🚀 go-pugleaf

Just back from Groupware '92 in San Jose, and thought it well worth
the time & money. Interesting stuff from Intel on their "video-integrated"
486 to appear next year. Borland announced "object exchange", Lotus re-
affirmed their committment to groupware and lotus notes (Manzi told me
that they haven't quite bet the whole farm, but the back 40 is certainly
on the line), and Microsoft is barreling ahead with the development of
its Messaging API (MAPI), although it is hoped that MAPI and VIM may have
a basic set of calls embodied in XAPIA's standard, perhaps as soon as six
months hence. This will make intersystem message and object exchange much
more straightforward, so third party UIs and services should proliferate.

The conference was very commercially oriented, which I found good, although
there was good representation of some top academics (Malone, Winograd,
Englebart).

Only thing I found discomforting was the lack of recognition, or even
awareness, of the 20 year history of computer conferencing. Turoff and Palme,
of EIES and KOM, were not mentioned in any sessions I attended, and the
"defined start of groupware now seems to be the appearance of
Robert Johansen's 1988 book on Groupware.

Final thought: in spite of some things in the architecture and UI that may
not be perfect, Lotus Notes will likely become widespread in use, no doubt
because of the $90 million Lotus has spent developing and marketing it.


Bob McQueen
Dept of Computer Science
University of Waikato
Hamilton, New Zealand
bmcqueen@waikato.ac.nz