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Weekly dispatches from the Internet Front
OR043-01 SUNIS JAVASTATIONS ARE NOW DUE LATE IN THE SUMMER
OR043-02 COMMON BOOT PROTOCOL FOR NC REFERENCE PROFILE IS DUE
OR043-03 IBM TO ENTER DIGITAL TV WITH SET-TOP BOX DESIGN KIT
OR043-04 SYBASE DEBUTS JAGUAR NET TRANSACTION SERVER
OR043-05 UCENT HAS NET TELEPHONY BUNDLE FOR SERVICE PROVIDERS
OR043-06 JSCAPE START-UP TO ROLL OUT COMPONENT PRODUCTS
OR043-07 NETSCAPE POSTS VISUAL JAVA, READIES ENTERPRISE SERVER 3.0
OR043-08 JAVA GETS REAL: SPREADS FROM PHONES TO THE ENTERPRISE
OR043-09 SUN EXTENDS APIS AS JAVA GETS SOUND AND VISION
OR043-10 SUN SIGNS UP PARTNERS FOR SPECIALIZED JAVA CHIPS
OR043-11 SUN AND NETSCAPE WORK ON JAVA FOUNDATION CLASSES
OR043-12 LUCENT ADDS PROMISED SUPPORT FOR JAVA TO INFERNO
OR043-13 IMPERIAL SOFTWARE SHOWS JAVA DEVELOPMENT FACE WITH VISAJ
OR043-14 ORACLE EXTENDS SQLLANGUAGE TO SUPPORT JAVA WITH JSQL
OR043-15 TIBCO ADDS JAVA INTERFACE TO ITS MULTICAST SERVER
OR043-16 VISIGENIC: HOTTEST DATE IN TOWN?
OR043-17 DOT GOSSIP
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London, March April 7-11 1997
Issue Number 043
OR043-01 SUNIS JAVASTATIONS ARE NOW DUE LATE IN THE SUMMER
Well, we were not wrong, just early. The gating factor in the
roll-out of Sun Microsystems Computer Cois new JavaStations is
JavaOS (OR 37, 38, 40). Itis just that it was always planned that
way, apparently.
The latest date we got for roll-out of the 'coffee toweri
JavaStation model - as opposed to the brick - is now "late
summer," according to Sunis director of Java desktop systems
Steve Tirado. Just a few weeks ago it was late spring, according
to Gene Banman, Sunis desktop chief, but, whatever (OR 40). The
delay is down to a combination of the OS and the chips, because
one has to be ported to the other, which happened last week.
Sun ported JavaOS to the microSparc IIep that drives the coffee
tower JavaStation model, which is the main product, supporting
Flash RAM, modems and local printing. And next up for JavaOS,
currently on a 1.0.2 cut, according to product line manager
Curtis Sasaki is serial port support for things like bar code
scanners, local printing smart card readers, and the like. Sun
got very annoyed with us when we pointed out over the past few
months that sense is one thing we could not get from its various
planets, as each one blamed the other for delays. It seems the
brick model, which was really sent out for major customers and
ISVs to play with and not meant for serious business use, will be
replaced by lower-end brick-like devices aimed at the retail
systems market and low-end terminal.
That old favorite, the 'European telecommunications gianti was
cited by Tirado as a space in which we should watch for a
Minitel-like terminal replacement pilot using JavaStations in the
next few months. Tirado envisages three or four JavaStation
products fulfilling these different roles. But again, he said it
all depends on when the softwareis ready. He also reckoned a
microSparc Java chip implementation was about a year away, and
there might be a couple of cuts between the IIep and the
microSparc.
OR043-02 COMMON BOOT PROTOCOL FOR NC REFERENCE PROFILE IS DUE
At last! The network computer crowd are about to get together to
organize that most basic but important element: computer
interoperability.
The famous five of the Network Computer Reference Profile (NCRP)
- Sun Microsystems Inc, IBM Corp, Netscape Communications Corp,
Oracle Corp and maybe Apple Computer Systems Inc, though its NC
role remains a mystery - are shortly going to get together to
announce that theyive settled on a protocol for booting each
others clients off each otheris servers.
The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) will be added to
the requirements of the NCRP. Itis a common specification for
assigning IP addresses to devices. IBM Corpis vice president of
network computer development in its NC division, Phil Hester,
confirmed the move. Hester also said that IBMis NC Server
software started rolling out March 28 and should be out in full
by June.
