And the foundation of Notes is the database architecture that is used to deliver business applications that are associated with workflow. Notes is a combination of collaborative and transactional applications, Lewis said. The agency was especially interested in Notes' capability for managing information workflow, said Jim McBrayer, the chief information officer at Stricom, which operates a Notes 4.6 network that is used by 1,000 people. We picked Notes because we were re-engineering the command. A document comes in, we put it into Notes and distribute it based on who needs to know or respond.
Notes is a workflow tool for becoming paperless.
Stricom plans to install a Lotus Domino server so that users can communicate, via a Web browser, with anyone, regardless of where they are, McBrayer said. Groupwise 5.2 provides Web access and integration with the Internet, said Richard Carlson, the director of major market operations at Novell. GroupWise is unique in its tight integration with Novell Directory Services and its use of a directory, he added. Price also is a differentiator, according to Carlson. Typically it gets down to total cost of ownership.