Notes may take a Web back seat

Lotus Notes looks set to limp into the 21st century, according to a report called Notes' Survival in the Intranet-enabled Corporation from market research firm Input.

The company claims that by the end of 2000, Internet groupware will have knocked Notes off its perch as the dominant groupware application, having gained 32 million users, compared with Notes' 26 million users.

Although Notes will have adapted to the Web by the end of 1998, it will be competing against groupware applications written to run on the Web platform, which will have caught up with Notes functionality states Input. The report cites Radnet's Webshare and Acton Technologies' Action Workflow Metro as some of the products that will threaten Notes' position.

But Lotus condemned the report, calling it hogwash. Jim Moffat, Lotus communications product manager for the UK, said: 'If the report had been written two years ago it may have been valid, but by this summer there will be no distinction between a Web application and a Notes application as a native HTTP server will be inside Notes by then. This report is wild.'