Pace 92

Second of a
series of articles
on the strategic
directions that
Lotus Develop-
menti Corp. is
pursuing and
the significance
of those strate-
gies to organiza-

tions planning
for the 19905.
Due largely to
the astounding
success of 1-2-3,

Lotus is often
characterized as a one-product compa-
ny. Even those in the industry who rec-
ognize that Lotus has significant prod-
uets in other categories often fail to re-
alize the extent of market penetration
achieved by Lotus products.

In addition to its famous 1-2-3, Lotus
has products specializing in database
work, text management, graphics, utili-

ties and word processing. s

Yet what's interesting about these
products is not how they're ranked in

fheir respective categories, but their de-

velopment, employing several unigue
features, to solve functionality problems.
In the realm of 1-2-3, of course, there
is an interesting trend.
Release 2.2 of 1-2-3 was announced as
a new product during the development:
of release 3.0. Release 2.2 was developed
on the foundation of release 2201—that
is, its an assembler code product. It of-
fers features that have been on the wish
list of many customers for a long time.
Linking of cells between files, an Undo
command, greatly improved graphing ca-
pabilities, 100 percent compatibility with
release 201 worksheets, macros and add-
ins attest to the degree of importance it
represents as an improvement over 201.
Release 2.2 runs on 8086 and 8088 ma-
phines wilh the same speed as release
Release 3.0, which dominated the
news within the industry for some time,
offers a new level of power and fea-
ures: three-dimensionality -with 256
spreadsheets in one file, backward com-
patibility with 2.01 and 2. file links,

improved graphing and
Breater speed when installed under

PG WEEKNAPPLIGATION DEVELOPMENT,

Lotus Follows Strategy of Solving Functionality Problems

sales, primarily to Microsoft Excel, and
that a mixed-vendor spreadsheet envi-
ronment will exist in many organiza-
tions. Mixed-spreadsheet; environments
don't pose major problems as long as
work groups are consistent in their use
of products and applications. Virtually
every product provides worksheet file
compatibility or transfer to standard
1-2-3 file format, sustaining and enhanc-
ing desktop operations.

It's no secret that desktop computers
will play an important role in the com-
puterized corporation of the future.
Many organizations will choose to imple-
ment enterprise information systems,
which link operational data to financial

The Computerized Corporation of th
Integrated Tools Will Automate Data Processi

not only be available, they will provide
such a powerful competitive advantage
that most organizations won't be able to
ignore them. It's in this context that Lo-
tus promises to provide direction to
move from existing spreadsheet applica-
tions to enterprise applications.

In April 1987, Lotus unveiled a num-
ber of plans for future releases. Release
3 was just one of the many new prod-
ucts mentioned. Lotus 1-2-3/M, 1-2-3/G,
Symphony 200 Plus and Lotus/DBMS
were included. Later there were an-
nouncements of the joint development,
plan with Digital Eguipment Corp.; 1-2-3
for the Macintosh; joint development
with Sun; and what is now called

(Futute
ig and

Data Access tri the Client-Server
Configuration S

Setver

 (Extornal LAN)

OL ENE AE
BESE

Communication
Server
o EGA

Enterprise environments will

rtunately, the 286
with IM byte of RAM has become the
base-level machine, and by the h
sage 1989 there will be more Tae, :
Ma pride than 80865 and 80886. models and present the results
Pr rd poje about the de- powerful guery and graphic front ends. |
ele ije are drla dih
rala ai ae to deliver products on processing ea aa Anka la
ume as well as the guality of the man cessing functions are performed on ner. '
nesi Competitors also eriti. sonal computers and data peh, m:
seje Lotus, but for most customers the from distributed host s |
ko significant A large por- A com; lete portfolio ot necen
exploiting the PENA ia leked k poday bo Lap ocatlans
srn over čen keapte; not ofTered today by Lotus or any
of release 3,0. A more important issue Toda, terprise Pplications ;
a the avnilability of features and leced ifraved s ze Various pov sli re
oa expected in 1-2-3 release 22. B pev
m lhe future, its likely that 1-2.3 will VSE, koli Sonata a ine |
Continue to lose market share of new pose PANO k ene

grated application environmenta will

provide such an advantage that
most firms won't be able to ignore them. Lotus promises to
help move from existing spreadsheet applications to them.

; dom Avakan— group environments, it's likely that

j š Notes, a group-productivity product un-
; ipii der development, will be far better re-
ceived. Notes will be used in a struc-
tured manner where project manage-
ment, scheduling and sharing of
information within a group are done.
Major competition in this category ex-

munication of future product informa-
lon can be expected.
1-2-3/M is a joint effort between Lotus

JAM product with marketing responsibil-

» |

Agenda, though extremely powerful, re-
auires considerable learning and appli-
cations development to be fully exploit-
ed. Unless development resources or use
ful templates are available, this growth
will continue to be slow,

For ti

LI
contact (in the United States and Can: ||
ada) Technology Transfer Institute, |

(85)

INOVEMBER 6, 1969

ities shared between Lotus and IBM, an
alliance that provides Lotus with valu-
able access to mainframe markets. 1-2-
8/M will be developed as a Systems Ap-
plication Architecture (SAA)-compliant
product. As such, it will be well posi-
tioned for large, multiplatform coopera-
tive-processing applications.

Many changes have occurred since the
concept of 1-2-3 on a mainframe went
into development. The biggest; change is
the significant role that networks will
play in corporate computing. Even with
large PC LAN environments, 1-2-3/M on
the mainframe will still be an important
product, because many corporations will
continue to use mainframes in their
cross-platform strategy.

Dealing with Unstructured Data
Within any organization, unstructured
ideas and text are managed and manip-
ulated more often than structured data.
Examples would include the manage-
ment of E-mail, to-do lists, correspon-
dence files and general information
databases. The unstructured nature of.
the information has traditionally made
it difficult to implement applications
that were of managing the.
Contents.

As a result, large (and vital) applica-
tion domains have been ignored within
major corporations. This application
area will be supported more effectively
in the future through the efforts of or:
ganizations like Lotus, products like
Agenda, the study of work habits and
the understanding of how ideas are
managed and manipulated.

The introduction of Agenda in many
respects was the commencement of a
new software category: personal infor-
mation managers (PIMs). Lotus has mar:
keted Agenda aggressively with some-
what, modest results. One reason is that

With the migration of LAN work- ;

ists with Symantec's GrandView,
Persoft's IZE, Broderbund's MemoryMate
d | and others.
Datalens, a new application-program- Next week TU discuss Lotus products
ming interface. geared to the spreadsheet, database, i
Lotus responded to criticism about text-management, graphics and word- Ht
failure to meet the delivery dates for processing markets. 8 h
these products by withholding comment. ČE SI ITI TNI Iz nis V.
Until products are shipped and the at- To learn more about the subject of |
mosphere eases, the silence is expected these articles, please call The James l
— to continue. After the logjam of current Martin Report, an information service |
releases is broken, a less restricted com- updated guarterly, at (800) 242-1240. |,

information on seminars, please

and IBM. It will run under the VM and 741 10th St, Santa Monica, Calif. li
operating systems. In addition, it is 90402 (213) 3994-8305. In Europe, con: ||
| expected to be avallable for the AS/400  tact Savant, 2 New St., Carnforth, |
under 08/400. Lotus 1-2-3/M will be an LA5 9BX United Kingdom |

734 505. s

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