----------
From: ComputerWire Plc
Sent: Friday, March 21, 1997 9:51 AM
To: olr_all@computerwire.co.uk
Subject: Online Reporter March 24-28 1997 Issue Number 041
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| O N L I N E R E P O R T E R |
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Weekly dispatches from the Internet Front
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London, March 24-28 1997
Issue Number 041
------------------------ HEADLINES ------------------------
OR041-01 ORACLE NETWORK COMPUTERS STILL WINDOWS-LESS?
OR041-02 BLYTH, SOON TO BE OMNIS SOFTWARE, REVS OMNIS WEB RAD
OR041-03 PATRIOT HAS SILICON FOR ITS FIRST PSC1000 JAVA CHIP
OR041-04 NOVELL AND NETSCAPE TO FORM JOINT COMPANY - NOVONYX
OR041-05 SUN PUTS JAVA THROUGH ISO
OR041-06 PORTLAND UNLEASHES ZIPLOCK 2.0, DEALS IN PIPELINE
OR041-07 IBM BRINGS NETOBJECTS UNDER BIG BLUE UMBRELLA
OR041-08 POINTCAST DENIES NEWS CORP TAKEOVER RUMORS, IPO ON TRACK
OR041-09 YAHOO! WINS RIGHT TO RUN NETSCAPE DESTINATIONS GUIDE
OR041-10 EXCITE TO CHANGE TO CHANNELS
OR041-11 70 MILLIONS CONSUMER NC DEVICES BY 2000 - ZONA
OR041-12 ISVS SCRAP OVER WINDOWS ACCESS FROM JAVA
OR041-13 NETSCAPE SEARCH PARTNERS RE-SIGN ON SEARCH BUTTON
OR041-14 NEWFIRE IGNITES TORCH 3D PLUG-IN
OR041-15 NETPC MAY NOT CUT IT, SO INTEL "COZIES UP TO ORACLE, ELLISON"
OR041-16 NOVELL'S NEW CHIEF EXECUTIVE WILL BOOST INTERNET CREDIBILITY
OR041-17 NCD REVS WINCENTER TO 3.0
OR041-18 DOT GOSSIP
OR041-01 ORACLE NETWORK COMPUTERS STILL WINDOWS-LESS?
Our sister publication ClieNT Server News heard last week that
Oracle Corp's hush-hush Network Computer Inc (NCI) subsidiary had
gone through no less than six operating systems for its NC
reference design: it's own, Acorn's RISC OS, Pegasus, VxWorks and
JavaOS.
It is now concentrating its efforts on NetBSD, with a development
team in India - which seems strange considering NetBSD is
shareware. But if Oracle does it well, it could create another
revenue stream for itself to compete against JavaOS.
Meantime, according to sources familiar with goings-on inside
NCI, its near-manic obsession with doing the opposite to
everything Redmond does has left the NC design without the
ability to run Windows applications. We hear the company really
doesn't care about the operating system or even the hardware; all
NCI is concerned about is that the NCs will run its client and
server software, which seems fair enough.
But the one thing that will probably stop Oracle NCs from flying,
compared to IBM, HDS or Network Computing Devices' boxes is this
lack of Windows support, and it's Windows the corporate world
wants to run here and now, not Java.
NCI said last week that the NCs will be for "purely Java and
HTML" and wouldn't comment on whether or not it is considering
licensing any technology to enable it to do this. NCD wouldn't
comment on whether it was talking to Oracle about its WinCenter
product - a combination of Citrix' ICA protocol software and an X
Windows layer on top.
But the likely winner of Oracle's heart seems to be Insignia
Solutions Inc, with its NTrigue product, the Java version of
which is called Keoke (see page 2), derived from Citrix' stuff.
"We don't have any deals we can comment on," was the company's
response regarding Oracle last week.
Sources say NCI won't be ready to run Windows applications until
the year-end. Sun Microsystems Inc has licensed Insignia's Keoke.
So, it would appear that the biggest hype merchant in the NC
space, and the originator of the concept would seem to be the
least prepared to do what people really want to do with these
things.
The irony for Oracle is that Microsoft, now working on its Hydra
multi-user NT that is likely to put Citrix out of business, and
reportedly recruiting X programmers, has a bit of time to catch
up and make its NetPCs and the accompanying software look just as
attractive a proposition as an NC running Oracle software. And
we've seen how nimble on its feet Microsoft can be if it has to
be.
OR041-02 BLYTH, SOON TO BE OMNIS SOFTWARE, REVS OMNIS WEB RAD
Blyth Software Inc has released version 2.0 of its Omnis Web RAD
web development toolset. The company will change its name after
its main product - Omnis Software Inc - from April 1, and the
follow-up product, a kind of premier version of Omnis, codenamed
Prometheus will be available in May.
The main change in version 2.0 is server agents to fire
dynamically-generated data down to browsers. The agents contain
the client-server logic that used to appear only on a fat client,
according to David McKay, director of product marketing and
management. Making it into an agent means it can be placed on the
network for use wherever the users chooses. Blyth, sorry Omnis,
will launch a product in late summer called Omnis Agent which is
a backplane for hosting these agents.
A prototype version of Omnis Agent, called WebGate is available
now showing examples of how to create cross-platform web servers.
HTML conversion has also been improved in version 2.0 to produce
a second version of reports with HTML tags.
The name of the holding company - Blyth Holdings will have to
wait until a shareholders meeting in July, but the UK business
will change to Omnis Software Ltd at the same time as in the US.
There are various packages for existing Omnis users and for
existing Web RAD users - Web RAD is a combination of the Omnis
database and cross-platform client-server application development
toolset and the Web-enabling software - as well as for newcomers
to Omnis, and a myriad of discounts for bundled options.
For Omnis 7 users who haven't yet got their apps to the web the
Jumpstart Pak costs $2,000 to do this. For existing Web RAD users
there are various packages starting at $1,500.
http://www.blyth.com
OR041-03 PATRIOT HAS SILICON FOR ITS FIRST PSC1000 JAVA CHIP
Patriot Scientific Corp, purveyors of the ShBoom Java chip
implementation, which it wants to be known now only as PSC1000,
has now got silicon from its 0.8 micron process and expects to go
to silicon with the 0.5 micron version within 30 days.
Patriot claims to be both faster and cheaper than Sun
Microsystems Inc's picoJava implementation - less than half the
published price of picoJava, which we hear is either $20 or $100
per chip depending on clock speed.
The San Diego, California company says it's on the verge of deals
with some household names in both the semiconductor business and
end-user product manufacturers in the US, Europe and the Far
East.
Patriot executives were recently on tour in Japan and Korea
talking to six companies and "more than one" of its potential
customers is going to make network computers using the chip, but
there are no names just yet. One is said to be on the second or
third draft of a definitive agreement with Patriot, says the
company. http://www.ptsc.com
OR041-04 NOVELL AND NETSCAPE TO FORM JOINT COMPANY - NOVONYX
As we went to press, Novell Inc and Netscape Communications Corp
announced that they would be forming a jointly owned networking
software company called Novonyx.
