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http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayStory.pl?970214.wdomino.htm
Lotus' Domino.DocManager aims to tackle Web access problem
By Amy Doan
InfoWorld Electric
Posted at 3:48 PM PT, Feb 14, 1997
Not to be upstaged by competitor Novell's Jefferson document-management
project, Lotus is preparing a rival technology called Domino.DocManager.
The application will include check-in and check-out features that control
end-user access to electronic and Web documents, according to sources.
Archiving and version-control tools and security features that let the "owner"
of a certain Notes document specify a range of access privileges will also be
integrated.
The functions closely resemble those in Jefferson, which is Novell's bid to
expose GroupWise's document library to the World Wide Web by the third
quarter. Lotus until now has left development of such tools for Notes to third
parties. One systems consultant said he believes the timing is now right for
Lotus to introduce its own flavor of document management.
"Products like PC Docs are starting to really take off, and Lotus can get a
piece of that," said Randal Zahora, president of Workgroup Productivity, a
consultancy in Oak Brook, Ill. Document management is also going mainstream in
intranets.
"It's about time," said Susan Trost, president of Express Business Solutions,
in Mount Airy, Md. "Notes is an ideal document store, and now the definition
of document has broadened to include Web pages. We're also seeing a trend with
companies who want these apps right in the box."
Future releases of Lotus' document-imaging product -- Lotus Notes: Document
Imaging, or LN:DI -- will be folded into Domino.DocManager.
Although target ship dates are not yet available, Lotus might be able to
leapfrog Jefferson, which has slipped behind by one quarter.