OR043-03 IBM TO ENTER DIGITAL TV WITH SET-TOP BOX DESIGN KIT
IBM is getting into the digital TV market with plans to peddle a
WebTV-like set-top box design kit that combines both hardware and
software components in to one package.
IBM plans to market the so-called Set-Top Box Reference Design
Kit to set-top box makers who can then customize it. It'll
reportedly work with cable TV systems or satellite services. It
combines three parts: a SingleStep PowerPC 403GC reference board
from Software Development Systems, a peripheral chip to control
functions like printing and network connections and an MPEG-2
chip for decoding audio and video data into on-screen images.
The Design Kit will also offer options for PowerPC 403GA, 403GB
and 403GCX processors as well as a CD20 MPEG-2 audio/video
decoder. The kit is expected to ship in June for $7,500. IBM said
it's working on a single chip that would combine many of the set-
top functions.
OR043-04 SYBASE DEBUTS JAGUAR NET TRANSACTION SERVER
Sybase Inc last week launched its Powersoft Jaguar CTS component
transaction server into beta, which combines a transaction
processing (TP) monitor, an object request broker (ORB) and a
component-based Java, ActiveX, C/C++ and Corba development
environment. Jaguar is the middle-tier component of Sybaseis
unified strategy that is due to be announced at this weekis user
group meeting in Orlando, Florida by chief executive Mitchell
Kertzman.
The ORBs comes from Visigenic Software Inc, the ever-popular ORB
vendor that has managed to snag a long list of eligible partners
for its technology (see page 4).
Sybase has taken Visigenicis VisiBroker for both C++ and Java.
The Visigenic stuff enables developers to deploy Corba 2.0
objects within the Jaguar framework, and Sybase is the last of
the big three database vendors to license Visigenicis stuff,
following Informix Software Inc and Oracle Corp.
Jaguar CTS enables what Sybase is calling NetOLTP, or online
transaction processing over the internet. The multi-component and
multi-protocol support allows for the deployment of different
types of clients accessing various types of servers, and Sybase
has around 20 independent software vendors (ISVs) signed up to
extend Jaguar with client extensions for various services,
including electronic commerce and messaging.
The Java-based administration tool enables Jaguar components to
be linked with transaction information and loaded into the Jaguar
environment. Components can be built with Powersoftis Rapid
Application Development (RAD) tools or tools from other vendors.
Jaguar CTS is up in beta now at http://www.sybase.com and will be
generally available in the third quarter.
Meantime, Sybase said its jConnect Java DataBase Connectivity
(JDBC) implementation is now generally available, having been in
beta since December. It is said to give access to Sybase and 25
other vendorsi databases with a thin client application designed
for just-in-time download from servers. The jConnect runtime
Workplace version, mostly for systems running on Windows NT,
costs $500 per server, while the Enterprise version costs $2,000
per server.
OR043-05 LUCENT HAS NET TELEPHONY BUNDLE FOR SERVICE PROVIDERS
Lucent Technologies Inc has come up with internet telephony
software that it claims runs on regular phone or fax equipment
and has already got several major long-distance providers
sufficiently worried to be testing the platform, called Lucent
Internet Telephony Server SP (Service Provider). MCI
Communications Corp and France Telecom SA are both planning
trials, and GTE Corpis Telephone Operations said it will start a
laboratory evaluation next month.
Lucent said itis talking to all kinds of service providers; long-
distance, internet and local exchange carriers and cable
companies, both in the US and internationally. A service provider
will need two of the servers; one near both the origination and
completion stations of the phone or fax call.
The product is due for release in the third quarter. When a call
is placed from a standard phone, it is routed to the calleris
local central office incurring any local charges. Itis then
handed to a local Internet Telephony Server SP, which sends the
call over the internet, or other data network to the other Lucent
server, which then routes the call to its destination over the
local public-switched network.
The package comprises both software and hardware, and supports
all types of switches, according to Lucent. It complements the
companyis Internet Telephony Server for corporations, which is
also out in the third quarter. That package is meant to sit
alongside a companyis PBX, while this one is meant for service
providers.
OR043-06 JSCAPE START-UP TO ROLL OUT COMPONENT PRODUCTS
Newly founded JScape Corporation announced it has acquired the
Java component products and component development team of
Connect! Corporation. Wayne Williams, former Connect! President,
has left to become the Scottsdale, Arizona start-upis boss.
JScape will continue to support existing Connect! customers and
will incorporate Connect! products with its own. It plans to roll
out six of its new Java Reusable ComponentWare products over the
next six weeks.