The start-up is to port Netscape's SuiteSpot communication
software to Novell's IntranetWare and according to the companies
it will have deliverable products within a few months. These
products are being positioned as direct competition to similar
offerings from Microsoft and IBM's Lotus Development software
division and are to be distributed by Novell.
Financial details of the arrangement were not disclosed, and the
companies declined to reveal their individual stakes in the new
company. Novonyx is to be based near Novell's Provo, Utah-based
headquarters.
OR041-05 SUN PUTS JAVA THROUGH ISO
Following months of speculation Sun Microsystems Inc has decided
to get the Java standardization process moving and has gone to
the largest standards body of them all: the International
Standards Organization (ISO). However not everyone's a happy
camper about the route Sun has chosen. It has applied to ISO and
the International Electrotechnical Commission's (IEC) Joint
Technical Committee 1 (JTC1) to become a PAS Publicly Available
Specification submitter.
If Sun's application is approved - and JTC1 will give its
decision in July - Sun will then submit Java, presumably based on
the books that are currently available, and spell out its Java
roadmap which it will prepare in the interim period, according to
Jim Mitchell, JavaSoft VP technology and architecture.
Some insiders say that if ISO approves Sun's application and Java
is published as an ISO specification without moving through
conventional standards processes - PAS submitters do not have to
pass through JTC1 SC22 or other subcommittee reviews - then ISO
is in danger of becoming just another book publisher. What's to
stop IBM Corp or Microsoft Corp applying for PAS too they ask?
To date, only the European Workshop for Open Systems, X/Open, the
Digital Audio Visual Council and VESA Video Electronics Standards
Association have been approved by JTC 1 as recognized PAS
Submitters: no individual companies.
Slightly cagey
However, even critics think that in Java's case, ISO's likely to
sign off on a specification that in effect is not a standard in
form or has had no industry review as other PAS specifications
have had.
As far as testing and certification goes, it's all a bit early.
Sergio Mazza, president and CEO of the American National
Standards Institution (ANSI) said the majority of specs don't
even have a certification process, and it is not the job of the
ISO to implement one.
The process has nothing to do with the Java name however - Sun
will retain the rights to that. Java implementations can be
written, but they cannot be called Java unless done by Sun. Sun
was being slightly cagey about exactly which parts will be put
forward for spec - all will be revealed come July, promised
Mitchell.
The JTC secretariat distributes the application to each voting
member - usually national standards bodies like ANSI, British
Standards Institute and so on. The voting members get three
months to review, comment and vote on the submission. The
secretariat then forwards the result to Sun. The fee-based
European Computer Manufacturers Association has already agreed to
hand over its work on an ECMAscript (JavaScript) specification to
ISO JTC1 once it is complete.
OR041-06 PORTLAND UNLEASHES ZIPLOCK 2.0, DEALS IN PIPELINE
Portland Software Inc, the company started two years ago by
author, script writer and producer Charles Jennings has released
the second cut of its ZipLock electronic software distribution
system. ZipLock is software that generates a container for
whatever software you wish to distribute.
The company's big boast is its link with Microsoft Corp. It will
shortly announce that Redmond is committed to building ZipLock
containing for all of its software products - Portland is the
only certified technology for selling Microsoft products.
Another major partner that Portland Software has snagged is
Marimba Inc. The two are talking right now about first using
ZipLock to distribute Marimba's Castanet push technology - which
begs the question of how secure Marimba's existing channel
technology is - and secondly, integrating ZipLock into Castanet,
so every company using Marimba's stuff to distribute its software
can enclose it in a ZipLock container as well.
Portland is expecting to announce additional funding of between
$15m and $20m in the next few weeks through a combination of
venture capital and investments in the company, according to
Terry Murphy, senior director of strategic alliances at Portland.
The company raised $1m last June and $3.5m last November through
Olympic Venture Partners of Kirkland and YBR Associates of
Chicago. Other investors include Internex Information Services
which uses ZipLock in its Internet hosting architecture,
PowerCommerce Clearing House (OR 25).
The ZipLock architecture contains three components: the Builder
that the publisher uses for packaging, branding and encrypting
software and enclosing it into a container that is bundled with
the second component - the Client. The Client leads the buyer
through the purchase process, connecting to the clearing house
and de-encrypting the software. It launches the software and
presents the user with a receipt. The third component, the
Server, resides with the trusted third party - Portland has deals
with LitleNet, CyberSource and InterNex.
New with release 2.0 is a Try-and-Buy option which is currently
in beta. It enables publishers to define trial periods and costs.
Zert License Manager is an unalterable document that combines
receipt and certificate and enables returns and re-installations
while maintaining the license integrity.
Future versions will support multiple licenses for the product.
Other things in the pipeline - apart from the Microsoft promise
to ZipLock everything - include a channel brander so each link in
the chain can re-brand a product as it sees fit, and a server-
side version of the builder, said Murphy. Also planned is a Zert
generator and viewer. This version also includes 96-bit RSA
encryption, which means that the Builder is for the US market
only right now, but like so many others, Portland reckons the
government will have a change of heart soon and allow export of
these types of encryption levels and beyond.
Server platforms supported right now are Solaris and Windows NT,
but AIX and HP-UX support is planned. It also supports Microsoft
Internet Information Server, Netscape Enterprise Server and
Oracle Web Server. Lotus Domino support is due in the summer, and
Open Market Inc is looking to support it, according to Murphy.
A browser plug-in is also planned for the summer, but the company
hasn't decided whether that's going to Java or ActiveX-based
systems or even both. In terms of a broader Java strategy,
Portland reckons a Java applet could have a role in accessing
Zert certificates in a repository. Jennings founded Portland
after working on the screen savers for Pocahontas and Toy Story
and deciding that the computer business was for him.
http://www.portsoft.com
OR041-07 IBM BRINGS NETOBJECTS UNDER BIG BLUE UMBRELLA
In a very un-IBM-like way Big Blue has decided to take a leaf out
of Microsoft's book and take a majority stake in NetObjects Inc
before anybody else does.
The Redwood City, California purveyor of the Fusion web
development suite is already working fairly closely with Big
Blue, as IBM bundles the tool with the net.data web interface for
DB2 and Lotus used Fusion to develop its Kona Java desktop its
showed at Lotusphere in January (OR 34).
The size of the stake was not disclosed but reports suggest IBM
paid between $50m and $80m, and all the original investors have
retained their stakes, albeit slightly diluted. Lotus executive
VP Mike Zisman joins the NetObjects board to represent IBM.
Zisman said the taking of the stake did not preclude the
possibility of NetObjects still going public some day.
Zisman rationalized the purchase by saying that a bad outcome for
IBM would've been to become reliant on the technology and then
have it acquired by another company, although IBM Software head
John M Thompson said there was no unusual level of outside
pressure in this case.
However, he did reveal that IBM was very close to an OEM deal
with Vermeer Technologies Inc 18 months ago when Microsoft
swooped and acquired the company for its FrontPage web
development tool: "I learned a lesson, I guess, over that," said
Thompson.
