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Just call it webware As groupware migrates to the Internet it is beginning to lose its distinctiveness as a product category. Some IS managers and consultants use the term "webware" to refer to any software package that integrates browser technology into the enterprise. Competing groupware programs are increasingly viewed as bundles of code that can be mixed and matched with each other and other "middleware" applications to achieve the optimum networking solution. St. Louis Park-based HealthSystem Minnesota incorporates Netscape SuiteSpot, Microsoft Exchange and dozens of related Web applications into its sprawling intranet, which encompasses two major medical facilities, 11 west-metro clinics, a public web site and an on-line clinical information service. Chief Information Officer Michael Minear says he's dissatisfied with groupware suites such as Netscape SuiteSpot and Microsoft Exchange that throw in everything but the kitchen sink for one price, when what you really want is a single component—e- mail perhaps, or calendar and scheduling. Instead of settling for one groupware package, HealthSystem has created its own, customized webware by piecing together the best parts of various programs. Snippets of Exchange, SuiteSpot and other applications are interwoven to give patient scheduling, medical record and other legacy software programs a friendlier, graphical face, and furnish clinical information to doctors and nurses working on a variety of PC platforms. "(SuiteSpot) and any other groupware element are just infrastructure to us," Minear says. "... No one product will do what we have to do."
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