So far, five products are posted on its website. They include
$750 PowerPanel, a multiple page user interface component; $450
JScape Form which has dockable tool bars, busy indicator, layout
manager and window management for creating an application
framework; $600 PowerSearch, a pattern matching and search engine
for searching strings of text to find patterns and optionally
saving, replacing or returning positional information; $900
WidgetsPro, a library of pre-built Java components; and $300
Widgets, a stripped down version of WidgetsPro.
All the components come with a single developer license, JDK
1.02, 1.1, Beans and Java Studio wrappers, online documentation,
documentation standards, source code for sample applets and
support. Meanwhile, JScape also said SunSoft licensed WidgetsPro
object code for its Java Studio and Java Workshop. JScapeis
component is supposed to give Sun customers drag-and-drop access
to pre-built JavaBeans components. As part of the agreement Sun
and JScape will jointly develop additional JavaBeans components
for Java Studio.
OR043-07 NETSCAPE POSTS VISUAL JAVA, READIES ENTERPRISE SERVER 3.0
Netscape released a preview copy of its Visual JavaScript
programming tool, formerly code named Palomar. Itill reportedly
let developers create "crossware" applications that run across
intranets and extranets. It uses a graphical point-and-click
interface to drag-and-drop existing software components, written
in Java, JavaScript or HTML, on to web pages built with its HTML
page builder.
Visual JavaScript includes a Component Pallete, a set of pre-
built HTML form elements, JavaScript components and JavaBeans.
New components can be added with its bundled Component
Developeris Kit or with third-party tools like Symantecis Visual
Cafi or an HTML editor. Using an Inspector and Connection Builder
feature, developers can customize the behavior of the components
by visually setting properties and making connections between
them, without having to write any code. Pages built with the tool
can leverage components and services found in its SuiteSpot
family of servers which include Corba services and some standard
JavaBeans components. It expects to ship final product by year-
end.
Meanwhile, Netscape also announced plans to ship its $2k
Enterprise Server 3.0 Pro sometime in Q2. It includes either a
limited deployment copy of the Informix-Online Workgroup Server
or a development-only copy of Oracle7 Workgroup Server.
OR043-08 JAVA GETS REAL: SPREADS FROM PHONES TO THE ENTERPRISE
JavaOne this year featured a Java in the Real World track, and it
is with that in mind that Sun announced two more Java
specifications that are meant to pour Java over every electronic
device possible, not just computers.
PersonalJava is for things like set-top boxes, game consoles,
hand-held computers, phones and internet-enabled television's,
and speaking of which WebTV Networks Inc became a Java licensee
on the Sunday before JavaOne. EmbeddedJava is for the high-
volume, low-cost microprocessor market, the kind of chips found
in cellular phones, pagers, routers and switches and the like.
And aiming more toward the high-end than ever before, JavaSoft
unit announced the JavaPlatform for the Enterprise, which
includes Enterprise JavaBeans components that JavaSoft claims can
be used to build manufacturing, financial, inventory management,
and a host of other enterprise applications. other stuff grouped
together includes Java DataBase Connnectivity (JDBC), Java Naming
and Directory Interface (JNDI) Java IDL to interact with Corba
objects; Java Transaction Services. Sun will work with unnamed
partners on the EnterpriseBeans spec, which will be relased in
the summer, around the same time as EmbeddedJava and
PersonalJava.
OR043-09 SUN EXTENDS APIS AS JAVA GETS SOUND AND VISION
Sun has added three new Java APIs for developers: Java Sound,
Java Advanced Imaging, and Java Input Method. Java Sound API sits
on top of the Java Sound engine licensed from HJeadspaceInc and
provides access to the engine for control of sound synthesis,
mixing and recording. The Advanced Imaging interface enables high
resolution images: they both come under the Java Media and
Communication API suite. The Java Input Method is a fancy title
for an API that provides a framework for Asian languages
including Japanese, Korean and Chinese.
OR043-10 SUN SIGNS UP PARTNERS FOR SPECIALIZED JAVA CHIPS
A year ago at about this time, Sun MicroElectronics (SME), Sunis
chip arm, signed three memoranda of understanding that sent
companies like NEC and LG Semicon Co off to develop JavaChips of
their own based on SMEis core technology.