OR041-08 POINTCAST DENIES NEWS CORP TAKEOVER RUMORS, IPO ON TRACK
Officials from PointCast Inc were last week vigorously denying a
report in the Wall Street Journal that News Corp was in talks to
acquire the screen saver-cum-push technology pioneer for between
$350m and $450m cash. News Corp Ltd was not denying the story,
merely offering no comment. "There is zero percent chance of
that, that's just not going to happen," PointCast chief executive
officer Christopher Hassett told Reuters confidently.
Hassett, whose tone implied the approach is unwelcome, despite
the large sums involved, added that the intention however is not
to remain private, but to go for an initial public offering
(IPO), probably this year. Cupertino, California-based PointCast
has raised $48m in private funding thus far. Hassett also said
that the company's investment banker, Morgan Stanley would handle
any IPO.
An acquisition by a media giant like News Corp would not best
please some of PointCast's partners, including Time Warner Inc,
Dow Jones & Co, Times Mirror Co or Knight-Ridder Inc, who all
have channels on PointCast's desktop. Hassett also said rumors of
a possible takeover by another of its partners, Microsoft Corp,
were just as spurious.
OR041-09 YAHOO! WINS RIGHT TO RUN NETSCAPE DESTINATIONS GUIDE
Yahoo! Inc has won the right to design, produce and operate a
navigation service that'll replace Netscape Communications Corp's
popular Destinations button on its Navigator and Communicator
desktops. The Netscape Guide by Yahoo!, as it will be called,
will bring four million visitors a day to the Netscape site with
a service showcasing the best of the web in place of the guide
Netscape currently operates itself.
According to Yahoo, the deal is a perfect match because Netscape
wants to create a more compelling website for its many visitors,
and website content is Yahoo's specialty. Financially speaking,
Yahoo will sell advertising on the site and will give a
percentage back to Netscape. Neither company would reveal the
percentages but a source at Yahoo said that Yahoo would get "the
majority."
Nobody would say whether or not Yahoo! paid a fee to take over
the service but it must be considered likely as Netscape charges
for space on its other buttons (see story on page 2). The Net
Search button went for a total of around $20m, so it's likely to
have cost Yahoo at least a few million.
The Yahoo-based button will be included with new versions of the
Netscape browser from the second quarter of 1997. Users with
previous versions of the Navigator browser will be able to access
the service by clicking on the Destinations button.
On a day when most technology stocks were faltering, Wall Street
cheered the news as Yahoo shares closed up 9% at $24.75, with
Netscape closing up 5% at $27.75. The day after Robertson
Stephens & Co analyst Keith Benjamin upped Yahoo! to long-term
attractive from market performer. Benjamin also predicted 1998
fiscal revenues of $82.3m and earnings per share of $0.40. First
Call analysts' estimates were all upped slightly as a result of
the deal. Yahoo! shares put on another $4.1875, or 17% to close
at $28.9375 on Thursday. http://www.yahoo.com
OR041-10 EXCITE TO CHANGE TO CHANNELS
Excite Inc has swallowed the web-needs-to-look-more-like-TV
propaganda, and is switching its model to a channel-like
metaphor: the first of the major search engine companies to do
so.
The Mountain Viewer will initiate a three-phase roll-out over 45
days, starting with 14 channels it will be offering to
advertisers, including such stuff as sports, arts and
entertainment, business and investing and so on. It will use its
existing content partners while looking for new ones to fill out
the site.
The look of excite.com will not change until next month, when the
second phase begins and the channels appear on the site. The last
phase will be the splitting out of the channels into separate
units of their own, each with their own producer, and they will
be honed to focus on the types of people that use them and able
to organize their own distribution deals, the company said.
OR041-11 70 MILLIONS CONSUMER NC DEVICES BY 2000 - ZONA
Zona Research Inc has produced what it modestly calls a "seminal
report" on the number of network computers we're likely to see
around in the next few years.
The Redwood City market researcher reckons the worldwide
commercial NC market size will grow from 1.7 million units this
year to 6.7 million by 2000. The consumer-side numbers are far
more dramatic, but that category ropes in all web-enabled
televisions and telephones and any other device that's used
outside the office that might get the web treatment in the next
few years. Zona reckons that market will explode from two million
units this year, to 70 million by 2000. It also reckons the total
cost of ownership will not be the significant force driving sales
of NCs, it's the same old reason any hardware platform flies or
fails: applications.
Motorola Inc has set up a smartcard unit as part of its land
mobile products sector, promising product by the year-end.
OR041-12 ISVS SCRAP OVER WINDOWS ACCESS FROM JAVA
There's a bit of a scrap going on between purveyors of Windows
application server software over who's first to deliver access to
Windows applications from Java devices, but it's all rather
irrelevant when you consider that Microsoft Corp's plan to
introduce its own multiuser version of Windows NT may adversely
affect the businesses of at least one if not all of them (OR38).
Insignia Solutions Inc says it's now shipping a Java version of
its NTrigue client software that allows any Java-supported
platform or browser to run Windows applications - a necessity for
any Java network computer, considering the deficit of Java
applications and the heavy user demand for running Microsoft
programs.
The Java client is based upon a skinny version of the standard X
Windows graphics protocol developed by Insignia called Keoke. It
requires NTrigue server software be present to run the Windows
applications. The client is actually a Java applet which is
downloaded from an Intel Corp-based server enabling the Java
device to access the NTrigue server and run Windows 95, 3.x and
NT applications.
Insignia is shipping the client as part of an NTrigue enhancement
pack which is being made available to customers with NTrigue
maintenance contracts. Sun Microsystems Inc is bundling the
client on its JavaStations but does not supply the NTrigue server
software which is based upon Citrix Systems Inc's ICA WinFrame
technology that supports concurrent remote access to applications
running on Intel-based NT servers by multiple end-users.
Precisely the technology Microsoft is readying for a future
version of NT and the reason why Citrix's stock has dropped
through the floor.
Insignia expects to make its money from the server, which sells
for $7,500 for 15 concurrent users and a cut-down version for
five concurrent users costs $2,000. Windows applications will be
accessible on JavaStations with the click of an icon.
Meantime, Exodus Technologies Inc, of Bellevue, Washington,
claims it has been shipping a beta of the Java-enabled version of
its NTerprise Windows application server software client to
selected customers for sometime and that a general release will
be made available in a couple of weeks' time. NTerprise competes
directly with NTrigue.
Although NTerprise uses a multiuser NT technology licensed from
Paris-based Groupe Prologue SA - and because Microsoft hasn't
granted Prologue a license to NT 4.0 - Exodus' 4.0 beta is still
sitting on the shelf. Exodus CEO Steve Kangas sees his company's
value-add specifically in terms of the distributed display and
client/server transport protocol it adds in NTerprise. Exodus,
the heir to ConnectSoft Inc, one of the three original companies
including Citrix and Prologue that has been working on multiuser
NT for years, developed the last two technologies and blended
them with Prologue's multiuser operating system. Like rival
Citrix, Exodus' is a software solution.
Prologue's WinTimes is referred to as a hardware solution because
the underlying hardware uses a black box to access WinTimes on
the NT server. Citrix, for its part, is currently rewriting its
WinFrame client to produce a Java version. Citrix is still only
on Intel platforms and Exodus has moved into RISC. Although he
admits the company is in an "uncomfortable" position until
Microsoft makes its plan for Hydra clear, Kangas is confident
Microsoft won't ship a thin client, distributed display
technology in Hydra like the one we heard it might have got from
Intel, nor a client/server transport protocol.
