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More On Kapor's Attempt To Best Outlook
An anonymous reader writes "There's a story on the Boston Globe's Digital MASS section about Mitch Kapor , the guy who created Lotus 1-2-3. He will reportedly spend about $5 mil to create something competing with MS Outlook. More of the story here." We mentioned this a few months ago as well, and it sounds like any software release is still some time off.
One must always be careful in praising vaporware, but the prototypes on the OSAF web site sure look impressive. I am particularly glad they place such a strong emphasis on security! That is an even better reason than MS-loathing to urge Outlook users to switch. OSAF will do the Internet a great service if Vista can cut down the number of Outlook viruses flooding my emailbox every day!
Where, oh where to begin...
As a system integrator it's almost impossible to work with. It encourages free-form text databases. Nice for users, crap for programmers.
It really sucks because it's easy to use and integrates some nice features automatically. Why does this suck? Because users end up putting valuable company information in there, not realizing that they've locked up the info in a format that's useless to the rest of the company.
For example, it's really hard getting sales people to keep corporate contact information up-to-date once they've started keeping their contact info in Notes. It's easy for them, they can replicate to their desktop and access the info while they're on the road. It's free form, so they can add comments. Great for sales-people. Sucks for billing when the client has moved and the sales guy who knows about it can't be bothered to update the "real" client database.
Sorry for the rant, but Notes has cost me a lot of hassle over the years. Truly an awful product.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow