From: chase@stumpy.cs.orst.edu (A. Chase Turner)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: 4.0 Wish: Bundled Groupware Tool
Keywords: Groupware
Date: 30 Sep 92 18:03:19 GMT
Article-I.D.: CS.1992Sep30.180319.20967
Reply-To: Chase_Turner@stumpy.cs.orst.edu
Organization: Oregon State University, Computer Science Dept

The following is an excerpt from e-mail sent to NeXT in March 1990.   
 
Since the time of this e-mail, HP has introduced Shared-X and SunSoft recently announced a similar tool, ShowMe.  In the text below, I refer to Fallaron's Timbiktu, a Mac-based application that is widely used for remote technical support in large corporations.

My 4.0  
 
Wish: Interactive groupware support tool bundled with NeXT OS
NeXT Mail is an effective inter-personal communication tool that allows individuals to serialize requests/responses in their own, individual time; groupware tools are designed to manage coordinated interaction in highly concurrent working sessions where effective problem solving is based upon real-time group interaction.

A Timbiktu-like tool would be vital in re-enforcing and extending technical knowledge acquired in earlier training sessions by allowing experts (at a remote location) to provide real-time technical support in the context of the problem at hand.

Direct-manipulation applications such as Timbiktu Remote can also prove to be a vital group-connectivity tool for widely distributed development efforts. For example, I have been designing an IB interface for a Customer-Order entry system where the Client is located in another state several hundred miles away.  Until the time when NeXT mail connects the two offices, I use fax transmissions to display my work to the Customer-Order support group.  Yet NeXT mail is not the solution: the group design effort wi


ll continue to be compromised by significant interruptions while each individual "updates" their common view.

The issue is not that I should conduct my support efforts in the physical presence of the Customer-Order support group: there are too many group activities afoot that cannot be effectively coordinated in terms of common meeting sites.  Groupware tools such as Timbiktu Remote can effectively allow a group to create a real-time work product.  Hence, a meeting at a common site can focus upon issues other than the work product, thereby maximizing the human dynamics that cannot be supported by a computer tool.


 
I would like to request that NeXT take the initiative to develop a bundled application for a Timbiktu Remote-like groupware support tool.  There is overwhelming NeXT-internal  evidence to suggest that such a tool could not be effectively developed outside NeXT. Furthermore, a non-NeXT solution would fragment the acceptance of the tool [1], leading to a segmented vision of inter-personal connectivity tools.
_______________________
Notes:

[1] I talked with the Improv technical support manager, Bob McDonald, who indicated that their experience with Timbiktu-like tools were diluted by the range of different support tools in the PC market.  Clearly a NeXT bundled groupware tool would be far more attractive to developers and users than a pricey, third-party application.

-- NewsGrazer, a NeXTstep(tm) news reader, posting --
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