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The latest catchphrase in the industry is "groupware" or "workgroup" applications. Groupware is designed to help people work better together, acting as a tool to help any company build teams that can work on shared tasks - across a network or around the world.

While networks provided the framework for group activities, linking remote sites and individuals, there were few tools available to help users communicate and share information fluidly. Enter, groupware.

Since simple file and printer sharing has become passe, companies are now moving toward making investments in complex workflow packages and group-enabled document management programs. The so-called democratization of Western businesses is pushing technology to find new and better ways to give workers the information they need to make business-critical decisions.

Software companies, eager to cash in on the trend, have begun calling everything from scheduling to document management packages workgroup packages. Basically, anything that allows users to work as a team across a network qualifies.

Microsoft jumped into the workgroup fray with Windows for Workgroups, a package that works and looks just like Windows, but has additional networking and mail features. The engine is a powerful mail function that allows the user to send out messages to multiple recipients and attach documents from other applications to messages.

Workgroups have the option of working in tandem on documents, allowing them to share information and ideas on a particular project. Scheduling is coordinated, letting users save time and energy when planning meetings.

Another package generating a lot of press these days is Lotus Notes, from Cambridge, MA-based Lotus Development Corp. Ask people what Notes is and you may notice that they have a hard time answering. It is more than just a messaging program. Some have called it a way of "facilitating" communication.

Although it lets users shares information on databases, it isn't a simple database package. Lotus itself calls it "client/server software for workgroups." It is positioned as a knowledge-sharing tool, most often targeted at knowledge workers with a high-level need for customer service and support. A cross-platform environment, it allows users to automate workflow and build multi-database applications.

The rise of the groupware package has been a long time coming. Now, as users and networks become more sophisticated, groupware is going mainstream. For years, Lotus Notes was almost like a corporate secret.

Lotus Notes, Lotus's premier workgroup system since its launch in late 1989, had been a primary direct-sell communications product with a very exclusive contingent of third-party partners. And Lotus might have come by that early low profile honestly.

"When I first saw the packaging I was absolutely horrified. It had everything, all the server and client software...and it was practically 300 pounds, something you almost needed a forklift truck to move around," said Chris Reed, Lotus' director of communication products, at the Canadian launch in Toronto last year.

Now, the offering has been simplified into server and starter packs, making weeding through the software and documentation, and installation much easier.

For a growing number of organizations, the Notes package and other workgroup programs are a good fit. Some of Notes' features include: automatic mailing of documents, multiple electronic signatures, cross-database lookups, background macros, custom buttons, and on-screen prompts and dialogue boxes - pushing forward the trend toward a |flat,' decentralized organization.

Notes can be applied to almost any application where teamwork and shared information are required. And the industry is already coming out with some unique implementations.

North York, Ont.-based Xerox Canada Ltd. is currently building a competency management system based on Notes. With the help of a Virtual Corp., a Toronto-based company, Xerox is constructing a competency requirement for each job and assigning job standards.

All employees will be able to compare their "personal competencies" to their set standards by referring to this competency database networked through the organization with Notes.

This electronic skills inventory for Xerox employees will help the company make business decisions by letting it look up its staff's strengths and weaknesses on a Notes database. This system marks a move away from "traditional supervised employment models to a more self-managed world where individuals are accountable for their own futures," according to promotional literature.

Telecommunications heavy AT&T has inked a licensing agreement with Lotus to provide Lotus Notes software over its telephone network.

But according to Ken Lownie, principal at Andover, MA-based Connexus Consulting Group Inc., SIs and workgroup resellers have to be sure the application and the organization are the right fit for a workgroup package such as Notes.

"I love Notes, I am probably the worst example of a Notes bigot in the world," said Lownie, speaking at a recent seminar at the Toronto-based Software and Client/Server World. "But it is easy to make mistakes when deploying a workgroup package like Notes."

Like many workgroup packages, the control is distributed. Shared access to information can open up security and data integrity issues. This can be an MIS nightmare if the system is unchecked, and a user's dream, said Lownie.

"It is almost like trying to build a city with no zoning. You can end up with all kinds of pollution problems and crowding." But on the other hand, users gain access to information like never before.

Lownie also warned that a business has to be psychologically ready to deploy a workgroup solution. "It forces people to work in a very different way. If a business isn't ready, this can lead to what I call a failure of the culture."

Most businesses still run on the competitive, hierarchial model. Lownie cited one example of a Notes deployment that sought to link senior executives to a knowledge-sharing database.

"We did the rollout and no one used it. They are, by their very nature, competitive. These were vice-presidents all vying for supremacy." Some employees will not feel comfortable sharing information in a competitive hierarchy, argued Lownie.

However, there are some "perfect fit" applications out there. Customer service applications, where shared information is integral to the people who provide support, are ideally suited to a workgroup situation.

John Rizzi, vice-president of strategic marketing for Cambridge, MA-based On Technology Corp., agreed that any workgroup vendor needs to take time to examine the business culture that is interested in deploying a workgroup tool.

Referring to his company's popular workgroup scheduling tool, Meeting Maker XP, Rizzi said it is important for employees to "conceptually get it" when it comes to group scheduling. "With e-mail there is a ready and established office metaphor - the inter-office memo - but there is no existing practise of group scheduling, unless workers have been forced to pin copies of their schedulers to the wall side by side."

But there has been a wider acceptance of this kind of workgroup activity, marking a shift in the way businesspeople do their work. He added that because of that shift, the workgroup market is starting to come into its own.

"The term workgroup has been around for quite a while, but the phrase wasn't in vogue. Now, workgroup computing has become a buzzword for the industry."

On Technology was formed in 1987 by the founder of Lotus Development Corp., Mitchell Kapor. Its entire business is made up of developing workgroup productivity software. That includes the cross-platform scheduler, Meeting Maker XP; Notework e-mail; On Location, a Mac desktop accessory; and Instant Update, which allows Mac workgroups to compress hundreds of e-mail messages into a single, shared file.

While the workgroup market is starting to come into its own, Rizzi said he believes the market will a reach critical mass in two or three years. He said with the introduction of bigger and better technology, companies will grow to look at workgroup computing as a integral part of doing business.

Craig Settles, marketing spokesperson for Campbell Services Inc., based in Southfield, MI, says his company has made an impact on the workgroup market by proving to individuals that its product is an important business tool.

The company has marketed the OnTime personal calendar for years. Now, with the roll out of the group package, users are flocking to the package on the strength of the individual user model.