Microsoft removed the main obstacle, DDE’s lack of network support, by developing network-aware Dynamic Data Exchange (NetDDE). NetDDE extends DDE under Windows for Workgroups. And the company at least partially overcame the second barrier, lack of a standard messaging architecture within WFW, by adding MAPI (Messaging Application Programming Interface) to WFW. Together with some of the easier development tools of Windows, such as Visual Basic, the enhancements bring the development of groupware into the r ealm of the power user.

NetDDE has the potential to change dramatically the way developers write network software for Windows. In the simplest scenario, NetDDE lets multiple users share rapidly changing information.

Imagine, for instance, multiple users working on different parts of a large financial worksheet. The manager of the entire operation could view one worksheet linked to the smaller ones and get a dynamic, real-time display of the progress of the entire project.

Real-time spreadsheet updates

In another scenario — one that we tried during testing of WFW  — several users can connect to parts of a larger spreadsheet (which could, for instance, be connected to the stock exchange) and get real-time updates of the data in the spreadsheet. We connected four users to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet; two of the four stations displayed parts of the spreadsheet as a table in a Word for Windows document. The other users displayed the different data (from the same worksheet ) as graphs in Word and Excel.

WFW enables existing applications such as Excel and Word to use NetDDE through ClipBook, an extension of the standard Windows clipboard.

ClipBook acts as an intermediary between the network and existing applications, most of which still assume that the data to which they are linked is running on the same PC. NetDDE includes an extension to the standard DDE API (application programming interface), so new applications should be able to connect over the network.

An example of an application that does this is included in WFW: WinChat uses NetDDE to allow users to type messages to each other over the network.

Used in more complex ways, NetDDE provides a relatively easy way to develop applications that use all or some of the machines on a network for processing. Different components of a very large application can use NetDDE to coordinate tasks and pass messages, turning the network into a sort of asymmetric multiprocessing computer.

NetDDE, at least in the tests performed by our site, is a fairly fast communication method for networked applications. Changes in source documents were reflected throughout the network in a few seconds, at the most. MAPI is another communication medium for less time-sensitive data.

Microsoft officials have said that the ultimate goal of MAPI is to hide the details of back-end messaging hardware and software from front-end applications. To achieve that goal, Microsoft is preparing a Service Provider API, which independent software vendors will be asked to write to when developing low-level messaging systems such as X.400 or a connection to host-based mail systems such as IBM’s PROFS.

On the application side, MAPI is designed to make it easy to add messaging and mail capabilities to any Windows application. By writing to a single API layer, developers won’t have to be concerned about how messages get from one place to another.

To date, the only component that Microsoft has completed and made public is a subset of MAPI called Simple MAPI. Although it may be too limiting for software developers building industrial-sized applications, Simple MAPI is perfect for creating smaller applications of the kind a power user could create in an afternoon.

We were able to use Simple MAPI to write a macro in Word for Windows to send completed stories to editors through Microsoft Mail 3.0. Similar macros can be written in any macro language (or Visual Basic) that can call a Windows dynamic link library.

But messages are not limited to those between two users. MAPI also provides application-to-application messaging. A good example is in Schedule+, the network-scheduling program included with WFW. Schedule+ exchanges E-mail with itself to exchange schedules of users over local or wide area networks.

Interapplication messaging can be used in simple group applications, such as a checkout board showing which employees are out of the office. Another possibility is posting records to a central database over a WAN.

Stay smart when your hard drive fails.

No matter how you try to take care of your hard drive, it will definitely have the tendency to fail. This problem is indeed catastrophic especially if you have stored important files in your hard drive. However, not all files are unrecoverable. This is why you can still perform hard drive failure recovery in case you encounter as serious problem such as data loss due to hard drive failure. As much as possible, you should pay close attention to the signs of hard drive failure. You can definitely do away with hard drive failure recovery steps once you know the process of identifying the signs of failure.

You should keep in mind that hard drive failure recovery can be a long and tedious process. You cannot instantly recover files because there are some processes you need to follow to ensure your files will be successfully recovered. One mistake with the process and you will risk losing all of your files. If you are not really sure which direction to take, it is much better to leave the job to someone who can successful recover the data. If your hard drive is already showing early signs of failure, take it to a computer expert immediately before the problem gets worse.

How Deal With A Hard Drive Crash

The last thing that you want to happen to your computer is a hard drive crash. It is one of the most complex problems that has plagued most computers these days. The most important thing you need to remember if you want to prevent a hard drive crash is keeping an eye on its warning signals. Not only will you be able to save money but time as well because you no longer have to think about recovery solutions. One indicator that your hard drive will crash is when it has slow access times. If it really takes time for you to open a folder, this is already a great indicator that your hard drive is not working, as it should. Meanwhile, if you have a RAID 5 problem, you may want to check this page for more information.

