Contact:  Dr. Rich Lysakowski, Executive Director, The Collaborative Electronic Notebooks Systems Association (CENSA), 19 Bowen Avenue, Suite 100, Medford, Massachusetts 02155 USA Phone: 781-395-3004; ; Internet:

Boston, MA - November 1, 1997--The Collaborative Electronic Notebook Systems Association (CENSA) recently opened its doors for vendors to join its ranks.  CENSA currently includes End User Members from top pharmaceutical, chemical and healthcare organizations, including Bristol-Myers Squibb, Dow Chemical Company, Dow AgroSciences, HB Fuller, Monsanto/Searle, Morton International, Parke-Davis/Warner Lambert, Pfizer, Purdue Pharmaceuticals, Rohm and Haas Company, and others.

Vendor are now encouraged to join and start working with CENSA staff and its many members.   Among the many benefits include knowledge deliverables, resulting from extensive research and engineering work done by  Members.  Periodically, CENSA will be distributing Requests for Information (RFIs) and Request For Proposals (RFPs) to vendors interested in developing products to meet End User Members’ needs for effective R&D team computing and electronic recordkeeping systems.  The types of product vendors being invited into CENSA include:

Collaboration, groupware, WWW, and web publishing tools and systems;

Document workflow, image and records management systems;

Software and application development systems and tools;

Chemical databases, bioinformatics, LIMS, instrument data systems, and other types of scientific software and systems;

Next generation computing systems (including electronic notebooks and handheld computers);

Enabling technologies (such as voice input, wireless networking, and audio and video conferencing);

Authentication and security hardware and software solutions

And many other component technology vendors.

"This is a wonderful opportunity for vendors of products for collaborative data management, electronic notebook systems and the many related markets to have early access to a committed, open and ready customer base," explains Rich Lysakowski, Executive Director.  "In our extensive surveys of end users, we consistently find that end users want and need better tools to facilitate electronic collaboration, recordkeeping and data management for R&D projects."  We are working with the best-qualified vendor(s) to enhance or construct the necessary integration engines, applications and tools for mission-critical R&D team computing systems with complete collaborative electronic laboratory notebooks.  These systems are being designed for a variety of specialized markets, such as electronic recordkeeping and archiving, combinatorial chemistry, high-throughput screening, analytical chemistry, molecular biology, genetics, materials science and engineering fields.

In December of 1995, several large chemical and pharmaceutical corporations and TeamScience of Medford, MA founded the Collaborative Electronic Notebook Systems Association to fulfill their needs for elegant solutions to their R&D and testing lab automation problems.  CENSA started operations in Deember 1996.  CENSA was then incorporated as an independent trade association in early 1997. 

CENSA's primary focus is developing markets for Electronic Notebook Systems for collaborative and personal applications, and R&D Team Computing Systems.  This includes hardware and software components for project data handling, collaborative computing, electronic recordkeeping and archiving.  To make these components fit together well, CENSA is specifying large-scale integration frameworks that allow organizations to integrate common desktop applications, server databases, and the innumerable types of laboratory and R&D data and instruments.  The architectural blueprint for these frameworks is called the Common CENS Architecture^TM.  This architecture will result in R&D and technical business systems that are easy to construct, well-integrated, and provide unified information handling for R&D and related technical data types -- ultimately the integrated data, document, and records handling systems that organizations need to operate in competitive, regulated industries.

"Good systems at reasonable prices" is the mantra bringing members and vendors together.  "Building on top of well-tested, industry-leading hardware and software platforms for application integration, groupware, document management, messaging, and the Web, rather than building from scratch, lets the Supplier Members deliver things much more quickly and cost effectively," says Dr. Rich Lysakowski, CENSA emphasizes the use of forward-looking tools and open standards such as CORBA, Java, JavaBeans, ActiveX, XML, and the World Wide Web in all of its software.  

A major technical goal of CENSA's technical projects is to pull together the necessary existing technology pieces and use them in the right combinations to satisfy various members' common requirements while, at the same time, establish more open and highly integrated systems for R&D and testing laboratories.  

Software vendors who join CENSA are being asked to build object-oriented, client/server and middleware modules and applications for collaborative electronic notebooks and other R&D applications to meet the diverse needs of members.   Hardware vendors in CENSA will be asked to build specialized hand-held, PDA devices, portable notebooks, and servers for running the new electronic recordkeeping protocols.

CENSA End User Members receive detailed engineering specifications, procedures, benchmarks and statements of best practices, plus supporting documentation for implementing trustworthy and reliable electronic recordkeeping and digital archiving systems.  "These deliverables will help large companies to transition successfully to fully electronic recordkeeping systems."  Adds Dr. Lysakowski, "What we are doing is generally useful to all organizations that want to depend on their electronic records from both legal and regulatory standpoints.  Vendors benefit greatly because End User Members commit to test new concepts and products, give detailed feedback on merits of new approaches and applications, allow vendors to secure early commitments for products and concepts that work well in their companies.  This will result in volume deployment agreements earlier than normal.  This will give Supplier Members expanded referenceable customer bases and market share earlier.  Overall, there is greater synergy and speed using CENSA's market development processes than using other approaches, such as consortia or standards organizations, which are notorious for their slow, consensus-driven processes."

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Organizations interested in becoming CENSA End User or Supplier Members, or seeking more information should contact:

Membership Department, The Collaborative Electronic Notebooks Systems Association, 19 Bowen Avenue, Suite 100, Medford, Massachusetts 02155 USA Phone: 781-395-3004 ; Internet: . Register at the CENSA User Registration Site to obtain further information about CENSA, and to participate in discussion groups regarding collaborative electronic notebook and R&D team computing systems.