Now - with the heat on - SME is into co-development to shorten
time-to-market and turned up last week at JavaOne with a swat of
agreements under its arm to produce specialized JavaChips, the
generic name given to the picoJava core and the microJava and
UltraJava processors. SMEis relationship with LG has deepened, it
said, and it will be collaborating with LG Semicon to produce a
picoJava I-based widget for NC-style Net TVs that comes out in
the second half.
The Korean concern will make the thing, which Sun calls the first
consumer Java processor, and Sun will have exclusive worldwide
sales and marketing rights. SME and Toshiba will be developing a
low-power version of the JavaChip for mobile devices and again
Sun would be the exclusive merchant supplier. It pegs the
appearance of the first devices for the first half of next year.
It will be doing a technology exchange with Rockwell Collins Inc
to co-develop a low-cost low-power Java processor core for cell
phones, Global Positioning System devices and aircraft avionics
out of the picoJava I and proprietary Rockwell technology. Its
has a letter of intent for Thomson Sun Interactive to port its
interactive OpenTV operating system to the Java processors for
high-performance set-top boxes estimating that it will give Sun a
foot in the door to home banking and shopping, interactive
subscriber services, interactive advertising and other e-commerce
applications.
Sun figures developers will remove some of their current focus on
the Internet to applications for TV distribution, perhaps
shifting the impetus from making computers into televisions and
turn TVs into computers. OpenTV is a natural candidate to go on
the LG-Sun widget. SME also lined up MetaWare Inc to port its
industrial-strength Windows/Solaris-based High C/C++ Embedded
Toolset to picoJava and get legacy code to operate of its Java
processors. Availability is expected in Q4.
SME president Chet Sylvestri, indicating displeasure with the
progress that Mitsubishi has made under its year-old picoJava
license, said that the performance of all licensees would be
measured and their licenses rescinded if they didnit shape up.
SME pulled together a hundred senior execs from leading consumer
electronics and OEM manufacturers at JavaOne last week to preach
to them about Java-based consumer products. It got Sony president
and chief executive officer Carl Yankowski as a speaker and heis
not even a licensee - yet.
Meanwhile, as expected, Sun said it has optimized the JavaOS for
the PCI-based MicroSparc IIep embedded processor, which itis
using in its own real first-generation "coffee tower"
JavaStations, and will port it over. Unhappily, they are running
late. It will distribute binaries of the port to reference
platform licensees.
OR043-11 SUN AND NETSCAPE WORK ON JAVA FOUNDATION CLASSES
As far as Sun Microsystems Inc was concerned, the biggest deal at
last weekis JavaOne San Francisco love-in was the coming-together
of Sunis Abstract Windowing Toolkit (AWT) with Netscapeis
Internet Foundation Classes (IFC) to create something called the
Java Foundation Classes (JFC).
IBM Corp makes up the triumvirate with some of its own classes,
together with some of the engineers Sun got from its acquisition
of Lighthouse Design in July last year. This "swing set," as Java
coding-hero James Gosling called it, is a set of reusable
components to create users interfaces with a consistent set of
APIs, and is "pretty close to review release," according to
Gosling, which these days means a few steps away from reaching
its first beta. The class information then gets put inside a
JavaBean, which is used to build Java applications. Java
developers have expressed some frustration with parts of Sunis
Java classes - mainly the AWT - with the result that attention
has wandered onto other libraries such as the IFC, and the Java
Generic Library (JGL) from ObjectSpace Inc.
Sun must be hoping that the JFC will focus the Java communityis
programming efforts on a single, widespread library once more.
Officially the JFC will be around within two months, according to
Alan Baratz, president of Sunis Java subsidiary JavaSoft. In the
meantime developers are encouraged to continue using the existing
Sun and Netscape libraries, dowloadable from their respective
websites. Baratz said the AWT and IFC were "largely
complementary" and contained a lot of overlaps, so the JFC is
really a case of AWT 1.1 plus IFC, plus a few additions. Some
nominal changes will be needed to software already written using
the AWT and IFC classes in order to make it comply with the JFCs,
he said.
Sunis director of internet marketing Dennis Tsu said the JFCs
were meant to avoid the kind of framentation that happened
between Motif and X Windows. He added that the JFCs need to be
complied in order to maintain "100% Pure Java" purity. The rest
of the Java roadmap involves version 1.2 of the Java Developeris
Kit (JDK) arriving in late summer, including a version of the
HotSpot compiler technology that Sun got by acquiring Longview
Technologies aka Animorphic Technologies in February (OR 37).