You should also pay close attention to the sound as this is considered a great indicator. If you hear plenty of grinding and clicking, then something is wrong with your hard drive. It is important that you power it down and have a professional dig deeper into the issue. Although you might attempt to fix the issue after a hard drive crash, it is better to get your data backed up and take it to an expert data recovery service like this one. Hard drive failure is common, and messing with a hard disk after physical failure may damage the data on the drive permanently. The more damaged your data is, the more it will cost to recover.

Are Data Recovery Services Costs Really Expensive?

When you are faced with a severe hard drive crash, it is always best to leave the solution to the experts because in order to fix a drive, they will typically require a clean room. Of course, there are plenty of data recovery experts that are capable of restoring your files even if the problem was due to virus infection. However, you need to be aware that hiring a specialist to do the job is quite expensive. The total recovery cost will vary from company to company. This is why it is best to explore your options first before you commit to one company. One of the factors that you must keep in mind when looking for data recovery service is experience.

If the company has vast experience, you know that you are heading in the right direction because they will typically have a strong recovery record. These companies are equipped with knowledge from the simplest recovery jobs to the most complicated. However, you need to determine the pricing first because this can be expensive especially if the problem requires more than just a simple solution. As much as possible, you need to ask the company if there is a pricing range, so you can be sure you can afford to retrieve your data.

MDC, a Dayton, Ohio, provider of research services, is in the process of migrating from mainframes to work groups. The company began using Cooperation about a year ago to create user-specific desktops.

Previously, MDC employees worked at mainframe terminals or stand-alone workstations equipped with software such as word processors and spreadsheets. But the need for people to work together made that configuration ineffective.

“The thing that was missing was the sharing of information and applications and being able to configure an environment for a work group that may be different from another work group,” Whitney said. “[With Cooperation,] we’re just starting to look at work-flow automation.”

Cooperation is an object-oriented, client/server operating environment based on NCR’s Open Cooperative Computing Architecture. It was introduced in 1990 as one of the first groupware products; when AT&T acquired NCR in 1991, NCR incorporated AT&T’s groupware offering, Rhapsody, into it.

Cooperation runs on DOS at the desktop and on OS/2 or Unix at the server. The base client, which includes Windows 3.0, provides the tools for creating user-specific desktops, sharing/linking data between applications and automating frequently performed tasks.

The base server includes LAN Manager, file, print and directory services, framework libraries and a system manager. About 50 add-on modules provide sophisticated client features, such as group calendaring and remote application access, and server features such as wide-area links and mail gateways. A typical configuration costs about $800 per user, according to NCR officials, also in Dayton.

Cooperation constitutes the software element of MDC’s migration from the mainframe to a client/server environment. The downsizing has also prompted MDC to buy several NCR System 3000 multiprocessors and servers, although Cooperation runs on any Intel-based PC.

MDC’s varied applications, which range from typical office software to homegrown applications and information-systems tools, run on top of Cooperation. As such, each work group has a desktop tailored to its users’ needs. Existing third-party applications can be registered or bridged into the Cooperation environment, and the framework libraries in the server component facilitate development of homegrown Cooperation-compliant applications.

At this point, most users don’t even realize they have Cooperation, Whitney said. They know only that they have a desktop that provides access to the applications they require.

“All [users] know is that they have objects and icons they click on to do their work. If you went to users and asked them how they like Cooperation, they’d say, `What’s Cooperation?'” Whitney said. “We produce desktops within Cooperation that have the applications and data that [our users] need.”

Because Cooperation runs on either OS/2 or Unix at the server, it allows users to access applications from either system, which was not possible on MDC’s old mainframe system. Whitney said he views Cooperation’s base system as a “technical enabler.”

“It has allowed us to do things within the environment that we were not able to do before, like accessing different systems simultaneously” in a way that’s transparent to the user, he said.

MDC will soon use more sophisticated Cooperation features, including mail. Although users within the same work group already use Cooperation’s E-mail, members of different groups still communicate via the mainframe PROFS, Whitney said. That will change as the migration off the mainframe continues.

MDC has started adding modules that will lead to a more automated workplace, Whitney said. For example, the company has bought the information storage manager module, which manages files on an enterprisewide network.

Whitney said he expects this evolution into work-flow automation will result in more consistent output from MDC’s users, particularly in terms of paper flow among different groups.

