The Online REPORTER Issue no. 27 - December 1996
WEEKLY DISPATCHES FROM THE INTERNET FRONT
TIVOLI LIFTS VEIL ON LIGHTWEIGHT CLIENT FRAMEWORK
IBM Corp's Tivoli Systems has revealed a few more details of its new Lightweight Client Framework (LCF) technology, which IBM is hoping will be the management technology for its Network Computers (OR 26).
Tivoli product development VP Martin Neath says that LCF - an internal name - is still pretty much in prototype form right now, though parts of it were integrated into Intel's Management Services Broker.
LCF allows a variety of clients, including NCs, to communicate with a Tivoli Management Environment (TME) server.
A TME 10 server plug-in, which will be included in upcoming TME releases and made freely available to customers with Tivoli maintenance service, would enable administrators to perform a variety of management functions on any client loaded with LCF.
Administrators could monitor performance, receive inventory information, control application access and even remotely operate LCF-enabled boxes.
Upgraded TME servers do not have to be reconfigured to recognize LCF clients. The clients seek out and, in a kind of reverse-discovery process, tell the server that they are on the network.
The LCF prototype has been written in both Java and C++ and Tivoli sees it as being used with NCs and laptop computers.
In the NC paradigm, a Java-based LCF component would be downloaded from the server when the box boots. There would be an optional user interface that would allow the user to access as little or as much management information as the administrator chooses to make available.
Right now, LCF client software uses a Windows interface, but a browser-based interface is expected.
Neath wouldn't say when LCF will be integrated into TME, but one of IBM's other subsidiaries, Lotus Development Corp, is expected to announce server software for NCs at LotusSphere in January and you can bet that Tivoli won't be very far behind. http://www.tivoli.com
ISO TO PITCH FOR JAVA STANDARDIZATION
Sun Microsystems Inc may be keen to get a headstart on any agenda Redmond may be hatching by taking Java to ECMA for standardization, but the International Standards Organization, the mother lode of the standards world, has another plot in mind.
A meeting of ISO Subcommittee 22's Java Study Group (JSG) in Cupertino, California in the first week of January is likely to recommend the organization initiate a fast-track standardization of Java that could be complete in two years' time.
Under its rules ISO can standardize on Java whether Sun cooperates or not; but wasn't it Sun which itself first stood up and said it wanted to standardize its own property?
Currently Sun Java folk have no official representation in JSG and while some JSG people have expressed a desire to control the standardization process, Sun says it wouldn't characterize them as wanting 'dibs' on Java. SC22, already responsible for standardizing C++, C, Cobol and other programming languages, regards ECMA as a fading force in the standards world and in any case expects the Euro group to roll any Java language standardization work it might have in progress over to it once ISO sets a Java standards train in motion.
Although JSG says nobody wants to prematurely standardize the language and libraries and nobody knows for sure whether the right time has come, there's certainly more to this than bits and bytes. As murky a collection of Swiss bank accounts the standards organizations might be - both ECMA and ISO are
FEDS PLAN CALLS FOR "DUTY-FREE" FOR INTERNET
The federal government will this week release a draft document - alternately called a "business plan," a "framework statement" and a "work in progress" - that, according to Presidential advisor Ira Magaziner, "lays out a set of principles that should govern commerce on the Internet (and) lays out a road map for what negotiations will have to take place."
The plan, which comes from an inter-agency committee chaired by Magaziner, has been penned by the best and the brightest of 18 governmental entities, including Commerce, State, Treasury, Justice, the Office of Science and Technology and the National Economic Council, along with representatives from the business community.
A key proposal in the plan, according to Magaziner, calls for a duty free environment for products delivered over the Internet.
This proposal was apparently penned by the Treasury Department, which has written sections covering duties, taxation, and a commercial code for Internet transactions. Two weeks ago Treasury went public with the taxation section at www.ustreas.gov/treasury/tax/internet.html. Other sections of the plan are expected to cover privacy and security issues, intellectual property protection, the control of Internet content, interoperability, and commerce-related technical standards.
Apparently the whole idea of an Internet "business plan" came about when various private interests, including Sun and Netscape, approached the government with concerns over international trade on the Internet. Internet content policies in China and Singapore, for example, and European taxation practices were sources of concern.
The White House hopes once its document enters circulation, it can become the framework for international discussions on how to encourage non-regulated market-oriented Internet trade practices.
