InformationWeek
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Post-It Notes Go Electronic
3M program lets users attach electronic notes to Windows documentsBy John Swenson
Issue date: March 26, 1996
Fifteen years after inventing the Post-it Note, 3M Corp. is trying to extend the concept to the corporate PC. The office-products giant is shipping Post-it Software Notes, a $25 Windows program designed to make it simple to create a colorful electronic note and attach it to any part of a document in any application.
The Minneapolis company says it tried to create a pro gram that looks and behaves like a pad of the popular sticky yellow reminders. Users "peel off" notes by clicking on a little yellow pad, which they can keep visible on their screen at all times while in any application. When a note is stuck onto a document and sent to someone who doesn't have 3M's software, the recipient can still see the note, although it appears as a bit-mapped image instead of a live note.
Some Post-it beta testers say they're willing to try giving up paper notes. Melissa Tao, a technical support representative at a Minneapolis company that makes financial software, recently quit using paper Post-it Notes and told co-workers to quit leaving the sticky messages on her desk and computer monitor.
Several programs similar to 3M's are available, but most are shareware with limited functionality. None have anywhere near the backing of 3M, which plans to push Post-it Software Notes in the corporate market by displaying the software in office-supply stores as well as in retail software outlets. A 30-day trial version is available at 3M's World Wide Web site .
3M also plans to sign more licensing pacts like one recently announced with Wall Data. The Kirkland, Wash., vendor plans to integrate 3M's product into its Rumba line of enterprise connectivity software.
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