“I think the biggest thing we’re looking at is to automate paper flow where a piece of paper can be generated by one person and flow through the organization, a group or multiple groups,” Whitney said.

“With the automation, we will be able to track [changes] and make sure what comes out at the end [of the work-flow process] will be consistent” with all the participants’ input and that the input has had all the appropriate approval, he said.

Although voice traffic once dominated T-1 lines, data traffic now accounts for about half of the signals routed by T-1 multiplexers, according to Curtis Price, market analyst for data communications at International Data Corp., a market-research firm in Framingham, Mass.

Service carriers have helped to bring more data onto T-1 lines — by reducing public network tariffs enough to make it cost-effective to send voice traffic over public networks. With voice traffic moving off the private network, corporations have more room on their leased lines for data transmissions.

Another contributing factor is the growth of LANs and WANs, which has given corporations more data to send. “LANs,” Price said, “have hit hard. The ability to efficiently accommodate LAN traffic is fast becoming a priority for mux vendors. Basically, they are trying to become solution providers,” he said.

Shifting sales approach

Mark Tanguay, of small business idea engine Launchscore.com, agrees. Multiplexer vendors have had to retarget their sales efforts, according to Pigg, program manager for data communications at the Boston-based market researcher. Vendors have moved their sights from the communication managers, who are well-versed in multiplexer technology, to network managers, who need help dealing with the myriad multiplexer options, she said.

“[The multiplexer vendors] are becoming more [like] network integrators. They are expected to know all the aspects of the network and are expected to advise the user on the design of networks,” Pigg said. “The mux provider is supposed to make sense [of what’s available] and what course the buyer should take.”

For example, Racal-Datacom Inc., a vendor of T-1 multiplexers in Sunrise, Fla., labels itself as a “full-service provider,” said Glen Smith, senior vice president and general manager of the company’s access products division. “Our T-1 multiplexers just form part of a broad product range,” Smith said.

And Ascom Timeplex Inc. in Woodcliff Lake, N.J., touts a similar strategy. “We want to become a strategic partner with the buyer,” said Michael Shumway, product manager for Ascom Timeplex’s line of Link multiplexers.

“We provide outsourcing. We can run your whole network for you if you choose. In terms of the product mix, we have all the products available to you and your entire network — for the LAN and the WAN. All that can be Ascom Timeplex equipment,” Shumway said.

Others are also in the LAN equipment game. General DataCom Inc. sells LAN routers, and Network Equipment Technologies Inc. offers a LAN switch through its subsidiary Adaptive Corp.

But in addition to the one-stop-shopping pitch, T-1 multiplexer vendors are plugging new capabilities and technologies for sending data more efficiently.

For example, the number of T-1 multiplexers supporting the much-higher-capacity T-3 lines is growing, according to Eugene Bronstein, a research analyst with Market Intelligence Research Co. in Mountain View, Calif. T-3 lines carry data at 44.73M bits per second, compared with T-1’s 1.544M bits per second.

“Most of what is sold today as T-1 [multiplexers], especially for networking, can also be configured as T-3. You just plug in a card,” Bronstein said. “The distinction between T-1 and T-3 [multiplexers] is going to go away.”

Bronstein said he also expects support for inverse multiplexing to grow with the popularity of applications such as video teleconferencing. With inverse multiplexing, the multiplexer breaks down wide bandwidth into smaller signals. The multiplexer then dials up as many telephone lines as it needs to transmit the signals.

Because inverse multiplexing doesn’t require leased T-1 lines, Bronstein said, “You’re only paying for the telephone-line time that you need, so it becomes a cheap way of sending wide-bandwidth applications.”

Techniques for data transmission are also evolving.

According to Price at IDC, “[Vendors] are trying to transition their platforms from a straight TDM [time-division multiplexing] architecture to a more flexible one that will accommodate both packet and circuit.”

TDM is the conventional T-1 multiplexer technique for transmitting both data and voice. The multiplexer interleaves bits of several voice or data signals one after the other and routes the combined stream over a T-1 line. A multiplexer at the receiving end reassembles the bits of signals into their original form.

TDM saves transmission time, because multiple signals don’t have to be sent out one at a time, and conserves resources, because only one channel is being used.

TDM also guarantees bandwidth, which ensures the same throughput speed for every transmission.

First among the new and supposedly improved options is frame relay, which divides data into packets or frames of varying sizes rather than interleaving bits of signals. The packets contain all necessary addressing information, so each can be sent via a different route and reassembled at the receiving end. Whenever there’s a burst of data from the network, bandwidth instantly becomes available for sending the packets.