Various international organizations have been floated as possible hosts for such discussions, including the World Trade Organization, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Organization of American States, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, and the G7. Magaziner says a final version of the plan will be available in early February or March. The draft will be available this week at http://www.whitehouse.gov
AOL SWAPS ENGINES WITH EXCITE, INCREASES STAKE
America Online Inc and Excite Inc have cosied up even closer as wagons begin to circle in what looks to be an increasingly crowded online and Internet service provider space.
AOL will exclusively incorporate an Excite-branded engine on its interface, and will double its stake in the search engine company to around 20% by selling the WebCrawler search technology that it acquired in the middle of last year to Excite, in exchange for about 2m Excite shares. At the price on the day of the announcement last week, the deal was worth about $17.5m to Excite, whose shares surged ahead from their low base.
Of course Excite is not after the technology of WebCrawler, but the combination of hits on its existing site and those on WebCrawler, would take it ahead of Yahoo! in the search engine race, it reckons. In addition, AOL chairman and CEO Steve Case will take a seat on the Excite board, replacing independent board member and former CEO of AOL Networks, Bob Pittman.
The two companies will share advertising revenue from the search site, but AOL will get anything actually sold as a result of a search.
PAC BELL LOOKING FOR SYMPATHY
December could be a busy month for Pacific Bell. It hopes that the FCC will this month issue a "Notice of Proposed Rule-making," that will kick off talks with players in the ISP space on how to get all that Internet traffic going through a (metered) data network rather than over those pesky, flat-rate voice lines.
Pacific Bell has been grousing in recent weeks about the $14m it had to spend fixing up switching centers in the first half of 1996 (OR 26).
It blames modem calls for the expense, and the company, which reported $2.3bn in revenue last quarter, figures it will probably have to spend $27m-$100m next year on the same thing: a waste, it says, because once it installs all this technology everyone will want a higher bandwidth delivery network anyhow.
The FCC's notice will result in industry-wide meetings on the issue that Pacific Bell expects to last until the summer.
Pacific Bell, by the way, says it does not think it is contributing to the problem by being, itself, an ISP.
On top of the FCC maneuvering, Pacific Bell's smartest and brightest have until December 9 to figure out a way to charge more for ISDN. This, after a California Public Utilities Commission ruling that Pacific Bell's original calculations had some for ISDN costs were, shall we say, flawed. According to consumer watchdog group, the Utility Consumer's Action Network (UCAN), the ruling means that Pacific Bell's ISDN rates will probably remain no higher than the current $24.50 per month - about 25% less than the $32.50 the company was hoping for.
UCAN Staff Council Barry Frazer feels that the ruling is significant because "this is the first full-blown set of hearings where the costs of ISDN have come under scrutiny," and he hopes the California decision will have an effect in other states.
The ruling did allow for a reduction in free ISDN usage during off-peak hours. Instead of the current unlimited usage, customers will get 200 free hours per month. Pacific Bell had asked that this number be reduced to 20. http://www.pacbell.com/
TRILOGY CLAIMS IT'S FIRST TO MAKE USE OF MARIMBA TECHNOLOGY
Trilogy claims it will be the first to offer software based on Marimba Inc's Castanet Bongo transmitter and tuner technology when it releases the 2.1 release of its Selling Chain software next quarter.
The Austin, Texas-based company will offer a Castanet "channel" version of part of its Selling Chain software, which links various sales and marketing functions - so-called front office stuff - and enables users to automate the whole sales process, the company claims. It's used by the likes of HP, IBM and Chrysler, among others.
The Castanet element means Trilogy's customers will be able to receive software updates via the Internet and over intranets. These could be price changes or any other kind of sales information, or be updates of the Selling Chain software itself.
The Castanet-enabled Selling Chain is likely to be hosted initially on Marimba's servers, but the company hopes to strike some sort of OEM deal with Marimba to offer it eventually at a single price to its own customers.
Marimba's Castanet works by hosting so-called channels on a server, through which the Transmitter server sends down updates, which can be any kind of Java application, to clients running Tuner software. This runs the channels in the background so the channels can be updated without interrupting the other applications (OR 19).
Trilogy has also developed a component library using Bongo, Marimba's visual tool. It's for Selling Chain customers to build customized graphical user interfaces for SC Config, the application that deals with business rules.
Alan Drummond, director of Trilogy's Internet business group said the next libraries would be to help customers to build quotes, with other applications to deal with tax and shipping further out. Trilogy prides itself as one of the new breed of 'draw the concept on a napkin and be millionaires before you're thirty' kind of software companies. http://www.trilogy.com
HP RIDES FENCE ON WBEM
As SunSoft and Microsoft merrily implement their various Web-based management technologies, HP seems content to ride the fence.
