Intranets, E-Mail and Groupware: Establishing an Architecture for Collaboration

by Ken Lownie

Washington, DC, July 21-22, 1997
Chicago, IL, September 22-23, 1997

Industry Happenings

Many organizations are trying to deal with the evolution and intersection of three technology trends: the arrival of client-server messaging, the explosion of intranets, and the maturation of groupware technologies. Every organization is now faced with a critical choice: address each of these areas independently, incurring excess cost and competing, dysfunctional architectures, or establish an integrated strategy and framework for the range of collaborative technologies.

While the current crop of client-server mail offerings from Lotus, Microsoft and Novell. promise the scalability, reliability and manageability required to make enterprise e-mail part of a production infrastructure, Internet e-mail technologies (POP3, IMAP4, SMTP) are maturing rapidly. Whether Internet-standard e-mail is a viable alternative to your organizations needs will be one focus of this seminar.

Beyond e-mail, intranets are hyped as an alternative for providing groupware, workflow and collaboration capabilities traditionally associated with Lotus Notes, Microsoft Exchange and Novell's Groupwise. Netscape is clearly leading this charge with its SuiteSpot and Communicator product line-ups in 1997.

The question for many organizations is "If I have Notes, do I need an intranet?" Others turn the question around, and wonder whether intranet technologies and application can meet all their e-mail and information sharing needs and make Notes, Exchange and GroupWise irrelevent. The fundamental challenge for organizations interested in the benefits of groupware is to sort out competing claims and comparative competencies of both the major vendors and internet upstarts bringing collaborative technologies to market. Once understood, these technologies can be incorporated into a strategy for managing and deploying collaborative technologies effectively, and this seminar will start you down that path.

Seminar Highlights

This seminar is tailored to meet the needs of organizations as they consider their alternatives in establishing a coherent framework for e-mail, groupware and intranet technologies. We will review each of the major vendor's strategies and products and evaluate their strengths, weaknesses and future directions.

Using case studies and discussions, we will identify critical success factors and best practices for making e-mail and collaborative technologies pay off. Ultimately, we will establish the elements of a comprehensive strategy for meeting an organization's needs for collaboration and e-mail. You leave with with a clear understanding of exactly what steps you need to take next to ensure your organization realizes potential of intranet and groupware environments and avoids the common pitfalls of creating islands of automation and redundant, overlapping infrastructures.

Seminar Benefits

• Reduce research and analysis effort with a concise comparison of the strengths and weaknesses of Netscape's, Microsoft's, Lotus' and Novell's e-mail, intranet and groupware architectures

• Avoid over-investing and develop a single, integrated strategy for addressing your firms e-mail, groupware and intranet initiatives

• Get your project approved by learning how to navigate the politics of mesaging and groupware projects

• Determine the degree to which an intranet can meet your e-mail, workflow and groupware needs

• Build a realistic budget by forecasting costs and returns from e-mail and groupware initiatives

• Plan for the future by understanding where Lotus is going with Domino, Microsoft with Exchange, Netscape with SuiteSpot, and Novell with GroupWise

• Increase usage and value by learning how to identify the best potential groupware applications, get them built, and make them succeed

Who Should Attend

• CIOs and IS Executives: who need to cut through the vendor and intranet hype to understand the state of alternative collaborative architectures and products

• IT Planners: who are trying to build a rational strategy that reconciles competing e-mail, groupware and intranet initiatives

• Project Leaders: who are facing an e-mail or intranet deployment initiative and need to know what works and what doesn't in deploying collaborative environments

• Network Planners: who need to understand both the potential and the impact of current e-mail and intranet technologies on the corporate network

• Business Leaders: seeking solutions to specific groupware needs in areas such as sales force automation, workflow and the automation of business processes

Seminar Outline

• 1. Messaging and Groupware Trends in 1996

  • a. The spectrum of collaborative technologies

  • b. Issues and trends by category

  • 1. E-Mail

    2. Calendar and Scheduling Applications

    3. Discussion and Conferencing Tools

    4. Workflow Products

    5. Integrated groupware suites

  • c. Introduction to intranet-based collaborative technologies
    

• 2. E-Mail Architectures

  • a. MAPI, POP, IMAP, and SMTP: The new mail standards

  • b. Can Internet mail be your mail solution?

  • c. Establishing a directory strategy

  • d. Solving gateway and migration issues
    

• 3. Notes Version 4: What is it and what can it do?

  • a. Notes capabilities

  • b. Inside the Notes technology

  • c. The best Notes applications

  • d. Strengths and weaknesses of the Notes architecture

  • e. The extended transaction model
    

• 4. Intranets as Groupware

  • a. The elements of an intranet

  • b. The internal Web sites as document repositories

  • c. The new crop of web-based groupware

  • 1. Radnet's Webshare

    2. DEC's AltaVista

    3. OpenText's Livelink

  • d. Domino: A co-existence strategy for Notes and the Internet
    

• 5. Vendor positions and directions

  • a. Lotus directions as part of IBM

  • b. Microsoft's collaboration strategy: Exchange or the Net?

  • c. Netscape and the intranet vendors

  • d. Novell's plans for GroupWise
    

• 6. Choosing Strategic Messaging and Groupware Platforms

  • a. Building a budget for your collaborative initiative

  • b. A decision framework for choosing collaborative platforms
    

• 7. Strategies for Organizing Groupware Deployment Projects

  • a. Avoiding the "technology for technology's sake" syndrome

  • b. Building the infrastructure while managing the mayhem

  • c. Addressing the cultural issues in groupware deployment
    

• 8. Choosing and Managing Groupware Pilots

  • a. Finding the sure winners and avoiding the sure failures

  • b. Connecting with champions and sponsors

  • c. Overcoming cultural barriers to groupware
    

• 9. Intranet and Groupware Development Environments

  • a. The Lotus Notes R4 development environment

  • b. Exchange as a groupware development environment

  • c. Building intranet groupware applications
    

• 10. What’s Next for Groupware

  • a. What will groupware look like in the future?

  • b. Will your groupware environment be obsolete tomorrow?

About Your Instructor

Ken Lownie is president and founder of Connexus Consulting Group, a firm focused entirely on helping clients harness the potential of e-mail and collaborative technologies. Formerly at Lotus, Mr. Lownie has more than seven years experience in developing strategies and managing projects involving groupware and intranet technologies for major corporate clients. Mr. Lownie is a frequent speaker and writer on collaborative technologies, and received the 1995 Beacon Award from Lotus for "Most Significant Contribution to the Groupware Industry."

Meeting Site and Hotel Information

Washington, DC, July 21-22, 1997
Hyatt Regency Crystal City
(703) 418-1234

Chicago, IL, September 22-23, 1997
The Wyndham Hotel
(630) 773-4000

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Intranets, E-Mail and Groupware: Establishing an Architecture for Collaboration

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