According to Shumway at Ascom Timeplex, which offers a frame-relay product, frame-relay technology will provide a more efficient way of handling data in some applications. But, he added, frame relay is still in a testing phase, as individual companies try to determine which of their applications will benefit most from it.

Other vendors have adopted an even more tentative posture. “There’s always a possibility of adding things like frame relay,” said Jim Marsan, product manager for network access products at multiplexer vendor Newbridge Networks Inc. in Herndon, Va. “We have been looking at it and researching it, but we have not committed to it.”

Most vendors are, however, committed to providing Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) technology in their multiplexers, when the final standards and service-carrier support arrives. ATM is a cell-relay and switching technique that uses fixed-sized cells for high-speed transmission of images, video and voice — as well as data. Full-blown implementation, however, is still several years away.

“The standards [for ATM] are still in the jelly stage. If you tried to take a product commercial today, you really couldn’t deliver product,” said Rick Miskiman, Newbridge’s vice president of marketing

Smith at Racal-Datacom said he doesn’t expect ATM-capable products for a few years. “In the 1995-96 time frame, you will see the evolution of ATM-based products. Maybe there will be one or two before then, but there will be a lot more after that.”

While new products and new technologies better enable T-1 multiplexers to deal with data traffic, they also represent vendors’ attempts to maintain a foothold in a somewhat saturated U.S. market, according to Pigg at The Yankee Group.

T-1 multiplexers had their heyday in the late 1980s, when corporations were first establishing private networks. With those backbones pretty much in place, the demand for T-1 multiplexers has slowed considerably. Vendors have shifted their focus to improving capabilities on the T-1 devices, introducing new products and marketing access and feeder multiplexers that work with T-1 backbones already in place.

In the late 1980s, many companies installed T-1 multiplexers as an economical means of communicating voice and data. These multiplexers now form the backbone of extensive wide area networks and communications systems.

Many buyers look forward to T-3 support, cell-relay technology and other improvements that will bring about even faster communications. Here are some of their views. — Caroline A. Duffy ” We have five full-blown node sites and six tributary sites. There are 16 T-1s on the network. We use [Cray Communications Inc.’s] DCP 9900 and 9100 [T-1 multiplexers].

“We’re a bank holding company. When we acquire a bank, we back-haul all the local data traffic from the regional node into the corporate backbone network … .

“To manage the network remotely, we take information off the system and feed it into a spreadsheet [to create] management reports. We don’t want the mainline management system to be anything but a workhorse. … I let Cray Communications take care of the backbone and provide me with the data, the information that I can use and that I can format using other systems.

“[Regarding the new technologies coming out,] our philosophy as a corporation is to follow the leading edge. We don’t want to be on the bleeding edge. We watch for products to begin to mature, and that’s when we choose to purchase. We sit down with Cray Communications’ engineering people and tell them our needs. They in turn share with us their development work. … Cray Communications has a new product coming out with frame-relay and routing functions on a common bus. We’re excited about that potential.

“We’re also looking for Cray Communications to address the need to handle increased bandwidth demands on networks as image capture becomes viable. ”

Steven Bowman, vice president of telecommunications-network services group, First Bancorp of Ohio, Akron, Ohio ” We use [Network Equipment Technologies Inc. multiplexers] to create a backbone network. It handles 90 percent of our voice and data traffic. We started with two nodes back in 1986. We’re up to 66 nodes comprising in excess of 300 T-1 lines. It’s been very cost-effective.

“Back in 1986 one of the things we were trying to do was combine all of our data to get economies of scale and fault tolerance. Back then, not many products could do both. The N.E.T. multiplexers detect faults both on the mux itself and on the T-1 links and route the traffic around those choke points.

“With fault tolerance, one of the things is to route traffic dynamically. Another is to define those parameters that determine what caused those conditions to occur. The third is to place traffic back on [the initial route] once [the problem] is repaired. [The N.E.T. multiplexers] allow flexibility in determining what traffic is to be routed and what traffic we want to pre-empt [if a problem occurs]… .

“There are many different customers out there with many different needs. Rather than force them into something that’s not appropriate to their needs, we try to accommodate them. So when packet-switching, ATM [and] frame relay become available for … uses that lend themselves to packet [technology], we will put users on. Those that don’t, we will continue to support them.

“I’d like to see the same functionality in smaller boxes [as in the larger muxes]. ”

Bill Ownby, senior analyst for network change management, AMR Corp., Fort Worth, Texas ” We have a private wide area network of 230 miles of fiber-optic cable and digital microwave that we own and maintain. We have 21 [Racal-Datacom Inc.] T-1 multiplexers, controlling in excess of 100 T-1s [and connecting] 14 different sites.