Though the Hyper Media Management Schema (HMMS) part of Microsoft's Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM - OR 8, 16) initiative was jointly authored by HP and Microsoft and though HP sits on the Desktop Management Task Force (DMTF) committee trying to work HMMS into specifications for an industry standard data model, the company is not yet implementing it into its product line.
Sun hopes to have its Java Management APIs into parts of its Solstice product line early next year and Microsoft has produced a reference implementation of its HyperMedia Management Schema (HMMS).
OpenView Program Manager Andy Vanagunas says, "We've got to be a little bit cautious that we don't take our huge installed base down the wrong road."
Network management has a long and florid history of all-encompassing management technology that never lives up to expectations, with SNMP v.2 being the latest example, Vanagunas points out. It seems clear that, until Sun and Microsoft can prove that they can play nicely together with their Web management toys, HP intends to watch from the sidelines.
Sources at the DMTF say that HP is not obstructing the standardization process, but they reckon it has less to gain than most from HMMS's standardization.
PRETTY GOOD PRIVACY BUYS RIVAL PRIVNET
Redwood Shores, California-based Pretty Good Privacy Inc has bought rival Internet privacy firm PrivNet Inc on undisclosed terms.
PrivNet, based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, was formed back in June by students from the University of North Carolina, a group of self-styled hackers (OR 4).
According to Pretty Good Privacy, the takeover will enable it to expand its product range. Next month, the company intends to launch a package designed to deal with problems created by Web cookies - files used to record the trail of sites visited by users. Also in the pipeline is an application designed to filter out Web advertisements, and tools to integrate its own encryption software with standard e-mail packages better.
PGP has already signed an agreement to license its software to FTP Software Inc for FTP's Mail OnNet electronic mail application.
ECMA BAKERS' DOZEN IN AGREEMENT SHOCKER
Just another dull old standards meeting" in the words of one Netscape Communications Corp's representative, but at last week's JavaScript tete-a-tete with the European Computer Manufacturers Association, 13 companies including Netscape, Sun, IBM, Apple, Microsoft and Borland took the unusual step of agreeing to cooperate. In this instance on the creation of a specification for a Java-oriented scripting language based upon Netscape's JavaScript. Netscape's proprietary work will be deleted and additions and revisions will be made to accommodate Microsoft JScript plus other third party scripting mechanisms such as Borland IntraBuilder and Nombas ScriptEase. ECMA rules mean the companies will have to choose a new name for the spec that will allow Netscape to continue to own the JavaScript name.
They haven't chosen one yet, beyond an ECMAscript placeholder, but will take a proposal for a revised spec and a name for the thing to a meeting of ECMA's general assembly in the second week of January in California. There they'll put in place a plan to complete a draft specification by the end of April so that it can go forward to an ECMA vote in June. There are some stylistic differences between the vendors' approaches to spec creation - where clarification is required Microsoft tends to add more words; Netscape likes to describe examples - but the work is expected to make "plain sailing" from creation to adoption as an ECMA standard from where we're told it'll likely roll over to ISO's SC22 language committee.
ISO'S COPYRIGHT RULES TO GET JAVA AND INTERNET OVERHAUL
In addition to the question of the particular route to standardization for Sun's Java programming language, there's a traffic jam developing further up ahead at ISO, which itself is trying to come to terms with doing business in the Internet age. The snarl-up's one of the things that reportedly allowed Microsoft Corp to kill the Sun Microsystems Inc-driven Public Windows Interface initiative which was standardized by ECMA and subsequently passed up to ISO where it fell at least partly, on copyright issues. Although a proposed change in ISO rules is being discussed right now, the organization's current copyright rule requires anyone reproducing its specifications - only available on paper - to pay a royalty to it.
Anyone can implement an ISO standard, but the standards documents are copyrighted so physically reproducing a spec incurs a charge, including where those specs are disseminated by ISO's business partners such as the British Standard Institute or ANSI. A company building a C compiler that wants to reproduce the written C language specification in its product documentation must pay a royalty. (The same's not true for Ada to which ISO does not own the entire intellectual property.) ISO's copyright requirements used only to apply to its international standards but it reportedly would also like to apply them further down the chain, even at the web or net level, if it could.
It strikes us that it's not the way Sun and would have things done, Scott McNealy would surely tolerate no less than all Java standards specifications to be made freely and publicly available. ISO insiders say the organization will almost certainly have to abandon its copyright/intellectual property rules and allow its standards to be downloaded freely from the web if it is to have any hope of accommodating the rising tide of Internet-based technologies as ISO international standards. Moreover it calls into question the need for these multiple standards organizations at all. Surely net users will become the arbiters of what's standard and what's not. We guess at the very least ISO ratification of Java will allow Scott McNealy to wave a standards flag under Redmond's nose.
