Talk:Lotus Agenda

Documentation Manager

I was the Documentation manager for the first release of Lotus Agenda, which was shipped in the spring or summer of 1988--I can probably find the exact date. I was thrilled to come across this Wikipedia entry. I've never contributed to Wikipedia before now.

I worked early on with Ed Belove, Jerry Kaplan, and Mitch Kapor to describe what they were designing. Ultimately the project moved to a development team, and I hired and managed a team of technical writers and editors that produced the manuals and help system. Those were different times--we shipped a five pound box with about three books and a bunch of 5.25 inch floppy disks. We all went to the distribution center to watch the books and disks come off the production line.

It was a difficult product to describe. I agree with Sinebot that PIM was too limiting a concept. I'm not aware of anything quite like it, even now. (Would be curious to hear what others use.) I believe the sample databases were shipped by Marketing after the initial release. I wasn't involved in Agenda 2.0. [Went on to manage documentation for Lotus Marketplace, also a short-lived product.]

The only copy of Agenda I have is in German. If anyone happens to have a spare copy of the first release, I would love to have one.

00:18, 23 October 2020 (UTC)Doc and doc (talk)

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.6.48.36 (talk) 19 October 2006 18:18:14 (UTC)

Release dates

Would be nice to have release dates for the various Agenda versions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.6.48.36 (talk) 19 October 2006 18:18:14 (UTC)

Possible Contradiction?

The article states "Attempts to overcome this through packaging pre-built databases with the program were insufficient to lift sales to adequate levels. In the end only several hundred thousand copies were sold." Is this a contradiction? Several hundred thousand copies, in 1992, sounds like a huge market penetration for this kind of software. 216.36.186.2 (talk) 15:48, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Bad Link?

The link for the phrase "smart folder" actually goes to "Virtual folder", which doesn't mention the first one at all. This appears to be another one of those Wikipedia oversights that causes so much confusion. So which is it? - 24.176.45.149 (talk) 19:18, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Agenda as a Card index

In the 1980's I was looking for a software equivalent of a card index for research into a humanities subject, and was unable to find one. A London University academic introduced me to Lotus Agenda, which he recommended highly. He told me to ignore the Personal Information Organiser (PIM) label under which it was marketed, and assured me that behind this front end I would find a "verbal database". He was right, and I had the perfect card index on my screen.

I used it, amongst other things, to file and sort material for an anthology I was compiling.There was so much material that I ran out of space on my computer, and had to split the file in two.

I was so pleased with the programme, that I wrote to Lotus stating my satisfaction with Agenda, expressed my surprise that it was being marketed as a PIM, and suggested that its marketability was being damaged by the PIM front end. Lotus told me in reply (I quote from memory) that Agenda had been deveopled as a "verbal database", for which a card index served as a paradigm, but that their efforts to sell it as such had been a complete failure. The PIM front end had been an attempt to attraction from a wider market to increase revenues.

Since the withdrawal of Agenda, I have made desultory attempts to find an adequate substitute, without success, and I have never been able to interest computing experts in my needs. I continue to believe that, with approprate marketing, Agenda as a card index programme might have been a great success. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nek Samoht (talk • contribs) 12:30, 28 January 2011 (UTC)