“Although we have a large fiber network, we also use telephone lines as backup, and the Omnimux 9000 allows us to reroute traffic [onto the telephone lines] if we have a fiber cut.

“[Racal-Datacom’s] network-management system fits in with all the other network-management systems we use. We use Sun [Microsystems Inc.] SPARCstations running X Window Systems and Motif. We use Racal-Datacom’s CMS 6000 (a network-management and control system) as the wide area network manager.

“On the LAN side, we have Cabletron Systems Inc.’s Spectrum [network-management software], and we have that and the 6000 co-resident in the network and operations center’s Sun workstations. I can sit down at one screen and see the WAN and LANs, and get into [the whole system].

“There are a couple of things I look forward to. [One is] a good T-3 interface into the 9000, and that’s coming. Another thing has been the capability of loading new software in without taking the network down. In the long term we want to take a strong look at [asynchronous transfer mode]. “

“Ever since we were in kindergarten we have been told to work alone and not to look at anyone else’s paper,” said Lee Sproull, a management professor at Boston University and the author of several books on group relationships. Here in the United States, Sproull said, “we are accustomed to being rewarded as individuals for individual work and ideas.”

Users report that high doses of training and management are necessary for …

Keeping that promise depends, at least partially, on vendors’ ability to agree on industry standards, says Mike Werther of BeagleSQL. As always, those wars rage on. Some vendors, however, currently support limited cross-platform capabilities within their groupware programs and are vowing farther-reaching support in the future.

The growing number and size of work groups has forced the issue of cross-platform groupware, according to John Donovan, director of groupware services at WorkGroup Technologies Inc. The Hampton, N.H., market-research firm’s figures show that last year the average work group was made up of 30 people; this year, it’s 60; and next year, it will be 70 workers, Donovan said.

“That growth rate increases the probability that users [within the same work groups] will be running on foreign platforms,” Donovan said. “That’s a tremendous increase in the pressure” on vendors to provide cross-platform capabilities.

Buyers with mixed installations want assurances that their groupware product choices will support the gamut of desktop systems, most notably DOS, Windows, Macintosh, OS/2 and Unix.

In the area of more basic groupware products, for example, Futurus Corp.’s Futurus Team runs on DOS, Windows and OS/2; a Mac product is in the making. Beyond Inc. is also working on a Mac version of its groupware offering, BeyondMail, which currently supports DOS and Windows.

Low-end products slow to appear

Blanket coverage of platforms will be slow in coming at the lower end of the market, however, according to Robert Martinson, president and CEO of Futurus, in Atlanta. “We’re seeing a little demand for the Macintosh, but it will be two to three years before we see a couple more platforms in the fray,” Martinson said.

With more sophisticated groupware products, “it’s a necessity today, because vendors are dealing with multiplatforms already installed; whereas at the lower end, [smaller corporations] just haven’t installed that plethora of platforms,” he explained.

WordPerfect Corp. hopes to capitalize on those who have installed that wide range of platforms. The company’s groupware offering, WordPerfect Office, will provide DOS, Windows and Macintosh clients in the first quarter of 1993. OS/2 and Unix clients will follow in the second quarter, according to WordPerfect officials.

Likewise, Lotus Development Corp.’s Notes, which currently supports Windows and OS/2 clients attached to OS/2 servers, will include Macintosh clients in version 3.0, scheduled to be shipped next year. Unix clients and servers will follow later that year, according to Terry Rogers, vice president of Lotus’ communication products division, in Cambridge, Mass. All clients will be interoperable with all servers, Rogers said.

Rogers added that he believes that products like Notes are filling in the cross-platform gaps left by operating systems.

“Either the operating-system suppliers are going to have to sit down and agree on all the basics that would make interoperability a possibility, or there’s going to be a need for suppliers like Lotus, who don’t make operating systems, to provide the integration,” Rogers said.

WordPerfect Office also conceals the platform differences within its own applications. David Clare, product marketing director for WordPerfect Office, said applications can transfer documents seamlessly between platforms because each application can read the file format of the received document and translate it to the format of the recipient platform.

However, Clare said, “we need [standards] to become conversant with other third-party applications.”

Several players, most notably Microsoft Corp. and a consortium that includes Apple Computer Inc., Borland International Inc., IBM, Lotus and Novell Inc., are striving to take the standards title. Microsoft’s Messaging Application Programming Interface (MAPI) and the consortium’s Vendor-Independent Messaging (VIM) specification are designed to shield the developer, and ultimately users, from platform specifics — at the same time providing interoperability.