VOCALTEC REVS INTERNET TELEPHONY SERVER
VocalTec Ltd, the company that's desperately hoping telephony over the Internet is going to take off eventually, is now shipping version 2.1 of its Telephony Gateway Server eight-line system. It combines the company's own Internet telephony with Dialogic Inc's voice processing board that enables the connection of Private Branch Exchanges (PBXs) or regular phone lines with each other, but using the Internet as the link. Each gateway holds up to four cards, carrying two lines each, hence eight lines. The idea of course with this telephony-over-the-Internet stuff is that you only pay a local call to connect and the rest is free.
The potential effect on the major telecoms companies pricing models would be immense if the sound quality was good enough - although VocalTec claims its full duplex echo-canceling algorithms keep it clear and connections fast and reliable enough. Both parties do require the software, but it's free at the companies site. New this time is a delay management system that enables users to select whatever setting suits them depending on their network connection; security to only let people in or out with authorized extensions or authorization numbers - area or country codes can also be blocked; system monitoring and call tracking; best-route algorithms and volume level control.
Users dial the gateway server and then the call is connected. Out now, an eight-line gateway server requires a Pentium 200MHz PC or faster with 48Mb RAM and four expansion slots for the Dialogic boards. It goes for $1,250 per line. www.vocaltec.com
ONE DOWN, 17 TO GO AS AOL SEEKS TO SOOTHE DISCONTENT
Well, they got that one wrong. America Online Inc last week backed down in the face of complaints from 18 Attorney Generals that the company was forcing its new pricing on customers unfairly, despite the company expressing confidence the previous week that it would overcome any legal objections placed in its path (OR 26) and discontent appears to be spreading in the form of a class action suit filed by a user in New York.
The company was still "confident that we can reach settlements" in the remaining cases as we went to press; the company bemoaned that it was "bending over backwards" to accommodate all the implications of the pricing changes. Washington Attorney General Christine Gregoire got an agreement out of AOL that it would include a pop-up menu that would appear each time users access the system there. Users must choose before March 31 next year between the new pricing plan or going to other services, but also the option to stick with the current $10 plan. There is also a three month refund plan, so users can get their money back in that time if they're not happy with the pricing, said the company. And user Stephen DiLorenzo is seeking - and getting - his 15 minutes of fame by suing AOL in New York state court last week, seeking ridiculous damages of $7m if he is unable to prevent the price switch that went into effect yesterday, Sunday.
The case seems to us to be entirely without merit, but what do we know? Perhaps gearing itself up for further complaints, AOL is now warning users to expect delays now that subscribers can have unlimited access for a fixed price. The company claims to have upped capacity to cope with about 500,000 new users each month, but it's still putting out notices warning of possible slow-downs between 8pm and midnight.
These though are the same notices that advises users of the imminent price change. AOL claimed it took on around 400,000 users in the quarter ending September, and 250,000 in October alone. AOL planned to roll over all users to the new $20 unlimited access plan yesterday, December 1, unless they specifically ask for an alternative $5 per month for three hours with each additional hour at $2.50 each. Anybody who hadn't accessed the system before December 1 will get credited the difference between the current $10 plan and the new $20 they'd been forced into, depending on how much time elapses before they eventually log-on. There are still 17 other states looking at the same issue, and it's hard to see AOL getting much joy now this precedent has been set.
NEXT SLASHES PRICE OF ITS WEBOBJECTS ENTERPRISE
NeXT Software Inc, admitting its original pricing plans for the developer's edition of WebObjects 3.0 was so high it would price itself out of the market, has now introduced the program at a fraction of what it hoped to get (OR 22).
Calling it a"repositioning," designed to attract channel market sales, it is going to charge a flat $3,000 with no deployment fees forWebObjects Pro 3.0, the baby version of WebObjects Enterprise. It had hoped to get Pro's $3,000 plus a hefty deployment fee of $3,000 per processor - $6,000 per WebObjects application running on a modest two-way server.
NeXT sources admit that "not a lot" of the channel partners it talked to were ready to pay such prices. Pro 3.0 started shipping last week for NT only, sans the promised Java server extensions that were still getting polished and should be ready by the end of the month. It includes NeXT's vaunted Tsunami, these days called WebObjects Builder, which controls an application's visual layout and binds HTML forms and browser applets to pre-built objects on a server. Pro supports HTML forms, Java applets, JavaScript and ActiveX. It also supports two-tier client-server applications development.
