[Oberon] Commercializing Oberon: User Needs

[Antony Tersol]

Some additional candidate user needs:

continuing from Aubrey's 13:

14. I want to be able to easily work collaboratively with others, who
may be using the same computer, the same network, or be connected by the
internet.  

15. I want a suite of cooperating programs that, installed on a network,
will gather data (from instruments, computers, anything interfacable to
a computer or PDA) and make that data (and analysis of same) available
via the network.

16. I want an environment that allows me to author on a PC and deliver
applications and content on resource-constrained devices (such as PDA's
and cell phones, strongArm processor


15 is perhaps a generalization of Aubrey's #4 ("I want a program that
displays the status of my network operations center with hundreds of
users, in a easy to comprehend and navigate manner.")

14 shares some commonality with #9 (I want an electronic classroom ...
groupware support).  
Having worked for several years with a company that was targeting the
college and corporate e-learning markets, I support #9, but would add
(based on my teaching experience) that there is a significant market in
support for the traditional classroom that requires many of the same
functionalities as the electronic classroom.  Both electronic and
traditional educators would benefit from increased collaboration with
their peers that leveraged their skills and work.  Consider, for example
a testing module that offered a repository of exam questions and answers
with appropriate meta-tags, which allowed user contributions, comments
and rating, and the capability to create, administer and grade custom
exams.  Even the (relatively simple) ability to create an exam to be
given and graded the old-fashioned way on paper would save instructors
lots of time.  Why should each of 1000 physics instructors write 100
questions each when contributing 10 could gain them access to 10,000?

Antony