The developeris release of the HotSpot JVM is claimed to be more
than three times faster than the current version, thanks to what
JavaSoft calls an "inline global optimizer" which monitors
programs as they run and looks for "performance-sensitive
regions" that it can tune for better performance. Its release is
slated for spring, with the full version due by year-end, though
it doesnit take a genius to realize that those release dates are
out of synch.
OR043-12 LUCENT ADDS PROMISED SUPPORT FOR JAVA TO INFERNO
Lucent Technologies Inc, once a self-styled rival to Sun
Microsystems Inc and its Java language and operating system, has
signed three agreements with the company to ensure that all Java-
enabled applications also run on devices and networks that use
Lucentis Inferno network operating system.
Lucent says it will license Java technologies from Sun to
incorporate into Inferno. It will also join Sun in defining newly
announced PersonalJava and EmbeddedJava application programming
interfaces for creating applications to run on phones, pagers,
hand-held computers, printers, copiers and industrial
controllers.
Sun, in turn, has become a member of Lucentis Inferno Partners
Programme and will help to take the market for Java-enabled
products to Inferno customers. Inferno release 1.0, announced
last month, now supports Java. Evaluation copies are available at
http://www.lucent.com/inferno/.
Lucent has also announced new telephony software for Java, adding
internet integration to its PassageWay Telephony Services, a
TSAPI Telephony Services Application Programmer Interface-
compliant tool that integrates telephony systems with NetWare and
Windows NT networks.
OR043-13 IMPERIAL SOFTWARE SHOWS JAVA DEVELOPMENT FACE WITH VISAJ
Imperial Software Technologies Ltd, purveyor of the X-Designer
Motif-to Java GUI builder, is readying its first full Java
development environment, which should be ready by June. Imperial
is calling it Visaj; once again it had its chosen name, Java
Designer nixed by Sun. It had hoped to call its X-Designer:Java
Edition XD Java but Sun said no.
Still, Imperial doesn't want to step on too many toes, especially
as Sun extended its licensing deal with the company for three
years, to integrate -Designer:Java Edition into Sun's Visual
Workshop and Java Workshop. X-Designer:Java Edition takes an
existing Motif interface and re-engineers it in Java.
Visaj on the other hand is an out-and-out Java development
environment, using Java components and is compatible with
JavaBeans in both directions, according to Imperial president and
CEO, Derek Lambert. Visaj features include an AWT editor, event
editor, something called Granule View, that lets developers
select part of the structure of the code and edit and debug it,
and Lambert reckons it should fall into place with the new Java
Foundation Classes combination of Sun's AWT and Netscape's
Internet Foundation Classes.
Visaj also integrates with components from the likes of Jscape,
KL Group, Neuron Data, Stingray Software and Thought Inc, as well
as other development environments, including Microsoft Visual
J++, Symantec Cafe, and most tightly of all, Sun's Java Workshop.
However, Lambert was at pains to point out that Visaj extends
across all platforms, unlike Microsoft and Symantec's offerings,
that are Windows-only. It's also compatible with X-Designer and
its Java Edition.
Lambert's pleased the company didn't try to rush out a Java tool
last year when the Abstract Windowing Toolkit (AWT) and JavaBeans
hadn't really taken root. It's expected to cost $1,000 when it
arrives in June, with quantity discounts. Meantime, 15 year-old
Imperial is about to close its first round of funding since the
management buyout last year. Lambert sad it hopes to raise
between $2m and $4m. He said X-Designer continues to do well,
especially in the London financial community, where Merrill
Lynch, among others, has renewed its license for a "large amount
of money." http://www.ist.co.uk
OR043-14 ORACLE EXTENDS SQLLANGUAGE TO SUPPORT JAVA WITH JSQL
Oracle Corp chose last week's JavaOne bash to launch the JSQL
Java language extension it had worked on with IBM Corp and Tandem
Computers Inc. Sun gave it blessing and will attempt to push it
through the ISO/IEC process once it gains its Publicly Available
Specification (PAS) submitter stripes in the summer, according to
Oracle's director of server technologies marketing, Steve Levine.
JSQL enhances Java DataBase Connectivity (JDBC) by adding a kind
of Java intelligence, in that developers can write Java code so
that database users don't just get a pointer back from a database
query. They'll be able to generate Java types to go with the SQL
query so it can do compile-time checking to know whether the
query was even valid in the first place, for instance.