That's a major difference between Pro and WebObjects Enterprise, which hit market three weeks ago and supports triple-tier architectures. Pro limits developers to Object DataBase Connectivity compared to the native Informix, Sybase and Oracle hooks in Enterprise. Then again, Enterprise does cost more, at $5,000 per developer seat plus a deployment fee of $25,000 per CPU. The company said that in the few weeks that Enterprise has been on the market, "no one has balked at the Enterprise price," and sales have been up to expectations.
ELVIS APPEALS TO IETF AS GRACELAND GETS ALL SHOOK UP
Never mind Top Level Domains, can the IETF show true leadership with the "Elvis Spoofing" problem? A tongue-in-cheek request-for-comments proposal has been submitted to the IETF, claiming that Usenet users are putting a strain on the Graceland.com mail server by posting test mail to the supposedly fictional elvis@graceland.com address and calling for a "virtual death penalty" to all who do it. Draft author, "Elvis The Stiff" says his Graceland domain averages a dozen or so "elvis" emails each day and has received as much as 100 MB.
Graceland.com is, in fact, an online source for biblical passages. "Elvis The Stiff" explains, "the theme, once the site is finished, is about God's Grace - grace land/land of grace - thus the domain name. The elvis@graceland.com email account was unexpected, but we can see the funny side of it and so we went with it. At the rate we're going we'll probably end up as the Suck.com of Christian web sites. Fortunately for us, God's grace is in plentiful supply". The IETF draft expires on April 1, 1997. www.graceland.com
SPYGLASS GOES DIRECT, SHIPS SURFWATCH PROSERVER
For the last couple of weeks, Spyglass has been quietly developing a direct sales channel, which is now flogging its SurfWatch ProServer, with much of the work outsourced to a company called Unidirect Corp. Spyglass got into the direct sales game when it acquired SurfWatch back in April of 1996, but the deal with Unidirect - to be announced this week - is part of the creation of a new direct sales organization called "Spyglass Direct". Spyglass Direct will sell to the VAR and reseller market, rather than OEM space.
Spyglass Direct is made up of about a dozen Spyglass employees along with Unidirect's sales force of 70. Initially, the service will sell only the SurfWatch ProServer, but Spyglass hopes to expand from its solid OEM base into the VAR and reseller space. In two weeks it will also sell SurfWatch for Microsoft Proxy Server.
A source at Spyglass says there are "definitely more products for this channel," but would not elaborate on what they are. Spyglass Direct will fall under the direction of West Coast Director of Sales, Christian Nall. SurfWatch ProServer ships today. It's an Internet server that lets companies control employee access to the Web. It could be used by, for example, a government agency wanting to prevent employee access to pornographic Websites. Spyglass says you can get it for 250 users on an NT or Solaris server for $1,000 until September. After that it'll cost $1,500. www.spyglass.com
WILL THE REAL INTERNET E-COMMERCE FIGURES PLEASE STAND UP?
Just how much business electronic commerce currently drums up or its potential to do so remains a mystery. Nevertheless, there are those who have thrown figures in the ring, the range from $1.24bn now to a high of more than $150bn by 2000. Projected figures for the future are astonishing considering research shows only two million people worldwide have used the Internet in some way to aid in a transaction. International Data Corp predicts Web revenues will exceed $150bn in 2000 within the US, while Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Forrester ness commerce, consumer retail, and financial services at about $1.3bn now with growth potential at about $95bn by 2000.
Scott Smith, an analyst with Jupiter Communications, guesstimates current e-commerce at $1.24bn in sales this year increasing to $7.3bn by 2000. Figures vary depending on what is actually considered e-commerce; whether it's actual purchases made online, every ATM card use, or Web advertisements that entice someone to call or go to a store to make a purchase.
With all these figures floating around it's apparent nobody actually knows how big, or small, e-commerce is or will be. Until there are standard definitions and technology to measure Internet revenue, the actual figures will be left lingering in Cyberspace.
NETSCAPE SKIPS OPEN ROAD WITH LIP
At the Network Applications Consortium (NAC) meeting in Boston a few weeks ago, all the major players in the directory industry got together and agreed to hammer out a series of LDAP extensions informally called the Lightweight Internet Person (LIP) schema. But LIP will not go into any kind of open standards body until after a few key vendors decide on how they want it implemented. Netscape's senior product manager for directory services Frank Chen helped develop LIP.
He says it gives LDAP a common way of referring to information like names, phone numbers, fax number and titles. Novell, Banyan, Microsoft, Netscape, Lotus, Worldtalk and Zoomit are all working on the spec, along with Versit Inc, who have already done work on a similar standard for its vCard product.
