InformationWeek

December 14, 1998

Most Important Products Of 98

Most Important Products Of 98:

Enterprise Application Integration Software

Teamware

Enterprise JavaBeans

SQL Server 7.0

Network-Attached Storage

Application Servers

NetWare 5

Customer-Management Applications

Midmarket ERP

Transaction Management

Runners-Up

Teamware
The software category called teamware entered adolescence this year. Products that took their first steps out of software companies in 1997 developed a strut by their third iterations in 1998. The first teamware products offered more or less the same thing: a Web site where 50 or fewer people could share documents, maintain a calendar, exchange E-mail, have discussions, and generally collaborate. Most products came in versions that companies could run in-house or rent from an Internet service provider, though the rental model never took off. This year, teamware products became more specialized. Introduced by Instinctive Technology Inc. in July 1997, eRoom became a tool for managing projects in version 3.0, released this October. It lets users track the milestones of a project and manage the life cycle of documents from draft versions to archives. Furthermore, Instinctive focused its sales efforts on two vertical industries: consulting and technology.

The concept of vertical teamware this year helped draw attention to two products designed for the highly collaborative construction industry. In-Site, a hosted application launched last year by BidCom Inc., got an overhaul in November that added standard building practices to its workflow engine. Another hosted app, ProjectNet from Blue-Line/On-Line Inc., in February gained project-management features. A teamware product for all industries, Involv Intranet from Changepoint Corp., gained distinguishing personalization features in version 3.0, released in June. Each Involv user gets a personal desktop configuration with links to favorite applications. A "What's New" section lists all the applications that have changed since they were last used. Involv runs on the Lotus Domino server, which could spell trouble: Lotus is adding features from its teamware product, Instant Teamroom, to Domino 5.0, due for release this month. If teamware is destined to become a mere feature in groupware packages, standalone teamware products will have to specialize even more in adulthood.

--Justin Hibbard

next product: Enterprise JavaBeans