Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!snorkelwacker!spdcc!ima!cfisun!eric From: eric@cfi.COM (eric) Newsgroups: comp.groupware Subject: Re: Lotus Notes Info. Wanted Message-ID: <788@venus.UUCP> Date: 23 Mar 90 00:20:00 GMT References: <16190001@hpycla.HP.COM> <90073.070606RFM@psuvm.psu.edu> <90077.123450RFM@psuvm.psu.edu> Reply-To: eric@cfi.COM (Eric Read -CFI-) Distribution: na Organization: Consumer Financial Institute, Waltham, Mass. Lines: 57 In article wex@sitting.pws.bull.com (Buckaroo Banzai) writes: >[Since this is going out to the net as a whole, let me preface it by saying >*THESE ARE MY OPINIONS* They are based on what I saw and what I heard. Your opinions are most welcome here, as we are going to have to face Notes implementation fairly soon. > - several organizations have "bought into Notes" to "change their >organizations." No details revealed; presumably confidential. {probably Only as confidential as the trade press - when Notes was announced, PW's purchase of some thousands of licenses was announced. The idea is to allow audit and tax information that is scattered across the country to be more easily shared. Right now PW's widely decentralized staff can't communicate - anything will be a big plus. The guy who bought Notes for PW is pretty good at looking down the road - he started doing financial planning on an Onyx (first Unix micro, I think) when they first shipped (1982?). Some of that software still runs on a score of Suns now ... > - Notes applications in production include: > real-time Reuters newswire > ... >{Note that all of these "applications" are essentially hierarchical >bulletin-board-like things. Looks good on a marketing slide, though.} This may not sound like much, but when combined with custom views I think the resulting application is powerful. Imagine sitting at your desk in the morning and reading wire stories about only your clients and vendors presented to you, so that you can react to it at once. Here's another - dissemination of progress reports on tax legislation in Washington is difficult now, lots of paper traveling all over the place. Again, transmitted and sorted, the information is much more useful. > - Notes is targetted to the existing Lotus market. Mac version is likely >next, then Unix (though there may be a Unix-hosted server sooner). It doesn't have the same sort of licensing - you buy for a whole batch of people, for a big lump sum. > - there is *no* concurrency control in the DB. Notes relies on the user to This sure is stupid. Of course, not much stupider than most Unixes. And I sure do hope that Unix server shows up before we implement! When we first saw Notes in December, I couldn't believe it - fancy Usenet for your organization! Seems like the administrational overhead is really going to be a bear ... -- Eric Read ` | ' harvard!cfisun!eric (617) 899-6500 Price Waterhouse / CFI --*-- Look! Skeletons 51 Sawyer Rd. ' | ` In their best holiday clothes, Waltham, MA 02154 viewing flowers. (Onitsura)