Chen says that no one else is invited to work on LIP because the original players simply want to get the spec published and too much discussion would slow everything down. Though what is being agreed on is pretty simple, such as what name to call the attribute for email information, "People get rabid," he says, "about whether to call it mail or email". Obviously Netscape, with plans to include LIP in its soon-to-be-released public beta of Communicator, did not wish to have its work slowed down by a lengthy open process.
LIP is now being shepherded into spec form by the NAC, which says it hopes to create a ground-swell of support for the emerging standard and eventually hook up with all the appropriate bodies, like the IETF and the Electronic Messaging Association, not to mention other vendors. If everything goes right, LIP will be before the IETF at its December meeting in San Jose. Who knows, it may even have a better name by then. NAC is at www2.netapps.org/netapps/
NOVELL NOW SLIMMER BUT WITH SAME BOTTOM LINE
More fine toothed combs must have been run over Novell Inc's corporate head in recent months by analysts than graced the head of Elvis, and it proves they can get it right if they really try. First Call analysts' average estimate was earnings per share of $0.17 in the fourth quarter and $0.34 in the year, and that's exactly what the Orem, Utah-based network software company came in with last week. In fact the quarter just ended produced the same bottom line number as the third quarter, which the company was at pains to point out was the first comparable quarter following its sale of WordPerfect to Corel Corp and UnixWare to Santa Cruz Operation Inc.
Fourth quarter net profits were flat at $59.0m year-on year, on revenues that fell 21% to $383.7m; in other words, smaller but with higher profit margins. For the year to October 31, Novell's profits fell 62% to $126.0m on last year, a plunge aided by a $18.4m restructuring hit, as revenues fell 33% to $1.37bn. The biggest change in Novell world this year has been one of style over substance: it changed the name of its flagship NetWare to IntranetWare, having melded NetWare 4.11 to an Internet server, which hooks TCP/IP into IPX/SPX-based NetWare. And CEO Bob Frankenberg fell on his sword in August, having let the company fall behind Microsoft in the PC networking space, which Novell practically invented.
The company is now led by president and chief operating officer Joe Marengi and 11 others. Overall network software revenues grew 15% over the previous quarter to $247m, of which Netware 4 and IntranetWare accounted for $181m. But overall NetWare sales, including NetWare 3 fell 3% quarter-on-quarter, according to Morgan Stanley. The analyst also pointed out that IntranetWare only shipped in the last three weeks of the quarter, contributing revenues of $103m. The company saw sequential growth from its GroupWise 5 e-mail and collaboration software and ManageWise 2.1 network management stuff. But the majority of its business comes from selling into its installed base, so growth has to come from elsewhere, or else. A small-business version of IntranetWare is expected early in the first quarter, with easier installation and remote management, and will ship an IntranetWare 'scale pack' in the first half of next year, with add-ons to NDS, including advanced print services, messaging and cryptography, costing between $10-$30 per user.
After the year-end, Novell announced it was licensing its Netware Directory Services (NDS) technology - the guts of NetWare - free of charge to hardware and telecoms companies in attempt to spread its name far and wider. What it would really like to do is to license it to Microsoft, but Redmond has always turned its nose up at the suggestion, and we all know that Microsoft doesn't like using key technologies that it does not own. Which, of course has led to numerous takeover speculation surrounding Novell, including Sun Microsystems Inc and Netscape Communications Corp as likely suitors, but Sun has now got what it most likely wanted, NDS, which it has ported to Solaris in return for Java technologies for Novell (OR 25).
Chairman John Young trotted out the customary 'we can better deliver shareholder value as an independent entity' line to Morgan Stanley. Novell is looking to continue to offer up NDS to anyone that wants it. Cash and equivalent at the year-end were $1.02bn, down from $1.32bn last year. Net earnings per share were up a cent to $0.17 in the quarter, and down 61.1% to $0.35 in the year. Revised First Call estimates are $0.19 per share for the first quarter, and $0.86 per share for the 1997 fiscal.
UNISYS AND MICROSOFT TEAM FOR HOME BANKING
Unisys Corp is confident that it can provide online home banking services to financial institutions and it has signed a mutual marketing deal with Microsoft Corp for Internet banking services. Both companies say they will provide joint solutions to allow banks to offer home banking services. These will combine Unisys integration services and Microsoft's suite of Windows NT-based home banking software, along with related tools such as Microsoft Internet Information Server, Internet Explorer and Money 97. According to Unisys, its integration services mean that banks will be able to integrate Microsoft's solutions seamlessly into their existing retail delivery architectures.