Even if it does, Kangas believes, it'll likely do something
specific like an applet to support Windows CE devices and not a
generic thin client mechanism. In any case "we are not in the
business of selling multiuser NT," Kangas says, although he
admits that if Microsoft ships a Windows application server "it
will have a material affect on our business." His and a whole
bunch of others too.
OR041-13 NETSCAPE SEARCH PARTNERS RE-SIGN ON SEARCH BUTTON
Despite a lot of talk about the high cost and questionable value,
Netscape Communications Corp duly persuaded its premier partners
to re-sign for another year to have their search engines featured
on every Netscape desktop.
The four partners are Yahoo! Inc, Excite Inc, Infoseek Inc and
Lycos Inc. Excite also owns the Webcrawler engine which has a
place on the fifth button, which is now a pot pourri of search
engines. Netscape wasn't saying last week what the other ones on
the fifth button will be.
So, from May 1, the 'Net Search' button will give users the
option to pick their favorite from the four in a search engine
beauty contest, and the fifth button can also be customized for
an engine of their choice from the list of Marquee Providers - a
kind of 'fastest loser' arrangement. Netscape said the partners
are optimizing their sites for use with its forthcoming
Communicator follow-up to Navigator.
Last year each premier partner had to pay $5m for the privilege
of appearing on a button, but the deals are structured
differently this year. Because of the user's ability to set
defaults, Netscape can't guarantee the level of traffic that each
site will get - last year the tabs were rotated across all the
traffic giving everyone a fair shot. So there's a minimum
guarantee for each partner and then the rest is done on a pay-
per-view basis, so the amount will vary from partner to partner,
according to Jennifer Bailey, Netscape's VP electronic marketing.
Bailey added that the cost per impression is similar to last
year's deal.
Excite and Lycos have both told us recently that they were
seeking out new distribution channels as an alternative to the
buttons, so Maybe the Netscape deal is more attractive for them
this year. We won't know until one of the search engine companies
reports its figures containing the cost.
OR041-14 NEWFIRE IGNITES TORCH 3D PLUG-IN
Newfire Inc, a start-up formerly known as Axial Systems Inc has
got its browser 3D plug-in available on its website, which it
claims is four to six times faster than any other VRML (Virtual
Reality Modeling Language) plug-in and beats the pants off
performance found in today's games consoles.
The company has also renamed the product, from Heat to Torch. It
claims more than 300 software developers have signed up to its
Ignition developer program. Newfire's secret weapon, it reckons,
is its Visible Scene Management, which only shows those polygons
that can possibly be viewed from a given point, cutting down on
the amount of rendering that's required and thus making the
animation smoother and faster, the company claims.
But Newfire's real focus will eventually be on tools. This week
its showing an optimizer tool and will be ready to show the rest
of them around the end of April. At that time the company is also
expected to announce support for Microsoft Internet Explorer: its
just a Navigator plug-in right now.
OR041-15 NETPC MAY NOT CUT IT, SO INTEL "COZIES UP TO ORACLE, ELLISON"
Larry Ellison has got Intel Corp worried with his assiduous
campaigning for the network computer, InformationWeek reckons.
The paper reports that Intel CEO Andrew Grove met Ellison
recently to discuss a plan for Intel to provide more active
support to the cause of the NC, a move the paper reckons would
enable NC holdouts Compaq, Dell and HP to embrace the concept
without losing face.
The talks, also involving Jerry Baker, president of Oracle
subsidiary Network Computer Inc, reportedly covered motherboards
optimised for network computers, and pricing issues. The Oracle
spec already calls for a 133MHz Pentium, but Grove suggested that
faster Pentiums should be used. Any such move by Intel would
minimize the embarrassment if the threadbare and overpriced NetPC
design fails to take off.
OR041-16 NOVELL'S NEW CHIEF EXECUTIVE WILL BOOST INTERNET CREDIBILITY
By Gary Flood
Novell Inc finally announced Tuesday that it had been able at
last to persuade a heavy hitter to become its leader. In the
event it wasn't bookie's candidate Ray Lane, chief operating
officer of Oracle Corp - probably because Oracle threw a golden
force field of guaranteed share options around him to keep him in
Redwood City. Instead, Novell snagged Sun Microsystems Inc's
chief technology officer, Eric Schmidt.
Its success in persuading the 41-year old 14-year Sun
Microsystems Inc veteran to move his family photos into its
seven-month long vacant corner office marked 'CEO' is designed to
send out one loud message: intranet, intranet, intranet. Why else
choose a highly respected technologist with impeccable intranet
credentials - the man who more than many in Sun really tried to
make its gnomic 1980s slogan 'The network is the computer'
finally into something real, by championing the development of
Java inside a company that at one time was so web-averse it
wanted to charge its developers $50 a month for using the web?
Three degrees
So needy is Novell as regards intranet capability that it may as
well have chosen web progenitor Tim BernersLee as its chief
executive. Maybe it asked him. For "web cred" has to be the only
reason it chose Schmidt, who has never run a company, to pick it
up from its slump in favor of a financial engineer - the Gerstner
fix a la IBM Corp - or asking a past luminary like former head
Ray Noorda back - the Bring Steve And Woz Back fix a la Apple
Computer Inc.
Schmidt, who boasts three degrees including a PhD from Berkeley,
and who is also a former alumnus of legendary braintrust Xerox
Palo Alto Research Center, has already told The Wall Street
Journal his recipe for rebooting Novell when he takes up the job
full time on April 7: co-existence with Microsoft Corp,
especially Windows NT, which is by ill repute alone seen as
driving Novell's core network operating system NetWare out of its
natural habitat.
Yet plainly this is not all he intends, for that was essentially
the strategy of underpowered former Novell chief executive Robert
Frankenberg, who in his brief tenure before his board nuked him
last August was often desperately back-pedalling the 'embrace and
surround' anti-Microsoft stance of Novell founder Ray Noorda.
Frankenberg must at least be credited with divesting Novell of
Noorda bonehead buys like Unix and WordPerfect and is back down
to its knitting - network operating systems - its future, if it
has one, is in the intranet.
Frankenberg, a personally charming and diffident man but a
lackluster leader, tried to come up with something to get us all
excited about Novell again by misty talk of a giant super-Novell
network of the future, with "a billion connections by the year
2000" and smart houses where you could open your fridge door
remotely via your personal computer on your office desk. Novell
has realised that this was not going to cut it in time, and so it
started banging on its intranet drum late last year.
Intranet in a box
Analysts Forrester Research polled some of its Fortune 500
clients on Novell six months ago, and found that while 90% were
users of NetWare, only 48% expected to still be so in three
years' time: even worse, 72% said they saw no part for Novell to
play in its current or future internet plans. At that time
Forrester concluded Novell's only hope was to become a provider
of intranet technology.
