Conference 7.286::digital

    We've been selling Notes for years. Not very well but we have been
    selling it. There hasn't seemed to be much interest in turning it
    into the sort of groupware that I hear Lotus Notes is though. I also
    hear we're getting out of the applications software business.
    
    		Alfred 

    >I also hear we're getting out of the applications software business.
    
    oh NO !!, but that where the FUN is !
    
    geee wiz :(
        
    \nasser

>                                            After Iris was funded, Mr. Ozzie 
>     persuaded his two college friends and collaborators Timothy Halvorsen and 
>     Leonard Kawell to join him.  They added Steve Beckhardt, who had written 
>     VAX Notes, an early example of groupware, for Digital Equipment.  But 
>     VAX Notes could only be used on Digital minicomputers.

    FWIW ... Steve Beckhardt didn't work on VAX Notes, much less "write it".
    The distributed lock manager in VMS, yes. Len Kawell wrote K-Notes, the
    midnight project which caused VAX Notes to eventually get written (after
    engineer-driven prompting by the eventual VAX Notes project leader, Benn
    Schreiber, who's still at DEC).

    There is a general confusion here between VAX notes and Lotus Notes. 
    These are two very different animals.
    
    /d.c.

    
    What about notes-11 and RSX, isn't that where it really 'started' ?
    
    pjd
    
    

        
    >What about notes-11 and RSX, isn't that where it really 'started' ?

    The first notes tool at Digital was Notes (sometimes called K-Notes
    after Len Kawell who wrote it). It ran only on VMS. Notes-11 was 
    written by Mark Goodrich on RSTS/E. I used Notes-11 on RSTS/E in the
    early days before it even had the ability to write/reply. Notes-11 was 
    later ported to RSX and VMS (at least). VAX Notes was later still and 
    is what is now called DEC Notes. Actually there was VNOTES between
    Notes-11 and VAX Notes but that was mostly a user interface prototype.

    Those interested in the history of Notes, including its pre-Digital
    roots, would be well advised to check out:

VAX NOTES History		AXEL::NOTES_HISTORY			    1457

    			Alfred

    It was the WSJ reporter who got that incorrect about Steve writing
    VAX Notes.

    The point is it's a piece of USEFUL software of GREAT interest to
    customers who are BUYING it.  Why don't we move it to Windows/DOS
    /NT/OS-2/SCO... whatever is selling... and grab a piece of the pie
    ourselves!
    
    How many other products do we take for granted that might be
    money-makers NOW if only they were available on Windows?  
    
    What S/W or "groupware" would make the Alpha PC a "I just *GOTTA*
    have one" replacement for an Intel-based PC?  
    
    -j

Re: .8

Actually, there are DOS, Windows and Macintosh interfaces to DEC Notes
(see PCAPP1::PATHWORKS_CONFERENCING), but DEC Notes is not really up
to what Lotus Notes is and does, which limits what the client side
can do.

For people interested in Lotus Notes, there's a new conference dedicated
to it: BOEBNR::LOTUS_NOTES.

...petri

PC's are not a very good target for Notes-ish stuff unless they are
networked.

Lee

    
    It was reported in the Sept 13 Digital News and Review, and at
    the European DECUS that we will indeed be introducing a direct
    competitor to Lotus Notes very soon.  It is called Percussion
    and has been selling under the name "Objectworks" on a custom basis
    to European system-integration customers for more than a year, and
    in recent months in the US.  It will be a document-oriented groupware
    package that works off third party relational databases, and is
    expected to include an object-oriented 4GL tool set that produces
    C++ code.  DEC aquired the technology from FABA, a Linz Austria based
    software company.
    
    I took this right out of trade rags, so it's not confirmed, but I've
    seen it in several public places.
    
    Tim
       

    
    FWIW, Objectworks begat Percussion, which had a very short life, & 
    was itself transformed into Linkworks. All the same product (I think).
    Just different names..... upper case may be wrong in the above.
    
    About to burst into the public gaze.
    
    
    Colin

	Indeed, Lotus Notes, and Dogitals notes product are not compettition.

	LinkWorks is our positioning against Lotus Notes for peoe who want
	to make the jump. 

	Heather

And do not confuse LinkWorks (new) with LinkWorks (old).  Now we're even reusing
our own product names!

Paul

    According to DEC (not Digital) Computing 15 September 1993, we're
    releasing Percussion, not a mention of LinkWorks. Looks like the
    marketing machine is up to scratch as usual. Neither does it mention it
    as a competitor to Lotus Notes, which, to be honest, is not what my
    understanding of Objectworks was either. I thought the ALL-IN-1 people
    were most scared of Objectworks.
    