SLIGHTLY LATE, CURTAIN GOES UP ON VXTREME'S WEB THEATER 1.0
VXtreme Inc, the video compression in software company that reckons it's got something over on everyone else's by being able to transmit video over the net using regular low bandwidths has duly launched its Web Theater 1.0 suite of products (OR 15).
They comprise Web Theater Server, Client and Producer. Shipping had been slated for October originally. The software codec, which the Palo Alto, California company licensed exclusively from Stanford University, enables 20 frames of 160x120 resolution to be viewed at 28.8Kbps. It's positioning the products at speeds ranging from modems (28.8Kbps) to LANs (256Kbps). Web Theater also provides tools to integrate the video into Web pages and Java applets. Web Theater Client is a Netscape and Microsoft plug-in that supports Windows 95, NT and Solaris and features VCR-like controls to manipulate the video.
There's also a VXtreme Interactive Player, which only scales up to 56Kbps, but supports all the other features of the client. Producer is the environment that captures, compresses and integrates video with applications, which could be text or graphics. It compresses up to 500:1, claims the company.
Web Theater 1.0 is free for a 30-day evaluation period, and thereafter a starter kit is available for $2,000, comprising a five-stream server, one license of Producer and 25 Client licenses. The low-bandwidth Interactive Player is free of charge. The Server costs from $1,500 for a five-stream version to $17,000 for a 100-stream version. Web Theater costs $150 separately, and the client costs $40.
XCELLENET HIT GAS AND BRAKE ON ACQUISITIONS
Xcellenet Inc has delayed its acquisition of the WorldLink product line from Technology Development Systems Inc (TDS), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Netplex Group Inc, which it announced at the start of this month and had hoped to have had completed two weeks ago.
Xcellenet, which does remote access software, was to have paid a total of $3.5m
for the WorldLink communications products, but having shelled out $2m cash, Xcellenet took a second look, and has demanded of TDS that "certain conditions" be met by Netplex, which Xcellenet wouldn't discuss. But it did say it was confident these conditions would be met by the year-end.
Meantime, undaunted, Xcellenet also announced it was buying its lead systems integrator, Electronic Commerce Inc for a $2.7m cash and shares mix. The 15-person company is based in Raleigh, North Carolina.
JAVA AND THE ISO
Sun Microsystems Inc may be keen to get a headstart on any agenda Redmond may be hatching by taking Java to ECMA for standardization, but the International Standards Organization, the mother lode of the standards world, has another plot in mind.
A meeting of ISO Subcommittee 22's Java Study Group (JSG) in Cupertino, California in the first week of January is likely to recommend the organization initiate a fast-track standardization of Java that could be complete in two years' time.
Under its rules ISO can standardize on Java whether Sun cooperates or not; but wasn't it Sun which itself first stood up and said it wanted to standardize its own property?
Currently Sun Java folk have no official representation in JSG and while some JSG people have expressed a desire to control the standardization process, Sun says it wouldn't characterize them as wanting 'dibs' on Java. SC22, already responsible for standardizing C++, C, Cobol and other programming languages, regards ECMA as a fading force in the standards world and in any case expects the Euro group to roll any Java language standardization work it might have in progress over to it once ISO sets a Java standards train in motion.
Although JSG says nobody wants to prematurely standardize the language and libraries and nobody knows for sure whether the right time has come, there's certainly more to this than bits and bytes. As murky a collection of Swiss bank accounts the standards organizations might be - both ECMA and ISO are based in Geneva - the industry has what have been described as a slew of "secret political issues" to resolve which will determine how and if Java gets fast-tracked. They include at least the proprietary agendas of Microsoft, Sun and other
DOT Gossip
Staking its claim to a Java standardization process, (see page 1) ISO SC22 language committee people say that while ECMA attracts membership from companies that want to do business in Europe, it might not, in this light, be regarded by US companies as the most appropriate vessel for perking a standard Java brew. Bear in mind SC22 says, the ECMAscript companies have each had to join ECMA - if they were not already members - to participate in the Java scripting standard process. Think how many companies would have to join the Euro body to have a say in a Java ECMA standard, it observes.
The hope is that the ECMAscript spec companies will choose a more creative name for their document. Observers note that ISO's SC22 was asked to change the name of the LISP language as is passed into a standard. It became international LISP.
ScriptEase scripting language company Nombas Inc named itself for the requirement No MBAs here: has it stuck to its guns?