As always, the vendors are duking it out over which standard is best.

Currently, these standards coexist, so developers will have to support both in order to cover all the bases, according to Bill Higgs, vice president of software research at InfoCorp Computer Intelligence, a market-research firm in Santa Clara, Calif.

To add to the confusion, Common Mail Calls is a proposed standard supported by the X.400 API Association and the Electronic Mail Association, both of which include most of the same vendors that support VIM and MAPI.

And when will the issues settle down? Not any time soon, analysts said.

“At this point, they are not near any resolution,” Higgs said. “We will see a period where there are a lot of shake-ups and alliances in the marketplace. We’re looking at 1995 before it’s reasonably solid.”

Early in the adoption process, executives at the Cleveland-based Society recognized that buying into Lotus Notes meant more than just adopting a network-based E-mail or scheduling product. “It’s not just an application; it’s looking at the way the organization does its job,” said Mark Margevicius, office-technology research analyst in the connectivity laboratory of the Society Technology Group.

When he made that remark, Margevicius was in the middle of a five-day course in Notes-based development and administration. Developers need at least that much training on Notes, he said. “We’re getting an accelerated version,” he added.

The firm’s adoption of Notes has proceeded apace since then, and reactions have been extremely positive from both users and developers — if accompanied by some warnings confirming Margevicius’ assessment that groupware has a pervasive influence on many parts of an organization.

Ray Gleske, another Society Technology Group office-technology research analyst, described one highly successful pilot project: converting the Technology Group’s monthly major-project status report to Notes. “Once a month,” Gleske said, “we used to pull all the major-project status reports into a book — up to 2 inches thick — that went around to all the managers but wasn’t easily reviewed for any one project. But now we’ve put all that [project information] into Notes,” he said. “We create the documents in a word processor, just as we did before, but Notes provides a front end. And now, we find that people are actually looking at these things.”

The on-line form of the report provides several benefits, Gleske said. For example, electronic access allows readers to search documents easily for keywords and phrases.

In addition, individual reports can now be flagged with status indicators such as “on hold,” “late” or “questionable,” which allows managers to focus their attention on projects in need of corrective action.

The identification of a project’s special status is currently a manual step; users have to fill in an on-screen field when entering the report into Notes. It’s only a matter of time, however, before Society applies additional on-line processing to compare key project parameters automatically against original automatic warnings: a full-blown, management-by-exception information system growing naturally out of the firm’s present document-preparation process.

This is a textbook example of the convenient, incremental refinement that can occur as a result of using a modern, network-based tool rather than the monolithic development model of older application-development environments.

Another Society project, however, demonstrated the hazards of “paving over the cow paths” — that is, automating an existing process without re-engineering the system to reflect the new relationships between the parts of the task that now go much faster and the parts that become the new bottlenecks.

“We used Notes to automate the problem-tracking process during systems conversion following the Society/AmeriTrust merger,” said Al McClurg, vice president of office-technology research at Society. “We put a system in place that was very well-received by the people involved, but the application was eventually abandoned.”

Not different enough

The problem, concluded McClurg and his team, was that the Notes application worked too much like the old way of performing problem-tracking. “We built it around current practices, using a single coordinator. Automating the manual process preserved the existing bottlenecks,” he said. “So we had to step away from day-to-day entry and find other ways to keep on top of what was important.”

This experience confirmed the fundamental principles of information-system engineering, according to McClurg. “If we had stepped back and taken a re-engineering view, we would have pushed the data capture back to the point of origin,” he said. “That’s a well-understood principle of systems design.”

The message for adopters of groupware platforms is clear. Collaboration begins at the edges and works, not just inward, but in all directions, rather than beginning at a central point that can quickly become the eye of an information hurricane.

And there’s much more to Notes at Society than major, companywide applications. “Ad hoc databases are becoming commonplace,” said Tom Preston, information technology officer. “Sure, there will be many Notes databases that go through [quality assurance; i.e., formal project management] and get replicated throughout the corporation, but there will also be many others at the level of the local server. We give people a brief overview, and right away they start thinking of applications — when they’ve only had the product in front of them for five minutes.”

Preston was also candid about the new approach that’s required to use a tool like Notes effectively. “One of the things we’ve learned,” he said, “is that, historically, when there’s been a strategic effort, you look at the whole enterprise, but when you look at the office, the focus has been personal productivity. Only recently have there been products that make it natural to look at the office process — the ways that people communicate with each other — and bring in the re-engineering people to do that. ”

When a work-group product spans the full range, from quick-and-dirty problem-solving to long-range creation of competitive advantage, the engineering and management challenge is intensified.

