PIM Meets Web

by Alan S. Kay

Rating 83

Lotus organizer is a popular personal information manager (PIM) software package and a solid choice for managing your own contact information and calendars. This is different from a contact management system that stores this information centrally for sharing among a group of users.

Organizer’s familiar day planner interface, which mimics a desk calendar, works well. Release 6 has added some nice bells and whistles which have to do with the Web and portable devices.

In keeping with today’s hurly-burly work style, Organizer makes personal data portable. Users can export their calendar and contact data to any handheld device that uses the Palm operating system. With the right cable, contact lists can be exported to a portable phone.

Calendars can also be published as a Web page on company Intranet for accessing it away from the office and sharing with others. Organizer also now supports Internet-based scheduling using the iCalendar standard for sharing data between different applications, so meetings can be scheduled remotely and entered into participants’ calendars. Also new in version 6, users can capture Web page addresses, with log-in data if needed, so Organizer can be used as a Web directory.

With the addition of its new Web flexibility and support for portable devices, Lotus Organizer takes the traditional PIM into new territory, and provides a well-rounded and easy-to-use solution.