Shiva Corp thinks that setting up ISDN service with a typical phone company is too slow and complicated so now it is lending its customers a helping hand - for a price. For as little as $30, Shiva will deal with your local phone company to initiate the line order, test to ensure the line works properly and stick around for 30 days to ensure that everything's running smoothly. The service is called "Provision Plus" and is not, Shiva says, intended to be a first move into the access market. They just want to make it easier to use Shiva products.www.shiva.com
Verisign is expanding its Boston presence, the latest hire being Nortel's public-key encryption guru Warwick Ford. The office, which was a one-man show on Verisign's inception last year, now supports a "handful of people," according to Verigisn. Ford will work closely with VP Michael Baum as director of advanced technology. He will pitch in on technology plans and be a point man for various standards bodies and industry consortia. http://www.verisign.com
The Bouygues Telecom SA unit of Bouygues SA has signed the AOL joint venture of America Online Inc and Mannesman AG to give its mobile telephone users access to its information service and the Internet.
Sterling Software Inc's VM Software division has released VM:Webserver for OfficeVision, which is a Web server for the VM/ESA operating system, with an extension for IBM Corp's OfficeVision/VM e-mail and calendar system; a GUI front to OfficeVision/VM's 3270 character interface. The calendar bit is out now, with the e-mail extension following next quarter. Pricing goes on a CPU group size or on the number of users, so VM:Webserver for OfficeVision/VM on a model group 40 is $25,300, and for 2,501-5,000 users its $25,000.
Netscape VP marketing Mike Homer claims Microsoft's Internet Explorer strategy has backfired somewhat. He reasons that if IE costs about $5, then, "from a reseller's standpoint there's no big incentive to push a product if it costs no money". Homer says Netscape's non-corporate client sales were around $17m in the third quarter - before IE really came on strong - and expects that to grow in this quarter. He adds that Navigator Gold, at $79, is accounting for about 50% of sales in the retail channel. Homer says that, contrary to rumors circulating last week, Communicator is not running late. It'll be in public beta by the end of the year and shipping in the first quarter.
IBM'S GOT 17 LABS DOING JAVA DEVELOPMENT APPARENTLY.
Open Group (supposedly soon to be the home of Microsoft Corp ActiveX) and Object Management Group are said to be considering the possibility of advancing some their specifications to ISO.
JavaSoft will announce Tuesday version 1.1 of the JDK, an electronic commerce framework and some new Java APIs.
Lycos Inc reported first quarter net losses of $2.8m, up from $279,513 losses last time, on revenues up to $3.7m, from just $215,041 previously. Some 85% of those revenues came from advertising on the company's site, with the rest from licensing the search engine technology. Lycos floated earlier this year and had $41.3m in the bank on October 31, down a tad under $3m from the previous quarter, in which time revenues rose 38%.
HP's Web-enabled its NetMetrix distributed network monitoring toolset, out now, starting at $4,000 for the NetMetrix Internetwork Response Manager. www.hp.com.
Security software company V-One Corp (OR 22) and the electrronic commerce division of InteliData Technologies Corp are teaming to sell electronic banking software.
You have to admire their pluck, and it might just work in France: a Lyon, France-based company called Jet Multimedia will begin distributing its French Web browser, France Explorer for free starting January, which it claims will also be able to access the country's Minitel; system, which has 14m terminals dotted around the country. Users will be able to dial in via France Telecom's backbone and pay only for time used.
Borland International Inc has tapped Apple Computer Inc alumnus Delbert Yocam to be its new chairman and CEO. Yocam served as Apple executive vice-president and chief operating officer from 1986 to 1988, nd president of Apple Pacific in 1988 and 1989; he was also president and chief operating officer of Tektronix Inc.
Another free Web-based e-mail service starts today at http://netaddress.usa.net.
Players are gradually falling into place in the e-commerce field, and now Gemplus, which supplies smart cards to HP's Praesidium security and e-commerce framework has inked a deal with Mondex International, shortly to be majority-owned by MasterCard (OR 26). Mondex has authorized Gemplus to make its cards and approved its GCR400 card reader.
Word on the street in Orem is that pink slips are being prepared at Novell.
The Java Study Group which ISO's SC22 language and portability committee established back in September to investigate the international standardization of Java says it's looking at how a bunch of Web and internet-oriented technologies, not only Java, might become standardized through ISO. It envisions Lucent Technologies Inc's Inferno, Calypso, plus homeless technologies such as the Architecture Neutral Distribution Format as suitable candidates. SC22, actually Subcommittee 22 of ISO's JC1 information technology arm, says that as most language standards eventually end up with it, whether they arrive from IEEE, ECMA, Open Group or Object Management Group, JSG is a way of preparing ISO to meet the tide of Web and Internet standards coming their way.
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