The development agreement between Lotus Development Corp and Novell Inc (CI No 1,898), is intended to result in the Lotus Notes groupware application being implemented as a NetWare Loadable Module. Currently the application needs an OS/2 server for its back-end engine. Unlike NetWare, OS/2 implements pre-emptive multi-tasking, which means the operating system itself controls the amount of time allocated to each process running under it. NetWare, by contrast, relies on the good behaviour of processes such as NetWare Loadable Modules – which are free to hand control back to the operating system as frequently or as infrequently as they wish.
