Internet will change society, says Lotus chief

By Richard Morochove

First published November 26, 1998

Last week's court injunction that requires Microsoft to stop shipping an incompatible version of the Java programming language in Windows 98 and Internet Explorer will be a boon to Internet communications, according to Jeff Papows.

Papows, president and CEO of Lotus Development, says, "Fundamentally that was a ruling by the court to preclude Microsoft from creating its own polluted variant of Java which would have undermined the promise of a write-once, run anywhere, computer language.

"It's enormously important to us. Lotus and IBM collectively are probably one of the biggest investors in Java. It's a boon to the industry. And I think it's a message to Microsoft about the tolerance for the perversion of those kinds of standards."

Lotus eSuite is one of the leading Java-based suites. It includes a basic word processor and spreadsheet, among other applications. Lotus already sells a high-powered Windows suite for PCs, yet Papows believes eSuite is particularly well-suited for the Net.

"If I'm on a computer in Toronto and send an E-mail to someone in Australia with a spreadsheet program attached to it written in Java, I know that no matter how I send it, when they receive it, it's going to run," says Papows.

The Java spreadsheet program will run on Windows, Macintosh, Unix and other types of computers. Yet Lotus eSuite was not originally aimed at personal computer users.

Papows says, "The acceptance of network computers, which is the alternative to a PC that it was, in part, written for, has been very disappointing. Fundamentally, network computers have not materialized in any kind of volume.

"At the same time we've released a PC version of it. We've getting great support for eSuite as a Web application building block where people take these Java objects and just snap them into Web-based applications. That part of it, ironically, is very successful. Sometimes when you do these things, you do them for one reason and they end up being successful in a way that you didn't necessarily appreciate."

Papows sees this as another indication of the growing importance of the Internet, which he discusses in his newly-released book, Enterprise.com: Market Leadership in the Information Age, published by Perseus Books.

More PCs than television sets will be sold this year and he believes Internet access will be pervasive in the household in the next three years. Yet the Web of tomorrow will be more than just a collection of loosely organized links.

"It's important that we think of [the Internet] not just a place to go browse, going forward, but as a place for education and as a place for other government services and other social things that I think are going to be increasingly significant," says Papows.

He's particularly excited by the possibilities the Internet offers for online learning. Calling it "a catalyst for increased diversity", he believes the Internet makes it easier to share global knowledge resources and holds the potential for increased interaction between different cultures. He's donating his royalties from this book to higher education.

"You can learn from the study of your house," says Papows. "It makes lifelong learning a reality for a broader cross-section of the populace than would otherwise be the case."

But what about the human interaction? Isn't learning from a computer screen rather cold and lifeless, separating you from the humanity of an instructor in the classroom?

It's better than being one of hundreds of students in today's large university classrooms, counters Papows.

"Being able to E-mail a professor and receive a direct response may be more socially empowering than a student that does not have that access," says Papows.

He believes a mix of traditional education and online augmentation will deliver the biggest benefits at the lowest cost to society.

The Internet is also changing the way companies do business. "Forward-looking companies that are network-enabled are going to displace the companies that are IT laggards," says Papows. "On the Internet, small companies can be global. Small companies can have all of the physical appearances of large corporations. It's a bunch of bits at the end of the wire, not a 60-storey skyscraper. And yet if the services are of the right calibre, they're on more of an equal footing."

Before joining Lotus, Papows headed up Cognos Corp., an Ottawa-based software developer. He believes the Net will help Canadians expand beyond a narrow national market and sell products worldwide.

"We think about globalness today because we can get on a plane in Toronto and fly to Singapore in 17 hours direct. We can do it in nanoseconds over the Internet," says Papows. "What kind of a world will we be in with a billion online users?" CW