But, what is a PIM

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Note: This message is from the outliners.com archive kindly provided by Dave Winer.

Outliners.com Message ID: 3778

Posted by graham.smith
2005-08-16 05:58:31

I am interested in the thread on the State of the PIM market, because it makes me realise that my idea of a PIM seems to be different from everyone elses.

The core tools of a PIM for me are the diary, address book, to do list and some way of tracking activities/documents associated with particular tasks or/and people.

Ecco fully qualifies as a PIM, with the added bonus of a decent freeform database capability. Time Matters, Goldmine etc also qualify

Outlook fails because it has no easy method of associating letters with a contact.

Zoot, Asksam, Ultra Recall etc all fall into a Freeform database category, I don’t see any of them as being PIMS, because they have no native diary/contact tools.

It seems that PIM is being used to describe any tool that can be used to manage “personal” information. But then Access and Alpha 5 etc can also do that, if in a mor formal manner.

I am sure this wasn’t always the case and I find it confusing when people discuss PIMs without comparing core PIM features.

Mind you I also find it confusing when people talk bout Ecco as an Outliner, when really what it does is give a tree view of a folder hierarchy, It is not what I think of as being an Outliner, ie something for “outlining” a document structure, as in NoteMap.

So what are PIMs, and what makes some programs PIMs and other programs not PIMs?

Graham

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