SAN MATEO (10-06-95) - Netscape Communications Corp.'s recent acquisition of Collabra Software Inc. is expected to strengthen the company's hand in its competition with Lotus Notes in the emerging market for groupware applications. Michael Parsons of the IDG News Service spoke with Eric Hahn, President and CEO of Collabra, about Netscape, Notes, and the rise of groupware.
IDGNS: Why did Netscape buy Collabra, instead of one of your rivals?
HAHN: There are really three reasons. The single most important reason is that the companies share an equally compatible view of how groupware and the Internet will converge. Secondly, I think NetScape is attracted to the idea of acquiring 47 pretty bright people in sales and engineering who are familiar with the enterprise market. We probably know more about how corporate users use collaborative software than many other people. It's not the hundreds of lines of code: It's the experience.
In Collabra Share 1.0, we did seven distinct rounds of user testing. We developed an understanding of the conferencing problem. That understanding can be applied to the collaborative construction of World Wide Web pages, or Email. There are lots of different places where the Collabra product line is going to touch Netscape's.
IDGNS: How do you differentiate Collabra Share from Notes?
HAHN: In terms of the language Lotus uses, we competed on discussion databases, document databases, used for news and wire feeds. In those areas, we argue that Collabra Share is both better and different. The functionality is easier to use, and is richer. It's different, because we sit on the existing Email infrastructure. With Collabra Share, it's a simpler decision to deploy: you already have the infrastructure.
IDGNS: Are you going to build application development tools?
HAHN: We have not participated in that market. Frankly, when customers have come to us and said they want to develop a proprietary application, that's when they should have been talking to Lotus or Oracle.
Now, with the Java development environment from Sun, you can develop applications and distribute them over the Web. As an example, in these discussion systems people try to drive to closure or consensus with voting. With Java, you could create a voting applet to summarize people's positions. Java is a key part of the answer.
A monolithic, Netscape-centric application development language is not what the world needs. What makes the Web so strong is that people can develop stuff that is multivendor. There are open APIs for Netscape. The whole concept of a Universal Resource Locator can be used to construct applications beyond simple text. Hypertext Mark Up Language (HTML) enables forms that can do many things. However, we will develop extensions to standard protocols, just as Netscape has with security, which we will try to make widely available. We don't intend to develop a lock-in for things like conferencing.
IDGNS: Will you extend Collabra Share and Netscape into workflow?
HAHN: We will get to it in the obvious way. We'll do a good job of the basic plumbing, and then we can build HTML forms and Java scripts, which enable you to create smart objects that are expense reports. It won't be entering the workflow automation market with a specific tool. It's just that the objects on the Webs will get smarter and be able to encapsulate rules and filters.
IDGNS: How does Netscape deal affect your alliances with Novell, Banyan and Microsoft?
HAHN: Our intention with all three is to enhance those relationships. In Microsoft's case, it's a little more difficult because their Internet strategy is evolving, and I'm sure that parts of their product line will compete with Netscape's. We will continue to support Microsoft standards like the Messaging Application Programming Interface (MAPI). Also, Microsoft's Exchange and GroupWise XTD are two of our most important targets. You can expect that, just as Collabra Share and Netscape today support MAPI and Exchange, so will our future products. You'll also see integration with all the major MAPI Email environments. We have a very healthy respect for how important Exchange will be to the market, and we want to bring that to the Netscape product line.
IDGNS: What do you think about Notes, IBM and the PTTs working together internationally?
HAHN: My personal view is that the open systems protocols will eclipse all such proprietary protocols. I don't see anything wrong with a PTT providing a service to Notes customers, but I don't think it's strategic. I would view those as short term revenue projects.
To put this in perspective, Lotus Notes has 2 million users. There are 15 million hits on the Netscape home page everyday. People shouldn't underestimate the size of the Internet phenomena. Notes is not going to be the ubiquitous product that Lotus maintains. It's a stellar tool for high- end line-of-business, but it's a niche. It won't be in every home and on every PC, like the Internet.
IDGNS: Do you plan to strengthen your support for remote users?
