Reviewing Notes, or any groupware program, highlights the changing nature of software evaluation. Early reviews, for example, Press (1980), emphasized a program's features, efficiency (memory and storage requirements and speed), and user interface. These have all diminished in importance. With multiple revisions, the feature sets and efficiency of commercial programs for a given application have become relatively similar, and direct‐manipulation user interfaces like the Macintosh and Windows have reduced the differences among the user interfaces of programs. Today, software (especially groupware) must be evaluated in context. It must be compatible with the skills and requirements of the users and the organization, and it must be well integrated with other software and systems. The stability, support, plans, business arrangements, and so on, of the vendor are also important. The program is the tip of an iceberg. After describing Notes and its applications, I will discuss the question of its suitability in ...
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