LONG CRITICIZED for its awkward, Windows-inspired interface, Lotus Notes is making amends with Mac users of this information-management system. Notes 4.0, slated for release at the end of 1995, offers significantly improved mail, navigation, and preview features as well as a built-in Web browser.
Unlike its predecessors, Notes 4.0 includes true e-mail, with an interface based on Lotus' popular cc:Mail. Document handling, Notes' traditional strength, is improved as well, with three "panes" -- Navigation, Index, and Preview -- through which users can locate documents and folders, inspect lists of their names and attributes, and then preview full-scale document images from which sections can be cut and pasted into other documents.
Notes administrators can automate routine tasks with the new LotusScript 3.0 scripting language. Users can also automate tasks with the simpler Agent Builder. Maximum concurrent database sessions will increase from 200 in Notes 3.0 to 1,000 in version 4.0. To provide the needed horsepower, Notes 4.0 servers -- which will first be offered for Windows NT, Windows 95, OS/2, and HP-UX systems, with other platforms to follow within 60 days -- will be able to take advantage of up to six multiprocessors. Pricing hadn't been set at press time. 800-346-1305 or 617-577-8500.