    Is this a good time to mention that DEC UK shot itself in the foot when
    it laid off one of the *very* few Objectworks' gurus recently?
    
    Laurie.

    Re a few...
    
    We will be announcing 'LinkWorks' as part of the October 12th 
    announcements.  Many of us have been selling it on a 'project' basis to 
    customers for nearly 2 years.
    
    Anyone interested in the naming history (fiasco?) of 
    
     LinkWorks (LNX) aka 
     Percussion (P8N) aka 
     TeamTask (TT) aka
     OBJECTworks (OBW) 
    
    might want to peruse notes 271 (announcing TeamTask as the new name) 
    and 463 (announcing Percussion as the new name) in the 
    HLDE01::LINKWORKS conference.  They could make you laugh or they could 
    make you cry, depending on your outlook on life...
    
    In the 'groupware/workgroup computing' space, LinkWorks does compete 
    directly with Lotus Notes and yes, in the past, it has been perceived 
    as competing with Digital's ALL-IN-1 and TeamLinks products.  I hope 
    those battles have now been resolved.  LinkWorks does go a lot further 
    than Lotus Notes though.  It is also one of the 6 strategic corporate 
    campaigns for FY94.
    
    The biggest problem with LinkWorks in Digital will be the availability 
    of skilled resource to sell it properly, to implement it so it adds 
    value and to support it.  It is a complex product and relies on a wide 
    range of underlying technical and consulting skills.  In the UK, our 
    three highly skilled LNX resources are fully booked, double booked, 
    overbooked until well into next year, and this is before we have even 
    announced the product.  We get daily calls from customers and account 
    teams demanding immediate pre- and post-sales LinkWorks support which 
    we cannot fulfil.  The bubble is about to burst.
    
    Yes, Laurie, in view of all this, it is strange that the 4th highly 
    skilled UK resource is no longer with the company...!
    
    Regards,
    Susi
    

    So that translates to 25% of our skilled Linkworks personnel in the UK
    were made redundant, and the remaining 75% are snowed under even before
    we officially release it.
    
    Very clever.
    
    Laurie.

Well they wont have any problems making their 180 days utilisation figure will
they? or will they?

    I've just read note 463 in the LinkWorks conference. Ye Gods... And
    things are supposed to be getting better?
    
    Laurie.

    It would figure, said Murphy of legal fame, that we'd be getting out of
    the application SW business - were we ever really in it?  No future in
    it probably, after all look at what a failure All-in-1 was and how hard
    Microsoft, Aldus, Word Perfect, Lotus, etc. are struggling to survive.
    There was a future but we missed it - again.

If by "All-in-1" you mean ALL-IN-1, that product is not a failure.  We sold lots
of licenses in the days before Graphical User Interfaces were in vogue.  We
missed the boat in updating the interface soon enough, but I would guess most of
those licenses are still active and that we still sell a lot of ALL-IN-1.

Paul

re .21

I shouldn't speak for the author of .20, but methinks you're missing a certain
flavor of irony in that note. Do you also believe that Mr. Morrison thinks
Microsoft is "struggling to survive"?

    I heard that the name ALL-IN-1 V4 was considered for a millisecond 
    while searching for a name for the LOTUSnotes-competitor product to 
    be announced on 10/12.  Also heard that BP didn't like Percussion
    because it sounded too much like Symphony....go figure.
    
    We could charge for an upgrade from MEMEX (the first Linkworks) to 
    <whatever-the-name-was> the new Linkworks - setting a pattern that
    we can charge for each�s/w upgrade like the PC s/w cos. do.
    
    caught in name-spin...

    
    ALL-IN-1 will be getting a boost in a few months with the release of
    TeamLinks V2.0 where windows users can sit on their PC and access their
    ALL-IN-1 data.  Documents, nicknames and send ALL-IN-1 mail all from
    the comfort of windows.  I think that the MAC version will be out
    around then also.
    
    LinkWorks is meant to be the future of office for Digital.  However
    I've heard that functionally it isn't all there yet and needs a bit of
    time to catch up on 10 years of development of ALL-IN-1.
    
    I think re:(lots) was right it's a real shame that notes wasn't ported
    to PC etc early on.  I don't mean interface I mean the whole lot. 
    Digital seems to think porting something means writing an interface to
    the server.  People don't really want a VAX or AXP just for Notes so
    why force em.  It would have been wonderful to be able to have
    conferences on UNIX,PC and VMS and be able to access them all and not
    care what it is running on.  
    
    Mike

    The principle is right but now all "PC" users have Microsoft based
    systems. For now, Macintosh  represents that remaining "PC" population
    so, if we're going to cover the masses, let's not leave some of them
    out.
    
    I may move to Windows as well as many other users (eventually). But, in
    the meantime...