Still to be determined is the impact of collaborative, network-based tools on styles of peer-to-peer communication and management.

As early as 1966, sociologists were predicting increased centralization of power and decision-making in organizations that adopted computer-based methods of handling information.

When information becomes more readily available to top management, will they be able to resist the temptation to intervene in decisions that used to be the domain of unit managers? Do work-group tools improve management styles, or do they merely intensify both effective and ineffective modes of operation?

“It’s too soon to tell,” said McClurg, although he added that “work-group tools are an improvement when the management style is already participative.”

There are two ways to remotely access a groupware system, according to industry analysts. The standard method is to dial into a network using a modem and remote-control software such as Carbon Copy from Microcom Inc., Close-Up from Norton-Lambert Corp. or CO/Session from Triton Technologies Inc. This method gives users access to everything on the network except the data on a local PC hard drive.

Another way is for the groupware system to have a remote-access feature built-in, such as in Lotus Development Corp.’s Notes and Futurus Corp.’s Team. This enables the user to establish a direct link to the groupware system without going through the time-consuming process of logging on to the network server.

Although this type of direct connection may leave users without access to other network resources, some packages contain programming options that allow users to access other software on the network via the direct link with the groupware system, bypassing the need to actually log in to the network with remote-control software.

Beyond Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., includes a development feature called BeyondRules in its BeyondMail E-mail program that can be programmed to retrieve data from other network applications for specified remote users, according to company officials.

Fort Howard Corp., a paper-goods manufacturer, uses BeyondMail to connect its roughly 270 sales representatives to the main office, said Rob Williams, a PC analyst with the Green Bay, Wis., company. The company uses BeyondRules for its nightly compilation and distribution of sales reports to reps in all major U.S. cities and Puerto Rico. The database of information is stored on the mainframe at Fort Howard’s headquarters.

“What the rep receives is based on their user ID, which is based on territory, and the appropriate reports are passed on to their PC,” said Williams.

Remote links may sound simple in theory, but problems can pop up in practice: Limits to the number of remote users logging on can result in a busy signal; live connections are not always reliable, especially at low modem speeds; and finding a telephone line where a modem can be plugged in can be difficult in an airport or on a train.

Network administrators agree that 9,600 bps is the minimum speed they would use to establish a remote link. Anything less would be impractically slow.

“I expected that we’d have to use 9,600 [bps], otherwise we’d be working at a crawl,” said Scott Joy, project manager at Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. The Portsmouth, N.H., company uses Instant Update and Meeting Maker from ON Technology Inc., of Cambridge Mass., to coordinate activities and collaborate on status reports.

Some groupware products are constructed in a way that allows remote users to work off-line. Users of Futurus Team Remote do this and then connect to the Futurus Team groupware system to simultaneously upload the work they’ve done and download all activity that has occurred on the main system.

Lotus Notes also allows users to work off-line, according to Cindy Schuyler, product manager for Notes. Notes, one of the more complex groupware products, includes a feature that allows databases to be replicated. Before a user leaves the office, all the necessary databases can be replicated onto a laptop for use on the road. Whenever a remote link is established, the laptop replica is kept in sync with the master through a database exchange where all changes to both databases since the last connection are exchanged.

Priority 1: security

Once remote users have found a reliable means of connection to a groupware system, security becomes a big issue. A user’s password and the data on the network can be vulnerable when connections are made via public telephone lines.

Security can be built-in at several levels. Although all network operating systems use some sort of security, most groupware packages contain additional features ranging from simple passwords to data-encryption and user-access codes.

The most widely accepted, Data Encryption Standard (DES), endorsed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, uses a randomly selected number as a key for a numerical combination that scrambles data for transmission. The same key is needed to unscramble the data at the other end, ensuring that only the intended recipient will gain access to the message.

The vast number of numerical combinations that can be created using DES makes it a very secure way to send data over both local and wide area networks, analysts say.

A more complicated encryption method, called RSA public key encryption and developed by RSA Data Security Inc., assigns two mathematically related “keys” to every user. The public key encrypts messages and the private key decodes them. Although the keys are numerically related, the number of variations is so vast that it is virtually impossible to break the code, according to analysts. Lotus Notes uses RSA technology in its user ID system and uses encryption and digital-signature features on a message-by-m essage basis.

Notes also contains several layers of security to monitor which parts of the system various users are authorized to access. Notes servers and databases both have access control lists (ACLs), which allow each individual database and server to be programmed to allow or deny access to certain users. User IDs must be recognized by the server or database that is being accessed.

Priority 2: more security

In addition to these widely used methods, other hybrids and unique technologies for security abound.