That so many corporations are Novell clients should be no
surprise - NetWare is supposed to have been licensed to 60m users
and run on 1m networks - and just as unsurprising is that up
until very recently Novell had no soundly theorized position on
the network post-internet to offer. NetWare still hasn't wholly
embraced TCP/IP, and is still based on the older and less
internet-friendly IPX protocol.
But now one is meant to speak not of NetWare but its Web-enabled
successor, IntraNetware, a product that combines NetWare with
network services, including integrated messaging, Internet, Web
communications and publishing. Perhaps a better way to think of
the product, though, is as an 'intranet in a box,' since it
combines version 2.5 of Novell's Web server, 50 Netscape browser
licences, an IPX to TCP/IP gateway and a multi-protocol router.
Launched late in 1996, it still made some positive impact on
Novell's last fiscal year (which ends in October).
>From a standing start it sold $103m, helping Novell's third to
fourth quarter sales rise a modest but positive 5%. But all in
all Novell's last financial year was still down 33% to $1.38bn
and it saw its net profits down 63% at $126m. Its first 1997
fiscal quarter showed more IntraNetWare growth but, overall, if
this is a recovery then it is taking place in a sanatorium and
the patient is hardly up jogging yet.
Net profits were down 20% to $51m on revenues down 14% at $375m,
and that after Novell got $61m one-off for selling UnixWare to
Santa Cruz Operation Inc. But core network operating system sales
saw 10% growth year on year, to $251m, the IntraNetware part of
which was $185m.
CEOShip for Dummies
The life sign that investors look to most - share price - is
hardly something to shout about, either. It now seems hard to
believe, but five years ago Novell hit $57; while it rose 10%
Tuesday on the news it still closed at $9.50, which is still way
below its most recent 52-week high of around $15.
So what will Schmidt do at Novell, apart from buy 'CEOShip For
Dummies' down at Barnes & Noble? He'll have to use Novell's
impressive $1.1bn cash pile to acquire some hot intranet start-up
companies to shore up the IntraNetWare message - perhaps a good
area would be intranet systems management, which segues nicely
into what NetWare used to do for us on local area networks.
What is certain is that Novell stands an excellent chance of
getting back on track with one of the top five individuals
responsible for launching Unix and then Java on the world at its
helm.
As for Sun, we understand that it will look for a replacement for
Schmidt, even though the role was created primarily to keep him
within the company.
But his mission there is surely over, and not yet begun at
Novell, which once more must remake itself or die.
OR041-17 NCD REVS WINCENTER TO 3.0
Network Computing Devices Inc (NCD) has duly revved its WinCenter
multi-user Windows NT server application to version 3.0 (OR 38).
In addition, the interface has been changed so that there is no
need for any middleware to handle the various streams of data
from Windows, Java, Unix or legacy applications.
This version also adds load balancing, automated downloading of
operating system patches and a shadowing feature that enables two
or more users to be on the same session simultaneously. This is
especially useful, says the company for technical support staff
to walk users through a problem or for multi-users training.
WinCenter sits atop Citrix Systems Inc's WinFrame multi-users NT
extensions. The load balancer assigns to users to other servers
when one is over-loaded. The new Dynamic BootP enables WinCenter
servers to assign IP addresses to network computers, printers,
routers and other machines.
Available now, WinCenter 3.0 costs $2,300 for a five-user version
- about the same price as the previous version, 2.1, said the
company. Upgrades start at $135 for the package.
http://www.ncd.com
OR041-18 DOT GOSSIP
Haht Software Inc, the much-talked about developer of the
HahtSite web development toolset that SAP AG also resells as well
as uses says it's planning one more round of financing - which
would be its second - before going to an IPO. The Raleigh-North
Carolina company also says it's had 30,000 downloads of the free
trial version of its software from http://www.microsoft.com,
where it's been residing since mid-January, even though one of
its main rivals is Microsoft's own InterDev product, according to
Rowland Archer, co-founder and chief operating officer. Haht
claims 400 corporate customers. HahtSite 2.0 has just been
released and the company's first round financing happened last
April, when it raised $7m. It'll be two years-old in June.
BackWeb Technologies is looking to join the W3C, now its got the
air of respectability having announced its BackWeb client
supporting HTTP to get it through firewalls. The first version
only used its UDP-based Polite Agent protocol to talk to its
channels.
We hear banks linked with CyberCash are wondering why they don't
do the work themselves and eliminate the company's 4% cut.
OK, we were wrong, but the confusion is perhaps understandable
given Sun's planets whizzing round our head in different orbits.
In last week's story about Hewlett-Packard licensing Sun's Java
Workshop we said Sun doesn't have a Just-In-Time (JIT) compiler
(OR 40). Of course, Sun's SunSoft unit does have such a thing and
has had it in beta since December. But, and this is where it gets
muddier still, the JIT is not in Java Workshop 1.0, the current
release, but there is the likelihood, says the company that it
will be in the next cut. And when is that due you may ask? Sun
cannot say just yet. It's JavaOS that doesn't yet have a JIT
compiler of its own, and Sun won't comment on when or if it will
have one (OR 39). Hope that clears it up!
Expect Netcom to announce its new pricing plan for business
customers this week, that it hopes will drag it out of the
financial mire (OR 36). It announced in December that it was
abandoning flat-rate prices and offering premium rates, but has
taken until now to tell us what they are. The ISP's share price
has been steadily sliding towards its 52-week low since mid-way
through last year.
We hear that the Intel Pentium-based network computer that Oracle
Corp's Network Computer Inc (NCI) subsidiary cobbled together,
and Larry Ellison waved around in San Francisco a few weeks back,
got so hot that holes had to be drilled in it to avoid Larry
getting his fingers burned (OR 39).
Sun says the server-side part of its vision will drop as soon as
next month's JavaOne Developers' Conference in San Francisco,
when it'll unfurl those promised Servelet technologies for
creating server-based Java applications and pumping applets down
to Java clients (OR 1). It'll use JavaSoft's Java Beans object-
based component architecture. The big play is to use transaction,
messaging and directory Java APIs in conjunction with Java Beans
and Serverlet to build a middleware layer connecting Java clients
to legacy applications and back-end databases.
Oracle Corp CEO Larry Ellison said last week that there will be
just two clients and two servers revealed in Japan on April 15,
by which the Network Computer Inc (NCI) subsidiary thinks he
means the ARM RISC and Intel versions, rather than just two
client hardware configurations. The two servers are the
enterprise version and the low-end version. He'll also be showing
a visual user interface, as he called it, to make it easier for
new users to do basic tasks.
Digital Equipment Corp claims that its annual internet-related
business now exceeds $1bn. AltaVista can't be doing more than
$80m or so a year and Alpha-based web server sales can't be
enough to make up the difference, which suggests that the number
has to include every DEC personal computer running Internet
Explorer.
IBM is to formally re-launch Taligent at JavaOne. It's promising
a WebRunner Toolkit for building applications using JavaBeans and
other components, and details of a product roadmap and OEM deals.
Is Sun pricing Java out of its own market, before it gets off the
ground? Sources say the cost of a Java source code license has
risen from nothing, to $128,000 and now to $256,000. We're told
that Oracle's Network Computer Inc (NCI) unit even seriously
contemplated doing its own clean-room Java implementation to
avoid these costs.