Previously, according to Levine, the only way to do this in Java
was to use embedded SQL. Tandem had done a lot of work on this
apparently, which accounts for its somewhat unusual inclusion
among such Java mavens. The draft JSQL specification is up at
http://www.splash.javasoft.com/databases, and the submission
won't be available until the summer at the earliest.
OR043-15 TIBCO ADDS JAVA INTERFACE TO ITS MULTICAST SERVER
Tibco Inc has added a Java language interface to the applets used
by its TIB/Rendezvous push server, a multicast server that claims
to cut intranet traffic by as much as 50%. Rendezvous 3.0,
available immediately for NT/95/3.x and Unix, already supports
ActiveX. The new Java interface is hardly a surprise since
Rendezvous has been licensed by Oracle as well as Informix, Cisco
and some 400 end-user companies. Tibcois also added a feature
dubbed Certified Messaging to Rendezvous thatis supposed to
ensure that every intended recipient receives the proper messages
or, in case of failure, that the sender is notified. Rendezvous
starts at $495 per user on Windows computers, with a SDK at
$1,200.
OR043-16 VISIGENIC: HOTTEST DATE IN TOWN?
By Gary Flood
Why is everyone going so crazy about Visigenic Software Inc?
In the space of less than a year the San Mateo, California based
database and Internet connectivity software supplier has been
courted, and bedded, by Netscape Communications Corp, Forte
Software Inc, Oracle Corp, Borland Corp, and now Novell Corp.
This on top of a solid tie-in with Microsoft Corp itself. Rumours
are now flying around Silicon Valley to the effect that one of
these players may well decide to mess with their opponentsi
plans, and acquire Visigenic in order to throw their object
request broker ORB plans into chaos.
This attention surprises some of us who remember Visigenic as the
company that was trying to make Microsoftis Open Data Base
Connectivity (ODBC) into something real, mostly to everyoneis
indifference. Visigenicis original vision was very much in
character with its founder, Roger Sippl, a man who has always
promoted the importance of standards-based computing as the way
to achieve real interoperability.
Black Widow
Sippl, who founded and led relational database company Informix
Corp through the 1980s, but who left after successfully
recovering from a bout of Hodgkinis Disease (the same malady that
attacked Microsoft Corp co-founder Paul Allen), started Visigenic
as a pure-play ODBC supporter in 1994. The idea was to take ODBC
and extend it from its habitual client/desktop environment to
midrange servers like Unix.
This was cool with Microsoft, which really only cared at the time
about opening up its productivity applications to a wider range
of back-end data sources: plus, the commitment of Sippl, who had
been highly visible in standards bodies like the SQL Access Group
and X/Open, made it seem as if ODBC was actually made of nobler
stuff than cynics claimed. In any case, Visigenic kind of
stumbled along between 1994 and early 1996, when Sippl seemingly
got Web and Object Management Groupis Common Object Request
Broker Architecture (Corba) fever.
In April 1996 Sippl swooped on privately-held Mountain View,
California-based ORB specialist PostModern Computing Inc, adding
its object request broker expertise to his ODBC and Java DataBase
Connectivity standards products. In particular, of most interest
to Visigenic in the tiny (15 strong) company was a Java-enabled
ORB called Black Widow.
This product - renamed VisiBroker soon thereafter - has really
put spring in Sipplis companyis step. For PostModern had built a
Corba Internet Inter-Orb protocol (IIOP) implementation that
really made this nascent standard mean something.
In June, two months later, Netscape, Platinum Technology Inc and
Cisco Systems Inc paid $8m between them for a total stake of less
than 10% in then still-private Visigenic. In July it won a high-
profile deal with Netscape, where the VisiBroker Java and C++
object request brokers get to be integrated with Netscapeis
Communicator client and SuiteSpot servers, in order to provide
seamless access to objects on Corba-compliant servers from
Netscape front-ends. In August the company was finally able to go
public, at $7.50 per share, and yesterday was trading at just
over $9, half of its 52-week high.
Hunky Dory
The company relaunched itself in Europe in November, and then
last month Oracle joined the party, licensing Visigenicis Java
and C++ ORBs which it will integrate into its products, and
resell to customers and ISVs. Oracle is also licensing
Visigenicis VisiBridge connectivity tool (formerly known as
VisiBroker for ActiveX Bridge), software that enables Corba
objects to be accessed from Microsoft Corp ActiveX controls
implemented in Web pages, Visual Basic applications or OLE-
enabled applications.
