Brainstorm's new OfficeLink for Lotus Notes 2.0 offers extended support for rich-text, conflict resolution and full-text search

Business Wire, Dec 5, 1995

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 5, 1995--In response to record sales and an overwhelming demand among users for a simple and elegant way to link Microsoft Office applications with Lotus Notes, Brainstorm Technologies today announced version 2.0 of the company's breakthrough product, OfficeLink for Lotus Notes.

The new software release from Brainstorm, who is the leading provider of software solutions for integrating groupware technologies, comes less than six months after OfficeLink's initial launch last spring. Microsoft Office has 90 percent marketshare of desktop applications suite, and Lotus Notes is the leader in the groupware market with over 3.3 million users worldwide.

OfficeLink adds "Open from Notes" and "Save to Notes" options into the Office application menu bar thus allowing users to seamlessly retrieve and store Office documents to and from any corporate Lotus Notes database. With OfficeLink v2.0 users now have the ability to transparently save Microsoft Word and Microsoft RTF documents directly into Notes native rich-text format, maintaining all specific formatting.

Just as easily, end-users of Microsoft Word can directly convert any existing Notes rich text information directly into a Word or RTF document with the click of a mouse button. With this added capability, users can continue to work within their favorite desktop applications, either Word or Notes, and be able to cooperate, share and edit the same documents simultaneously. OfficeLink implements sophisticated save/conflict resolution features and provides full support for built-in Notes security.

Another significant enhancement in the new OfficeLink allows for any Word document stored within Lotus Notes to be full-text searchable. This feature is essential to organizations that have critical business information stored in thousands of Office documents, allowing for efficient and reliable access to this information from a central Notes repository. All Notes and Office users anywhere within and outside the organization will be able to easily search, review, edit, and comment on the shared Office documents via Notes and OfficeLink.

OfficeLink sets the standard as the key "alternative" Notes client interface which is accessible from Microsoft Office applications without having to run Lotus Notes client software. The new OfficeLink incorporates a revamped, more intuitive user interface with new pull down menus, scroll windows, and an automatic Notes document field rendering facility. In addition, product performance has been optimized more than 50 percent in memory and resource utilization.

"The market response to our initial release of OfficeLink has been tremendous," stated Mitchell C. Liu, Brainstorm co-founder and vice president of marketing. "The new version of OfficeLink significantly extends the power of Lotus Notes with a custom OfficeLink front-end, and with forthcoming updates we'll be providing support for both Office '95 and PowerPoint. New key features added to OfficeLink 2.0 have been compiled from over thousands of customer requests, and truly mark the maturity of the product."

OfficeLink leverages on the strengths of Notes such as its replication and security features to enable seamless and reliable sharing of information throughout the company as well as by suppliers and customers around the globe. This ability to easily access Office documents outside an organization allows mobile users, such as field sales representatives, to merge and distribute sales spread sheets, forecasts and other data created in Excel and Word from their portable computers directly to all other networked users within the corporation.

OfficeLink v.2.0 will run in Windows 3.X, Windows for Workgroups, Windows NT and Windows '95 operating systems. Support for Office '95 and Notes 4.0 is slated for early in the first quarter of 1996.

The suggested retail price for Brainstorm's OfficeLink is $99.00 per client. Server pricing begins at $199 with volume discounts available for site licenses. The product, which is currently available, is sold directly from Brainstorm as well as through Egghead Software Corporate sales and the Brainstorm Buyers Guide.

Founded in 1993, Brainstorm Technologies Inc., is a pioneer in the development of Lotus Notes applications and development tools. The company provides both off-the-shelf products and a range of consulting services designed to help companies gain access and integrate data from existing corporate databases into Lotus Notes. The company's award-winning products, VB/Link for Lotus Notes, DataLink for Lotus Notes and ServerAdmin Plus are currently used by more than 20 percent of the organizations that use Lotus Notes.

CONTACT: Slater PR

Terri Slater, 508/359-5677

or

Brainstorm Technologies

Mitchell Liu, 617/621-0800