Lotus eSuite Focuses
on the Java and NC Market
October (Nov 17) 1997
Lotus’s Kona Applets, a set of 10 personal productivity applets and an 11th applet that is a user interface and a container for all the components (as well as other components) have grown up into eSuite, the first officially available Java Office Suite.
Lotus eSuite Applets
Integrated Web Browser Spreadsheet 3270 and 5520 Terminal Emulators Calendar File Managers Chart Word Processor Presentation Graphics Email Client Address Book Don’t think of them as an immediate competitor for the full-blown office suite you’re currently using, although, in time, many users may take that step. Instead, eSuite is aimed initially for other markets:
- First and foremost, eSuite is personal productivity software for NC’s. Market researchers expect 3 million NC’s to ship next year (probably 1 to 1.5 million will ship in 1997) and many of them will need an office suite. With Corel withdrawing its product from the market, Lotus’ eSuite has the field to itself; moreover, this is a superior product, with broad functionality and an easy-to-use interface. NC’s will go first to the terminal replacement market, estimated at 38 to 50 million units, and will also compete as PC replacements and desktops, as users look for a more centrally controlled, more cost-effective solution.
In its desktop form, eSuite will be $49 per user (with, of course, volume and OEM discounts).
- eSuite will also be available in a developers’ package, DevPack, Here, the applets can be used as part of custom-developed applications, permitting the developer to easily embed such functions, for example, as calculators, financial comparisons, and the presentation of data (using spreadsheet and charting applets). Users will be able to access these applications via browser and will not require their own copy of eSuite. Instead, a server-side copy of eSuite will be installed on each server running the application. Tiered pricing is available for these server licenses, starting at $1,495, with no run-time or client charges.
In research we performed for Lotus, we found that many users actually use only a small percentage (typically not more than 25%) of their personal productivity functions frequently. Of course, there are some users who use many functions and are likely to always need a broad and fully functioned product. Many users, however, might be better served by a simpler-to-use and less-expensive-to-support set of Java applets, especially if the functions were selected to serve the needs of most of these more casual users.
Lotus wants to make the eSuite shell, Workplace, a standard, because it believes that if the Java applet market can converge on a single interface and container standard it will greatly facilitate market acceptance. A number of prominent vendors have signed on as Lotus partners, lending much credence to the possibility of Lotus leading such a standards effort. These include, of course, IBM, and also Oracle, Sun, and NCD.
If Lotus and its partners are very successful, such a standard, in conjunction with a focus on Java and cross-platform development and implementation, might ultimate challenge Microsoft’s control of the desktop platform with Windows. This, of course, is what the Sun/Java vs. Microsoft melee and Microsoft’s lack of interest in the Java Office Suite market is all about.
If you control a current market as strongly as Microsoft controls Windows and its major application suite Microsoft Office, it’s very hard to be a leading proponent of its replacement. On the other hand, business history is littered with companies who failed to see and act on the development of new and competitive markets and Microsoft, so far, has been too smart and too nimble to get caught. We wonder if somewhere in the cellars of Redmond there is a team of Java nerds working furiously on a Microsoft Java Office Suite?
eSuite will ship as a set of Java applets for the NC as well as in its DevPack version in the first quarter of 1998. It will be available in a shrink-wrapped version for PC’s somewhat later in 1998.
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