Following Marimba Inc's deal with Portland Software Inc for its
ZipLock secure container stuff (see page 3), which Marimba's not
ready to talk about yet, and which raises questions about
Marimba's software delivery mechanism, secure delivery seems like
an issue the push technology companies haven't really addressed
yet. Trusted Information Systems Inc certainly thinks so too, and
the security and encryption veteran is targeting the push
companies next with work that's still in the R&D stage. It's also
working on expanding Domain Name Servers to exchange keys and
certificates and the like.
Check Point Software Technologies Ltd, the firewall and security
management company will this week announce a deal with 3Com Corp
to bundle Check Point's enterprise security management console
software with every copy of 3Com's router-based NetBuilder IP
firewall. A full copy of the software will be available to
NetBuilder purchaser free for 60 days. The console is based on
Check Point's Open Platform for Secure Enterprise Connectivity.
Users will see the Check Point OPSEC GUI, the same used in its
Firewall-1 product. Check Point reckons this is the first time
two firewall vendors have made their products interoperable.
Check Point would not disclose the financial terms.
In submitting to ISO/IEC JTC1 via the PAS Publicly Available
Specification route (see page 3) - Sun Microsystems Inc bypassed
a Java Study Group created by JTC1's SC22 language subcommittee
to investigate Java standardisation options. Although the group
doesn't feel snubbed - a PAS submission is voted on at the JTC1
level (as are all standards), but without having come up through
the subcommittee structure - its convener Bob Mathis was
surprised by the timing of the message. "We called off our early
April meeting because we didn't think Sun would have made its
decision by then." It seems likely the group's June 30 - July 1
meeting in London will have an important agenda.
Sun Microsystems Computer Co boss Ed Zander wishes those
JavaStations were happening faster too (OR 40). Zander's been
waiting for the microSparc IIep technology to start flowing as
much as anyone else given he's promised there'll be 3,000
JavaStations on the desktops of Sun employees - that's one for
every six staff - by July 1.
WebTV Networks Inc and its favorite website - E! Online, the web
version of the E! entertainment channel for those who finds the
lives of celebrities actually interesting, are getting together
to expand the options available to WebTV users. E! will provide
content to act as the anchor for the entertainment channel on
WebTV, and viewers will be able to gave their say in a chat room
for the Oscars, vote for their favorites and get picture-picture
capabilities on their TVs to watch both the web and the TV
simultaneously.
Motorola Inc has set up a smartcard unit as part of its land
mobile products sector, promising product by the year-end, and is
independent of its semiconductor business, which already supplies
chips to smart card vendors.
Sun claims that within a year - 18 months at the outside - there
will be more Java developers than Windows developers. Sun points
to research which suggests there are now 250,000 developers doing
serious Java development work, versus 400,000 Windows
programmers.
The ESPNET SportsZone site last week introduced a daily
subscription rate in addition to its monthly subscriber fee. It's
got together with CyberCash Inc to use the latter's CyberCoin
electronic payments. The site costs from $1 a day upwards,
depending on the content accessed.
Sources tell us that Acorn Computer Plc went along to Lucent
Technologies last summer in the US to talk about the possibility
of Inferno running on the Advanced RISC Machines Ltd ARM RISC
processor and was somewhat surprised by the reaction. Lucent
dismissed the ARM option, saying it wasn't interested in
multimedia.
Meantime, Acorn is so worried about the ARM chip being dumped
completely in favor of Intel - the contract is said by sources to
be "on hold to a degree", that it has even asked Network Computer
Inc if it can become a licensee of the NC design as well, though
we don't know if that would be a more consumer-oriented machine
or not.
From: ComputerWire Plc
Sent: Friday, March 21, 1997 9:51 AM
To: olr_all@computerwire.co.uk
Subject: Online Reporter March 24-28 1997 Issue Number 041
-------------------------------
| O N L I N E R E P O R T E R |
-------------------------------
Weekly dispatches from the Internet Front
Online Reporter is published weekly by G-2 Computer
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Editor: Nick Patience (nick@computerwire.com)
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(c) Copyright 1997 ComputerWire plc.
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London, March 24-28 1997
Issue Number 041
------------------------ HEADLINES ------------------------
OR041-01 ORACLE NETWORK COMPUTERS STILL WINDOWS-LESS?
OR041-02 BLYTH, SOON TO BE OMNIS SOFTWARE, REVS OMNIS WEB RAD
OR041-03 PATRIOT HAS SILICON FOR ITS FIRST PSC1000 JAVA CHIP
OR041-04 NOVELL AND NETSCAPE TO FORM JOINT COMPANY - NOVONYX
OR041-05 SUN PUTS JAVA THROUGH ISO
OR041-06 PORTLAND UNLEASHES ZIPLOCK 2.0, DEALS IN PIPELINE
OR041-07 IBM BRINGS NETOBJECTS UNDER BIG BLUE UMBRELLA
OR041-08 POINTCAST DENIES NEWS CORP TAKEOVER RUMORS, IPO ON TRACK
OR041-09 YAHOO! WINS RIGHT TO RUN NETSCAPE DESTINATIONS GUIDE
OR041-10 EXCITE TO CHANGE TO CHANNELS
OR041-11 70 MILLIONS CONSUMER NC DEVICES BY 2000 - ZONA
OR041-12 ISVS SCRAP OVER WINDOWS ACCESS FROM JAVA
OR041-13 NETSCAPE SEARCH PARTNERS RE-SIGN ON SEARCH BUTTON
OR041-14 NEWFIRE IGNITES TORCH 3D PLUG-IN
OR041-15 NETPC MAY NOT CUT IT, SO INTEL "COZIES UP TO ORACLE, ELLISON"
OR041-16 NOVELL'S NEW CHIEF EXECUTIVE WILL BOOST INTERNET CREDIBILITY
OR041-17 NCD REVS WINCENTER TO 3.0
OR041-18 DOT GOSSIP
OR041-01 ORACLE NETWORK COMPUTERS STILL WINDOWS-LESS?
Our sister publication ClieNT Server News heard last week that
Oracle Corp's hush-hush Network Computer Inc (NCI) subsidiary had
gone through no less than six operating systems for its NC
reference design: it's own, Acorn's RISC OS, Pegasus, VxWorks and
JavaOS.
It is now concentrating its efforts on NetBSD, with a development
team in India - which seems strange considering NetBSD is
shareware. But if Oracle does it well, it could create another
revenue stream for itself to compete against JavaOS.
Meantime, according to sources familiar with goings-on inside
NCI, its near-manic obsession with doing the opposite to
everything Redmond does has left the NC design without the
ability to run Windows applications. We hear the company really
doesn't care about the operating system or even the hardware; all
NCI is concerned about is that the NCs will run its client and
server software, which seems fair enough.
But the one thing that will probably stop Oracle NCs from flying,
compared to IBM, HDS or Network Computing Devices' boxes is this
lack of Windows support, and it's Windows the corporate world
wants to run here and now, not Java.
