|
FirstClass is a client/server groupware, email, online conferencing, voice/fax services, and bulletin-board system for Windows, Macintosh, and Linux. FirstClass's primary markets are the higher-education and K-12 education sectors, including four of the top ten largest school districts in the United States (Las Vegas, NV's Clark County School District, Florida's Broward County Public Schools, Hillsborough County Public Schools, and Chicago Public Schools).〔 The product is part of Open Text's Portfolio Group and runs on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux platforms, for both client and server. iPhone and Android client applications are also available. According to the company, the product is used at over 3,000 organizations and has 9 million users worldwide. ==Early history== FirstClass was originally a product of SoftArc, formed by three former members of Bell Northern Research, Nortel's research arm located in downtown Toronto. The team, consisting of two brothers and a friend, had been the primary developers of the successful Meridian Mail system, and styled themselves as the Toronto Ideas Group. After a run-in with management, the three left and formed SoftArc as a consulting firm. FirstClass was created in response to a request by a family friend who worked at the Scarborough Board of Education (now part of the Toronto District School Board). He asked them to find a reasonable Macintosh-based e-mail system that offered both LAN and modem support, a real GUI, and supported both private e-mail as well as public discussion areas (forums). He wanted a system that "even teachers could use". BBSes offered modem support and public forums, but typically had no LAN support and were character-based. Various LAN e-mail systems existed, those on the Mac with reasonable GUI's, but they tended to have poor modem support and few offered forums. The team found only one product, AppleLink, which came close to filling the requirements. However, it was run on a mainframe for Apple Computer and couldn't be purchased, so the team offered to build a system under contract for $85,000. Scarborough Board really liked the Hypercard prototype, but couldn't afford the price, so they offered to buy a system for $9000 and then help sell it to other boards. The proposal was accepted, and work on EduNet started some time in 1989, debuting in 1990 at the ECOO conference.〔http://www.ncf.ca/ip/freenet/conferences/com-net93/reports/plen_alt_technologies.txt〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「FirstClass」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|