Oracle will further integrate the Visigenic technology into its
Web Application Server, database server and tools. Earlier this
month Borland announced it will integrate VisiBroker for Java
with its JBuilder application development tool. And finally,
Novell just recently signed up too, announcing that it would
license VisiBroker for Java and C++ with its IntranetWare
platform. The network operating system player hailed the move as
a way to offer developers immediate support for CORBA and native
IIOP with the ability to deploy distributed applications on
IntranetWare. The two companies are also to jointly fund a
technology lab for research and development of CORBA services and
Java integration.
An enviable set of partners, then, all won in a very short time
frame. So all is hunky-dory in the Visigenic world? Not
necessarily.
The company is not expected to achieve profitability until the
third quarter of 1998, according to First Call estimates. A $12m
charge for purchased research and development associated with the
PostModern buy really hit Visigenicis figures in its current
fiscal. Net losses for the third quarter were $2.3m, up from
$991,000 the previous year, as revenues rose 194% to $3.8m. But
nine-month losses were $15.9m, after the write-off, up from $1.9m
losses last time.
So would Sippl cash out by letting one of his new-found friends
make him an offer? A Visigenic spokesman pooh-poohed the idea,
predictably, but with a good basis: Visigenic gets "substantial"
amounts of money with each of these deals, not just good PR, with
the Novell one being the largest so far, and hence its business
model is viable - albeit that profitability is not scheduled to
happen for some time yet.
Street credibility
A weaker reason that makes us believe Visigenic is not in play is
that keeping the ORB vendors like Iona Technologies Ltd
independent gives more general street credibility to the whole
IIOP movement, which at the end of the day is all about giving
Microsoft something to worry about.
So Visigenic becomes a core technology supplier, someone to
partner with in the same way that one partners with, say,
Netscape. Take those 10% investors: Platinum is believed to be
considering VisiBroker technology for use in its systems
administration software tools, having put the Visigenic ODBC
drivers in virtually all its software already. Cisco is hedging
on the possible success of IIOP: If it really takes off, a
company like Cisco would be interested in anything that would
help handle the extra network traffic.
So why is everyone going crazy about Visigenic? Because we all
like a standard that gives for an open playing field - like Corba
and IIOP - not ones that really only help one big player, like
ODBC. And itis only been since Sippl realized that, too, that his
company has become really worthy of interest.
OR043-17 DOT GOSSIP
Art Technology Group (ATG) is licensing elements of its Dynamo
technology for session tracking and page compilation to JavaSoft
for its JavaServer Toolkit. ATG promises to support the
JavaServlet API in its Dynamo Developer Kit as well as its Ad
Station, Profile Station and Retail Station apps.
AbirNet Ltd last week announced the release of SessionWall-3,
net-abuse prevention software, featuring unobtrusive blocking,
monitoring and network intrusion detection capabilities.
SessionWall-3 is supposed to monitor e-mail, web access, news
groups, FTP and Telnet. Pricing is set at $995 for 25 users,
$4,950 for 200 and $14,950 unlimited.
Personal Library Software (PLS) is shipping a new productivity
tool, EZ Admin, as a companion to its web publishing tool, PL Web
Turbo. PLS claims that EZ Admin will reduce administrative
overheads associated with managing large web sites. EZ Adminis
features include a remote access utility to allow a web
administrator to manage a site from any location, a web-based
graphical interface and authentication control to grant or deny
access based on user or user group. Itis currently available on
Solaris, Irix, HP-Unix, Digital Unix and AIX with an NT version
due at the end of this month. Itis priced at $2k per server with
a 50% off for those subscribing to the PLS maintenance program.
Pretty Good Privacy last week announced the availability of
PGPfone 2.0, an Internet telephony product on the Mac. PGPfone
V2.0 is said to provide advanced security for voice
communications point-to-point between modems and over private
intranets, public extranets, and the Internet. Itis available at
http://www.pgp.com for $49.95. For freeware users upgrading from
1.0, the price is $39.95.
Motorola Inc's Advanced Digital Consumer Division said JavaOS is
now running on its MPC821 PowerPC chip. UK-based Hugh Symons
Group plc ported it. It can be licensed directly from Javasoft.
The PowerPC rendition will be aimed at hand-held, portable
communication devices for wireless modem communications, voice
recognition, handwriting recognition and imaging.
Schlumberger Ltd was demo'ing its Cyber-flex smart card, as
expected (OR 23) at JavaOne, based on Sun's Java Card API.
Informix Corp and Symantec Inc have decided to integrate
Symantec's Visual Cafe Pro for Windows 95/NT and Macintosh with
Informix' Universal Server and Data Director. The two will
jointly market each other's products to web and enterprise Java
developers worldwide.