NCI said last week that the NCs will be for "purely Java and
HTML" and wouldn't comment on whether or not it is considering
licensing any technology to enable it to do this. NCD wouldn't
comment on whether it was talking to Oracle about its WinCenter
product - a combination of Citrix' ICA protocol software and an X
Windows layer on top.
But the likely winner of Oracle's heart seems to be Insignia
Solutions Inc, with its NTrigue product, the Java version of
which is called Keoke (see page 2), derived from Citrix' stuff.
"We don't have any deals we can comment on," was the company's
response regarding Oracle last week.
Sources say NCI won't be ready to run Windows applications until
the year-end. Sun Microsystems Inc has licensed Insignia's Keoke.
So, it would appear that the biggest hype merchant in the NC
space, and the originator of the concept would seem to be the
least prepared to do what people really want to do with these
things.
The irony for Oracle is that Microsoft, now working on its Hydra
multi-user NT that is likely to put Citrix out of business, and
reportedly recruiting X programmers, has a bit of time to catch
up and make its NetPCs and the accompanying software look just as
attractive a proposition as an NC running Oracle software. And
we've seen how nimble on its feet Microsoft can be if it has to
be.
OR041-02 BLYTH, SOON TO BE OMNIS SOFTWARE, REVS OMNIS WEB RAD
Blyth Software Inc has released version 2.0 of its Omnis Web RAD
web development toolset. The company will change its name after
its main product - Omnis Software Inc - from April 1, and the
follow-up product, a kind of premier version of Omnis, codenamed
Prometheus will be available in May.
The main change in version 2.0 is server agents to fire
dynamically-generated data down to browsers. The agents contain
the client-server logic that used to appear only on a fat client,
according to David McKay, director of product marketing and
management. Making it into an agent means it can be placed on the
network for use wherever the users chooses. Blyth, sorry Omnis,
will launch a product in late summer called Omnis Agent which is
a backplane for hosting these agents.
A prototype version of Omnis Agent, called WebGate is available
now showing examples of how to create cross-platform web servers.
HTML conversion has also been improved in version 2.0 to produce
a second version of reports with HTML tags.
The name of the holding company - Blyth Holdings will have to
wait until a shareholders meeting in July, but the UK business
will change to Omnis Software Ltd at the same time as in the US.
There are various packages for existing Omnis users and for
existing Web RAD users - Web RAD is a combination of the Omnis
database and cross-platform client-server application development
toolset and the Web-enabling software - as well as for newcomers
to Omnis, and a myriad of discounts for bundled options.
For Omnis 7 users who haven't yet got their apps to the web the
Jumpstart Pak costs $2,000 to do this. For existing Web RAD users
there are various packages starting at $1,500.
http://www.blyth.com
OR041-03 PATRIOT HAS SILICON FOR ITS FIRST PSC1000 JAVA CHIP
Patriot Scientific Corp, purveyors of the ShBoom Java chip
implementation, which it wants to be known now only as PSC1000,
has now got silicon from its 0.8 micron process and expects to go
to silicon with the 0.5 micron version within 30 days.
Patriot claims to be both faster and cheaper than Sun
Microsystems Inc's picoJava implementation - less than half the
published price of picoJava, which we hear is either $20 or $100
per chip depending on clock speed.
The San Diego, California company says it's on the verge of deals
with some household names in both the semiconductor business and
end-user product manufacturers in the US, Europe and the Far
East.
Patriot executives were recently on tour in Japan and Korea
talking to six companies and "more than one" of its potential
customers is going to make network computers using the chip, but
there are no names just yet. One is said to be on the second or
third draft of a definitive agreement with Patriot, says the
company. http://www.ptsc.com
OR041-04 NOVELL AND NETSCAPE TO FORM JOINT COMPANY - NOVONYX
As we went to press, Novell Inc and Netscape Communications Corp
announced that they would be forming a jointly owned networking
software company called Novonyx.
The start-up is to port Netscape's SuiteSpot communication
software to Novell's IntranetWare and according to the companies
it will have deliverable products within a few months. These
products are being positioned as direct competition to similar
offerings from Microsoft and IBM's Lotus Development software
division and are to be distributed by Novell.
Financial details of the arrangement were not disclosed, and the
companies declined to reveal their individual stakes in the new
company. Novonyx is to be based near Novell's Provo, Utah-based
headquarters.
OR041-05 SUN PUTS JAVA THROUGH ISO
Following months of speculation Sun Microsystems Inc has decided
to get the Java standardization process moving and has gone to
the largest standards body of them all: the International
Standards Organization (ISO). However not everyone's a happy
camper about the route Sun has chosen. It has applied to ISO and
the International Electrotechnical Commission's (IEC) Joint
Technical Committee 1 (JTC1) to become a PAS Publicly Available
Specification submitter.
If Sun's application is approved - and JTC1 will give its
decision in July - Sun will then submit Java, presumably based on
the books that are currently available, and spell out its Java
roadmap which it will prepare in the interim period, according to
Jim Mitchell, JavaSoft VP technology and architecture.
Some insiders say that if ISO approves Sun's application and Java
is published as an ISO specification without moving through
conventional standards processes - PAS submitters do not have to
pass through JTC1 SC22 or other subcommittee reviews - then ISO
is in danger of becoming just another book publisher. What's to
stop IBM Corp or Microsoft Corp applying for PAS too they ask?
To date, only the European Workshop for Open Systems, X/Open, the
Digital Audio Visual Council and VESA Video Electronics Standards
Association have been approved by JTC 1 as recognized PAS
Submitters: no individual companies.
Slightly cagey
However, even critics think that in Java's case, ISO's likely to
sign off on a specification that in effect is not a standard in
form or has had no industry review as other PAS specifications
have had.
As far as testing and certification goes, it's all a bit early.
Sergio Mazza, president and CEO of the American National
Standards Institution (ANSI) said the majority of specs don't
even have a certification process, and it is not the job of the
ISO to implement one.
The process has nothing to do with the Java name however - Sun
will retain the rights to that. Java implementations can be
written, but they cannot be called Java unless done by Sun. Sun
was being slightly cagey about exactly which parts will be put
forward for spec - all will be revealed come July, promised
Mitchell.
The JTC secretariat distributes the application to each voting
member - usually national standards bodies like ANSI, British
Standards Institute and so on. The voting members get three
months to review, comment and vote on the submission. The
secretariat then forwards the result to Sun. The fee-based
European Computer Manufacturers Association has already agreed to
hand over its work on an ECMAscript (JavaScript) specification to
ISO JTC1 once it is complete.
OR041-06 PORTLAND UNLEASHES ZIPLOCK 2.0, DEALS IN PIPELINE
Portland Software Inc, the company started two years ago by
author, script writer and producer Charles Jennings has released
the second cut of its ZipLock electronic software distribution
system. ZipLock is software that generates a container for
whatever software you wish to distribute.
The company's big boast is its link with Microsoft Corp. It will
shortly announce that Redmond is committed to building ZipLock
containing for all of its software products - Portland is the
only certified technology for selling Microsoft products.
