feel is available to many people (a DN10000 does not
qualify here)?

   >    	4. Is it easy/hard to add your own information?

   Apollo also sells the (optional) Knowledge Broker Publisher's
   Toolkit, which allows you to add your own documents that have been
   produced in one of three formats: Interleaf TPS, troff, or ascii.

This doesn't answer the question?  How simple/impossible is it to add a
link to a TPS microdocument or a graphic frame?

   key design feature of Knowledge Broker is its ability to handle
   native output from a variety of publishing systems rather than
   forcing you to choose or convert to a single one.  We are having
   discussions with additional publishing software vendors to encourage
   their adoption of this approach.  Which ones are of most interest to
   you?

If you read your own marketing information about the KB, 6 months ago
marketing made it sound as if documents of virtually any data format are
'easily' linked in to a KB database.  Go out into the world and find out
how people produce documents and then get cracking.  Try Scribe, TeX, MS
Word, FrameMaker, the Publisher, Context, etc.

   >    	5. Can ASCII terminals use it?

   Not today, although we have talked about adding such support. The
   architecture will allow such an extension, but it hasn't been a high
   priority for us.  Should it be?

Yes, in engineering environments terminals are often hooked up to
workstations.  Those using terminals have no less need to access
information.

       Joe Jaynes
       jtj@apollo.hp.com
       Apollo Computer Inc.    Chelmsford, MA

Thanks for taking the time to help inform the world in a
customer-oriented (HP way).
-- 
Bob Weiner, Motorola, Inc.,   USENET:  ...!gatech!uflorida!novavax!weiner
(407) 738-2087