Push came to shove at New York-based push/pull start-up IFusion
last week as it was forced to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
protection by Prudential Securities, which had loaned it $6
million and wanted its money back. IFusion, which planned to
launch its ArrIve Networks next month, couldn't get new
financing. And here we thought you only had to whisper the word
Internet and people would start shoving checks under the door.
O'Reilly & Associates has released a major upgrade to its
WebBoard server for building NT/95-based web discussion groups,
adding a list of features highlighted by JavaScript-based real-
time chat support. A new twist supports ads in chat rooms, a
revenue-generator never seen before on the net. WebBoard 2.0 runs
either with its own multithreaded web server on top of any CGI-
or ISAP-compliant web server including Internet Information
Server, Netscape server and O'Reilly's own WebSite servers. $60
buys the program, book and a license to support two virtual
boards with 10 conferences per board. An extended-license version
for up to 255 virtual boards and an unlimited number of
conferences per board is $399.
Sybase's jConnect for JDBC driver went gold last week. It'll
reportedly provide Java developers with native database access to
Sybase's family of data products and over 25 other databases. It
works with any platform running a Java virtual machine 1.02 or
higher and all popular Java-enabled web servers and browsers. A
Workplace edition costs $495 a server for NT with an Enterprise
version at $1,995.
Globetrotter Software is giving away the Flexlm for Java license
management product gratis to qualified customers. The Campbell,
California company said the free two user Flexlm license, aimed
at ISVs with annual revenues below $2m, controls a useris
compliance with software product license terms.
Geoworks has licensed Java technology from JavaSoft and plans to
port it to its GEOS operating system platform so developers can
build Java-based smart phone applications.
Novell Inc is working on a 100% Pure Java project code named
Houston to java-tize its current management and administration
tools including ManageWise and NetWare Administrator as well as
produce some new management utilities and functions written in
Java. The Houston SDK will let users' create applications,
components and objects that can be integrated with Novell's
Directory Services through the Java Naming and Directory
Interface (JNDI). Novell expects to deliver the Houston SDK to
developers by year-end through its DeveloperNet subscription
program.
Advanced RISC Machines (ARM) has gobbled up 45% of San Jose,
California-based PalmChip, a mass storage design house. It said
the investment in PalmChip will help it push ARM-based mass
storage solutions. According to ARM, its own high-performance
core will enable mass storage OEMs to migrate from a dual-
processor architecture to a lower-cost single-processor
architecture. PalmChip and ARM have been working together for
about a year with PalmChip slated to deliver its first ARM-based
device in Q3.
StarQuest Software Inc said it'll provide its StarSQL Pro
connectivity software for Netscape's Enterprise Server. The
Berkeley, California company claims StarSQL Pro will run under
LiveWire in either NT or Unix Enterprise Server versions and let
server-side JavaScript and Java applets access remote DB2 data.
It's slated for a Q2 release and will cost $3k for up to 100
connections.
This week's Internet Explorer win-of-the-week is Crestar
Financial Corporation, which has signed to put IE on 4,000
desktops. Crestar is setting up a corporate intranet, powered by
BackOffice, to run its change and problem management system as
well as distribute corporate and human resources information.
It's already put Windows 95 and Office on 1,000 PCs, with the
other 3,000 the company owns scheduled for upgrade by year-end.
Tower Technology Corp released a beta version of its TowerJ 1.0
Java software's developer's kit for creating server-side
applications. The Austin, Texas-based company claims to have
compact high-performance run-times and optimization techniques
which provide better performance than applications using JIT
compiler or interpreter technology. It's now shipping in limited
quantities and will reportedly cost $100,000.
Trusted Information Systems Inc (TIS) is first to the tape in the
race to get government approval to export 128-bit encryption. Its
RecoverKey -International Cryptographic Service Provider product
can encrypt data using 56-bit DES, triple DES, or 128-bit RC2 or
RC4 algorithms. TIS has an advantage over other cryptography
vendors because its been working with the government on
encryption for years, dating back to the days of Clipper, and so
it already fulfills the first part of the export license
requirement, namely having a plan in place for putting key
recovery in all your products. The second phase gives companies
the right to use any strength of encryption. Cylink Corp says it
will be able to export triple DES and 128-bit Safer (Secure And
Fast Encryption Routine), an alternative public key encryption
algorithm developed for Cylink.
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