PG WEEKNAPPLICATION DEVELOPMENT

(OCTOBER 30, 1989 |

APPLIED INTELIGENCE a
Lotus' Strategies Set the Example for IS Professionals

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| multiple computing environments, cor- —: ment today and new discipline imposed" have now become delni to nebi č

This is the porations should look at products that on the entire corporationa — Organizations must imp ere d K
first of a series work well together and can be used to Market leaders cannot malntain their less access to data on ma nframes an č
of articles on build integrated applications. position by neglecting the competition. minicomputers to remalin competitive. z
the strategic di- Many of the strategies being pursued  . Lotus has been able to observe each Front-end tools that offer consistent ;
recttons that Lo- by Lotus and by many other organiza- :..competitive threat and analyze the ef-  functionality and ease of use will be o

tus Development  tions are driven by the need to support.  fects. The size of the 1-2-3 customer base necessary to take advantage of the
Corp. is pursu- the current mixed environment as well provides safety for the company. Rather  back-end database technology, generat- nu
ing and the sig- as the advanced environments of the than an immediate response to competi- | ing issues of mainframe security and O
nificance of future. tive threats, Lotus aims for deliberate data integrity. | S)
those strategies In its brief existence, Lotus has movement that; coincides with changes Networked environments will facili- Cal
to organizations  evolved from an entrepreneurial, single- in the market. Flexibility is essential in tate the implementation of enterprise- sa
planning for product software vendor to a major cor- the PC market, especially a market that wide applications, the existence of m
the 19905. poration known internationally as a is showing signs of maturing and slow- which will be mandated by business | Ci

The challenges software powerhouse. Instead of re- ing of growth. conditions. Organizations are realizing

to which Lotus, sponding to unfulfilled market demands, While there are many issues that will that the gains achieved through the use | sh
one of the soft- Lotus often is able to create and influ- shape the computing environment of the of personal-productivity tools are not | fri
ware world's Big Three, is reacting are | | | - sufficient to remain competitive. Future UF

the same as those that face many corpo-
rations as they head into the next dec-
ade. The technologies and products be-
ing pursued by Lotus are representative
of the systems that the future will
reguire. |

In planning for a dynamic computing

Ititegrated Computirig Platfotms Will Support |
Enitetprisewide Applicatioti Developritent |

Transition to an Enterprise Information System

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applications will unite the organization
with the use of common information,
analyses and reporting technigues. The
successful implementation of enterprise-
wide applications will reguire the care-
ful integration of multiple software and

il hardware computing platforms—both

environment in the 1990s, information- r— — | by the IS organization and by software pip

systems (IS) professionals will no doubt | RISC.Based MK (4 Multimedia | | vendors. -shi

locus on the enterprise information sys- | Workstatlon. Pi Mm." ; | Common funetions that work the | Cor
| tem through which an organization's — ij o Wwd Advanced | same regardless of application become .- minu
| | many machines are seamlessly connect- sla Ena ( more important as systems and applica- | be:
ed with applications working coopera- ONE NE rey ; tions are integrated. The Presentation

tively across machine boundaries. i

The transition to this new environ-
ment presents many challenges for IS
professionals, not the least of which is

Manager interface of OS/2 promises to
provide common functions via graphical
objects. Graphical interfaces such as X
Window System under Unix have the

the critical need for new eguipment, and same goal. E: (
products that outweighs the desire to ri
postpone purehases. Thus it is more im- Short- and Long-Term Solutions Vel
portant than ever for IS professionals to DOS is not. capable of properly sup- Sys
be aware of the technological changes JI ENE EN EN porting the changes reguired by the inc
on the horizon and the products that reve vrerrorm computerized corporation of the future. (EO)
can bridge the gap to the enterprise in- 286/ 386 PCs One short-term solution employed by Lo- Go

formation system.

Movement to a new operating-system
environment will reguire advanced
hardware, as shown in the figure. The
280-based machine with at least 1M
byte of RAM has become the base-level
machine. More powerful 386-based ma-
chines with fast hard disks for LAN
servers are becoming common, but
mixed environments will exist for years
to come. The 386 provides multitasking
today under DOS, using operating envi-
ronments such as Windows/386 and ex-
tended memory. When it is released by
Microsoft, Windows 3.0 will provide us-
ers of DOS with a graphical, multitask-
ing operating-system environment that
is compliant with IBM's Common User
Necess (CUA) user-interface standards.
These are growth paths for the future
that companies should consider first
— when making new pPurchases,

||. 286/386 POs
2M Bytes Memory

DOS

Current Mixed PC Environment

In particular, strategies must be formulated to address the

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Workstatiori,

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changes associated with the advancement of workstation

technologies, operating systems and applications

sof ware.

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: tus is to use protected-mode technology

such as that found in Rational Systems'

. 16M-byte DOS Extender. The long-term

solution is to move to a multitasking op-
erating system that can take advantage
of at least 16M bytes of RAM.

The effective IS manager will recog-
nize these trends and their implications,
and develop viable business plans for
managing future technological changes.
in particular, strategies must, be formu-
lated to address the changes associated

: with the advancement, of new work-
' station technologies, operating systems

and application software.

Lotus is addressing these concerns by
capitalizing on 1-2-3's strength as the
best-known user interface in the world.
New products such as 1-2-3 release 3,

1-2-3/G and Lotus/DBMS will provide di-

rect access to large corporate databases
through this familiar interface.

— If OS/2 and the Presentation Manager
|... sre the target. environment for distribut-
ed applications of the 19905, then there
is a wide chasm (in both software and
hardware) between what will exist in
"he future and what is in place today.

1990s, those with the greatest. signifi-

cance to IS managers pose the same

guestions for software vendors such as
An estimated 18 million PCs world-

ence those demands through the setting
of standards and through its market
presence,

When Lotus was a young company
with just one product, it was easy to

Next week, | will discuss Lotus prod-
ucts geared to the spreadsheet, data-
base, text-management, graphics and
word-processing markets. B

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The best course is to take deliberate Comprehend the corporate strategy. To ' wide are being connected in local area Tu learn more about the subject of
steps to position the organization for taji extent, the strategy was defined —. networks to form departmental systems these articles, please call The James
target, environments of the future whil Y the PC software market and the that share data and applications. Esti- Martin Report, an information service
exploiting all the power that exists it 2 enormous success of 1-2-3. Today, as a mates appearing in the technical press " wpdated guarterly, at (800) 242-1240. |
Epoay S mixed environment, | slogeaok Company among software devel- indicate that more than 50 percent of For information on seminars, please
a oe porabo should attempt to ac- opel Lota has adopted a more re- all office PCs will be networked by contact (in the United States and Can-
dutre soltware that fits into an architec. ni % posture. Long-range predictions 1991. Issues that were once relevant ada) Technology Transfer Institute ko!
dure supportive of enterprisewide SI K future product directions and prom. only in the mainf rame environment now 741 10th St., Santa Monica, Calif. le
Cations development. Rather than Mi 5" lor delivering specific functionality | become critically important for 90402 (213) 394-8305. Im Europe con- |
port a variety of non-cooperative lel eular time are not made pub- — networked PCs: Security of data, com- tact Savant, 2 New St. Carnforth,
products that are distributed across z ŠA This posture is both an indication munications, overall through ut, data Lancs., LA5 9BX United Kingdom |
He complexity of software develop- integrity and sharing of forte) (0524) 734 505. — me |
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