HAHN: Support for Mac and disconnected remote use are far and away our most highly requested end user features. We'll be shipping the Mac client at the end of the year. We intend to make that the number one priority. There continues to be a vibrant development plan for the Collabra Share product. The Netscape thing shouldn't slow that down, if anything it should speed it up.
IDGNS: What about replication?
HAHN: There is the highly structured transaction-style replication which the database vendors do, and there's the semi-structured replication which groupware vendors do. There are two major approaches from groupware vendors. Notes has taken a hard line on one approach, and Collabra has taken the other. I think we'll both soon be adopting each other's lines.
Notes is synchronous document-based replication. Participating servers connect over a fixed virtual connection using a private protocol. Our approach is a messaging-based approach. Messages are generated and then delivered over an arbitrary network, where they are applied and acknowledged. Contrary to popular belief, both approaches are reliable and both are secure. We feel we're ahead. Lotus probably wishes that they had a messaging-based capability, and we could address additional markets with a direct replicator. Both approaches have benefits.
In my opinion, it's almost impossible to take a synchronous messaging system and make it work over the messaging network. For example on low- speed sporadic connections, it's difficult to have the servers connected up with a guaranteed service level, so then a messaging-based system is more reliable. In Collabra Share, if the server's down, the Email system replicates once it has come up again. However, with a messaging-based system, when you replicate there could have been further updates, so you may not have the most timely information. In practice, in large Lotus Notes databases, you can have large multi-hop networks, in which case, Tokyo may not be synchronous with London if it replicates via San Francisco and New York. The ideal product will have both kinds of replication.
IDGNS: Will you support synchronous replication in Collabra Share and Netscape products?
HAHN: We solved the harder problem, the messaging problem, earlier. There's nothing that prevents us running those message over synchronous links. We will be doing that in the next six months. It will be a point upgrade to Collabra Share and it will occur much sooner than people expected.
IDGNS: Do you plan to evolve into a client/server architecture?
HAHN: That was a legitimate objection with Collabra Share 1.0. In version 2.0, there are two flavors, with file sharing or a client server version. We now offer both. We've done the right thing and supported both architectures. The workgroup edition is still extremely popular, though, because it doesn't require a file server. It even works on peer-to-peer networks. The user experience is identical, either way.
IDGNS: What's the latest on timing and availability of integrated products?
HAHN: During 1996 we will release an integrated product. The next generation Collabra share will be built into Navigator. It's hard to imagine a major release before the summer. The first fruits of the merger will be earlier in that our team is already involved in some review of the Netscape Navigator 2.0 product, and you'll see maintenance upgrades that start to show our experience.
IDGNS: What's the real opportunity created by Nescape buying Collabra?
HAHN: Netscape's success is at taking up open systems protocols. We will recast our products along open systems lines. We'll take a look at where the Internet is trying to do conferencing, and see where we could take it to the next level. UseNet is a wild and woolly place, but corporations with Webs inside their company today, they are looking at UseNet's Net News Transport Protocol, even if they never put that stuff outside the firewall. People worry about whether a Notes or a Collabora Share is robust enough: these open systems protocols have been exposed to millions of participants on thousands of platforms. What they lack in sexiness, they make up for in robustness and quality. Once they've put the Netscape client on every desk, they can turn on an d off access to Newsgroups or access to Web pages. This is dumb tubes for the 21st century. You have a universal access device and the applications are on the server. Web pages, e-mail, discussions, conferencing and directories fit very nicely into that model.
IDGNS: Where does Notes go as the Internet expands?
HAHN: As long as Notes is different from the Internet, it will be relegated to a niche for development of in-house high-end line of business applications, with a shared semistructured database and views on that data. Notes will have connectivity to the Internet, but it's not an Internet product. I think they get boxed in. There's another angle, that Lotus might retool for the Internet and replace the proprietary protocols, but I don't think so. There are people for whom the one-stop shopping for Notes is appealing. When the Netscape Navigator ships, people are going to see another set of open protocols encroach on Notes.
Collabra Software Inc., in Mountain View, Calif., can be reached at +1 (415) 950-6400.
[Copyright 1995 IDG News Service, International Data Group Inc. All rights reserved.]