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Another dream product that became a reality in 1985 was an electronic mail system (EMS) that ran on Netware. From the earliest days when LANs were still in embryo, Superset, Burton, and others had ruminated on how the new technology might be used. There were many answers to the question, "What is it good for?" including: sharing of peripheral devices, lowering costs, etc. But the most exciting application by far was the idea of distributed processing, where various users dispersed across a network can distribute parts of a job and work as a team to create a single project. To achieve distributed processing (which was as much a change in how people worked together as in the way they used computers) users would have to be able to share common databases via the LAN. They would also need to be able to talk to each other via electronic mail (E-mail).
Among the powerbrokers at Novell (who at this time were basically Ray, Superset, Harry Armstrong, Dave Owen, and Craig Burton), everyone agreed that adding an electronic mail system to Netware was a good marketing strategy. The idea of a paperless office was a hot one in the computer industry and even in corporate MIS departments. E-mail systems were available on host-based networks; they would be even more useful on LANs. Another consideration was relative ease of design. Here was a popular application that could be simply and cheaply distributed with every LAN sold. It was an easy add-on application that would enhance the functionality of the network.
Superset cooked up a Netware Electronic Mail System (EMS). EMS was a basic electronic mail system designed to send messages between workstations on a single network. It was a good "intercom"-style mail system, but it lacked features for doing much message processing or for sending messages outside the LAN environment. It was a start at E-mail, and starting in February 1985, it was included for free in every shipment of Netware.
Meanwhile, Craig started looking for something better while the Engineers started dreaming of designing something better. As time went on, E-mail evolved from a neat add-on feature into one of a LAN's important features, and this lead to controversy.
Part of being a glue product was e-mail. E-mail represented a source of friction within Novell. Engineering wanted to develop an e-mail product, but Craig Burton wanted something more than just a simple e-mail package. He wanted a mail system that would fit the glue product philosophy -- something that would interconnect various e-mail systems.
Craig researched and came up with a product he liked being developed by Action Technologies. Action had developed their e-mail product with group dynamics in mind. They had built into it an innovative message threading concept and added a superstructure over that threading designed to help people see projects through to completion.
Craig was lukewarm to the message threading, cold on the superstructure, but very hot on the "engine" that did the actual moving of messages from mail server to mail server and from mail server to workstation.
What he wanted Action to do was split out the mail server engine and make it another "glue product" -- a standard that would spread through the industry.
Action wanted to work with Novell, but they weren't as excited about giving away "the family jewels" as Burton was, and, in fact, they were much more excited about their innovative work-aiding superstructure than they were about the mundane e-mail engine. This difference in opinion about what was important lead to chronic friction between Novell and Action, and that friction escalated to career-threatening crisis in 1989.
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