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Today, most employees of larger companies take the availability of a companywide, PC-based E-mail messaging facility for granted. Yet only a few short years ago there was vigorous debate as to whether or not LAN-based computing really did represent the future. It seems strange now to recall that some felt LANs were simply a diversion along the way to a new generation of low cost multiuser systems, particularly given the fact that those selfsame low-cost systems now often exploit LANs of one sort or another.
With the benefit of hindsight, it is easy to see that LANs and workstations will be with us for some considerable time to come. However, like most things, LANs have their limitations. It is ironic that we live in an increasingly information-dependent age, yet there are an immense number of technical restrictions on the free passage of information. Only recently have we seen the development of a wide range of compatible applications, largely spurred on by the success of Microsoft's Windows operating environment. Yet there still remain many occasions when it is necessary to convert from one format to another. Even communications between different PCs is rarely simple, let alone cross-platform communications between IBM-compatible PCs, Apple Macintosh computers and Unix-based systems for example.
Even within a single organization, there is often a proliferation of differing standards that need to be accommodated if the goal of a truly integrated data-handling network is to be realized. These issues are already widely understood and, in many cases, there are well-proven systems to accommodate specific requirements. However, one can argue that we are standing at a crossroads in the history of data-handling technology.
In general, it seems to be relatively self-evident that people feel much more comfortable with visual information than text-based data. The success of both facsimile and graphical user interfaces such as Windows are just two of many examples, so it is somewhat surprising that all the popular E-mail systems currently in use are rather poor at coping with image-based messaging.
IMAGE-BASED MESSAGING
At best, systems such as Lotus Development's cc:Mail offer little more than crude image-editing facilities, which in a world evermore oriented toward image-based systems, increasingly represents a barrier to the goal of comprehensive data integration....