Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ucbvax!hplabs!hplabsz!mayer
From: mayer@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM (Niels Mayer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: NeXT mail system // CMU Andrew System // "groupware" software
Message-ID: <2463@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM>
Date: 21 Oct 88 02:56:54 GMT
Reply-To: mayer@hplabsz.UUCP (Niels Mayer)
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories
Lines: 34


Could someone who has used the NeXT mailer comment on it's
functionality.  The pictures I've seen of their mail program makes it
look like a pretty standard mailer. There seemed to be a bitmap with a
face on it that perhaps shows the face of the person sending the mail
(like Marshall Rose's extensions to mh for systems running face-server
software + X windows). The buttonbox icons didn't indicate to me that
the mailer has any particularly elaborate filing and searching
capabilities. If it does, I'd love to hear about 'em. 

And what of voice mail. How does that work? Is voice data compressed,
uuencoded, and attached to the mail file sent across the networks? 

I've heard rumours that there are some connections between the Andrew
project at CMU and NeXT. In particular, that NextStep is layered ontop
of something akin to the andrew toolkit. How true is this, and to what
extent will NeXT software be able to exploit Andrew-like concepts such
as graphical/voice/musical/active insets in documents. Is the NeXT
mailer in any way akin to the Andrew Message System? 

Finally, does anybody have a line on CSCW (aka "groupware") software
being prepared for the NeXT system? Colab-like software to allow
groups to meet (real time) and work on design and idea-exploration
through a bunch of networked NeXT computers.  Extensions on the mail
system to allow for structured messages to be created and
automatically processed (a la Information Lens, Action Technologies
Coordinator, etc). Seems like this sort of software would be very
useful for using computers in an educational environment, as well as
in the office. Higher education is already tending towards turning
learning into an individual endeavor... I hope that the NeXT's vision
of the future of higher education is not one in which we all plug into
our little "smart TV's" and begin clacking away, oblivious to the
world and to other people. 

-- Niels Mayer.