Earn more, learn more, and realise your potential Mobile Technology email newsletter Get ZDNet's mobile news and reviews. Lotus's Raven knowledge management initiative finally bore fruit this month with the launch of the K-station portal server. The next Raven release, codenamed Discovery Server, is scheduled to appear within the next few months. Other components of the Raven product set are also planned, with all releases carrying the 'K' branding and complementing broader IBM initiatives in knowledge management and e-learning. The aim of knowledge management environments is to make it easier for business users to share and collate knowledge within and across their organisations, a process that messaging-based systems such as Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange have both helped and hindered.
Many users now use their email as a basic form of indexing.
The simplicity of recalling information by date and by name has revolutionised personal filing and storage. However, currently there are few direct links between email and other textual information apart from when documents are attached to messages. The aim of knowledge management vendors is to develop links between all forms of communication in order to create pools of shared information. Analysts believe that knowledge management has great potential. The KM need comes from the sheer volume of information created by email and internal databases, and the complexity of organising this data and searching it efficiently.