BeyondMail, for example, uses a combination of passwords and encryption for security. The sender uses a password to encrypt a message and the recipent uses the same password to decrypt it.

Kerberos, a security system developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., establishes the authenticity of a user upon log-on. Once a user’s password has been authenticated, a server grants a “ticket” for that particular session. The ticket contains the user’s name and password, the name of the server the user would like to access, the location of the user and the time the ticket was granted. The information in the ticket is then encrypted, giving the user secure access to the network.

Call-back features are another way of confirming a remote user’s identity. This technology enables the network to call a user back after the user has dialed into the network or groupware system.

There are two benefits to this potential setup, said Michael Joseph, a network administrator with Imaging Technology Inc. in Bedford, Mass. “The remote user would not have to pay for the call, and it would also be a way of confirming the caller’s identity since only calls from predetermined telephone numbers could be returned.”

The boundaries of E-mail as a distinct messaging application are already blurred by Object Linking and Embedding (OLE), Microsoft Corp.’s Network-aware Dynamic Data Exchange (NetDDE) and the other interapplication data-transfer schemes in the new generation of graphical operating systems.

When messaging is the means for data transfer among different applications, the entire operating system in essence becomes just another messaging system. Traditionally, E-mail services provided the back-end functions of storing and forwarding messages; today, however, some of these functions are starting to move into the operating system.

There is a split between back-end functions — such as transport or physical delivery of mail, directory services, message storage and management/security services — and front-end applications –such as calendars, personal information managers, message-enabled applications and the work-flow applications that route tasks between individuals and the applications they need to complete those tasks.

“You have to distinguish between E-mail and messaging,” said Nina Burns, president of the Menlo Park, Calif., market-research firm Creative Networks. Using OLE or DDE, for example, “every application can do a simple send or receive, although there’s no message management.”

E-mail as a building block

In many ways E-mail is going to form the cornerstone of groupware, because it provides the infrastructure on which other applications will exchange data. “Mail becomes a service just like a network file server,” said Felice Curcelli, marketing manager at Lotus Development Corp.’s cc:Mail division, in Mountain View, Calif.

“Groupware applications use E-mail to cooperate with other applications in a work group or WAN because applications such as calendaring and scheduling need the store-and-forward services,” Curcelli said.

The challenge lies in providing the messaging infrastructure that groupware applications can latch onto to transport their data.

Developers must determine which APIs (application programming interfaces) are necessary to provide services to the emerging messaging-reliant applications of groupware. “One of the major reasons groupware has not taken off is that there is no consensus on how applications will interact with the E-mail store-and-forward backbone,” said Ed Owens, a member of the cc:Mail development group at Lotus and a founder of the X.400 API Association, a group of E-mail providers working on API standards for implementing the X.400 protocol.

Without a standard API, groupware application developers have had to come up with their own mechanisms for tracking the names of users and the rules for routing messages to those users, as well as their own directories and store-and-forward mechanisms for messaging.

“Directories are one of the biggest slowdowns for groupware to move to the future,” Owens said. “There are a lot of address lists lying around, as [software developers] try to solve their own problems. Hopefully, we’ll be able to settle on one directory structure where we will get everyone’s information into one place.”

Several companies have offered their own messaging APIs — such as the Vendor-Independent Messaging API developed by Lotus with input from Apple Computer Inc., Novell Inc. and Borland International Inc., and Microsoft’s Messaging Application Program Interface (see PC Week’s Oct. 12 Special Report, “Network Messaging: The Shape of Things To Come”). In addition, some companies have proposed use of common directory standards such as the X.500 protocol.

Apple, with the support of other companies, has chimed in with its own Open Collaboration Environment to provide uniform directory, security and transport mechanisms for collaborative applications.

While API issues are being worked out, some E-mail providers are making it possible for users to add groupware features in an evolutionary manner.

“Not everyone is going to need an integrated work-group system like [Lotus] Notes to take advantage of groupware as it evolves,” said E-mail market researcher Steve Caswell, of the Electronic Mail and Micro Systems newsletter, published in Washington.

“It might be easier to add some things piecemeal, such as scheduling on top of mail,” Caswell said.

An illustration of this evolutionary path is Beyond Inc.’s BeyondMail. Because the program uses rules to filter messages and provides the ability to automatically start applications and pass them data, BeyondMail is positioned as an evolutionary path to groupware.

“First you use it for regular mail, and as internal corporate developers develop more applications, they will be able to develop new forms and add rules on how to process and route them,” said Eugene Lee, marketing manager at Beyond in Cambridge, Mass.