Another major partner that Portland Software has snagged is
Marimba Inc. The two are talking right now about first using
ZipLock to distribute Marimba's Castanet push technology - which
begs the question of how secure Marimba's existing channel
technology is - and secondly, integrating ZipLock into Castanet,
so every company using Marimba's stuff to distribute its software
can enclose it in a ZipLock container as well.
Portland is expecting to announce additional funding of between
$15m and $20m in the next few weeks through a combination of
venture capital and investments in the company, according to
Terry Murphy, senior director of strategic alliances at Portland.
The company raised $1m last June and $3.5m last November through
Olympic Venture Partners of Kirkland and YBR Associates of
Chicago. Other investors include Internex Information Services
which uses ZipLock in its Internet hosting architecture,
PowerCommerce Clearing House (OR 25).
The ZipLock architecture contains three components: the Builder
that the publisher uses for packaging, branding and encrypting
software and enclosing it into a container that is bundled with
the second component - the Client. The Client leads the buyer
through the purchase process, connecting to the clearing house
and de-encrypting the software. It launches the software and
presents the user with a receipt. The third component, the
Server, resides with the trusted third party - Portland has deals
with LitleNet, CyberSource and InterNex.
New with release 2.0 is a Try-and-Buy option which is currently
in beta. It enables publishers to define trial periods and costs.
Zert License Manager is an unalterable document that combines
receipt and certificate and enables returns and re-installations
while maintaining the license integrity.
Future versions will support multiple licenses for the product.
Other things in the pipeline - apart from the Microsoft promise
to ZipLock everything - include a channel brander so each link in
the chain can re-brand a product as it sees fit, and a server-
side version of the builder, said Murphy. Also planned is a Zert
generator and viewer. This version also includes 96-bit RSA
encryption, which means that the Builder is for the US market
only right now, but like so many others, Portland reckons the
government will have a change of heart soon and allow export of
these types of encryption levels and beyond.
Server platforms supported right now are Solaris and Windows NT,
but AIX and HP-UX support is planned. It also supports Microsoft
Internet Information Server, Netscape Enterprise Server and
Oracle Web Server. Lotus Domino support is due in the summer, and
Open Market Inc is looking to support it, according to Murphy.
A browser plug-in is also planned for the summer, but the company
hasn't decided whether that's going to Java or ActiveX-based
systems or even both. In terms of a broader Java strategy,
Portland reckons a Java applet could have a role in accessing
Zert certificates in a repository. Jennings founded Portland
after working on the screen savers for Pocahontas and Toy Story
and deciding that the computer business was for him.
http://www.portsoft.com
OR041-07 IBM BRINGS NETOBJECTS UNDER BIG BLUE UMBRELLA
In a very un-IBM-like way Big Blue has decided to take a leaf out
of Microsoft's book and take a majority stake in NetObjects Inc
before anybody else does.
The Redwood City, California purveyor of the Fusion web
development suite is already working fairly closely with Big
Blue, as IBM bundles the tool with the net.data web interface for
DB2 and Lotus used Fusion to develop its Kona Java desktop its
showed at Lotusphere in January (OR 34).
The size of the stake was not disclosed but reports suggest IBM
paid between $50m and $80m, and all the original investors have
retained their stakes, albeit slightly diluted. Lotus executive
VP Mike Zisman joins the NetObjects board to represent IBM.
Zisman said the taking of the stake did not preclude the
possibility of NetObjects still going public some day.
Zisman rationalized the purchase by saying that a bad outcome for
IBM would've been to become reliant on the technology and then
have it acquired by another company, although IBM Software head
John M Thompson said there was no unusual level of outside
pressure in this case.
However, he did reveal that IBM was very close to an OEM deal
with Vermeer Technologies Inc 18 months ago when Microsoft
swooped and acquired the company for its FrontPage web
development tool: "I learned a lesson, I guess, over that," said
Thompson.
OR041-08 POINTCAST DENIES NEWS CORP TAKEOVER RUMORS, IPO ON TRACK
Officials from PointCast Inc were last week vigorously denying a
report in the Wall Street Journal that News Corp was in talks to
acquire the screen saver-cum-push technology pioneer for between
$350m and $450m cash. News Corp Ltd was not denying the story,
merely offering no comment. "There is zero percent chance of
that, that's just not going to happen," PointCast chief executive
officer Christopher Hassett told Reuters confidently.
Hassett, whose tone implied the approach is unwelcome, despite
the large sums involved, added that the intention however is not
to remain private, but to go for an initial public offering
(IPO), probably this year. Cupertino, California-based PointCast
has raised $48m in private funding thus far. Hassett also said
that the company's investment banker, Morgan Stanley would handle
any IPO.
An acquisition by a media giant like News Corp would not best
please some of PointCast's partners, including Time Warner Inc,
Dow Jones & Co, Times Mirror Co or Knight-Ridder Inc, who all
have channels on PointCast's desktop. Hassett also said rumors of
a possible takeover by another of its partners, Microsoft Corp,
were just as spurious.
OR041-09 YAHOO! WINS RIGHT TO RUN NETSCAPE DESTINATIONS GUIDE
Yahoo! Inc has won the right to design, produce and operate a
navigation service that'll replace Netscape Communications Corp's
popular Destinations button on its Navigator and Communicator
desktops. The Netscape Guide by Yahoo!, as it will be called,
will bring four million visitors a day to the Netscape site with
a service showcasing the best of the web in place of the guide
Netscape currently operates itself.
According to Yahoo, the deal is a perfect match because Netscape
wants to create a more compelling website for its many visitors,
and website content is Yahoo's specialty. Financially speaking,
Yahoo will sell advertising on the site and will give a
percentage back to Netscape. Neither company would reveal the
percentages but a source at Yahoo said that Yahoo would get "the
majority."
Nobody would say whether or not Yahoo! paid a fee to take over
the service but it must be considered likely as Netscape charges
for space on its other buttons (see story on page 2). The Net
Search button went for a total of around $20m, so it's likely to
have cost Yahoo at least a few million.
The Yahoo-based button will be included with new versions of the
Netscape browser from the second quarter of 1997. Users with
previous versions of the Navigator browser will be able to access
the service by clicking on the Destinations button.
On a day when most technology stocks were faltering, Wall Street
cheered the news as Yahoo shares closed up 9% at $24.75, with
Netscape closing up 5% at $27.75. The day after Robertson
Stephens & Co analyst Keith Benjamin upped Yahoo! to long-term
attractive from market performer. Benjamin also predicted 1998
fiscal revenues of $82.3m and earnings per share of $0.40. First
Call analysts' estimates were all upped slightly as a result of
the deal. Yahoo! shares put on another $4.1875, or 17% to close
at $28.9375 on Thursday. http://www.yahoo.com
OR041-10 EXCITE TO CHANGE TO CHANNELS
Excite Inc has swallowed the web-needs-to-look-more-like-TV
propaganda, and is switching its model to a channel-like
metaphor: the first of the major search engine companies to do
so.
The Mountain Viewer will initiate a three-phase roll-out over 45
days, starting with 14 channels it will be offering to
advertisers, including such stuff as sports, arts and
entertainment, business and investing and so on. It will use its
existing content partners while looking for new ones to fill out
the site.
The look of excite.com will not change until next month, when the
second phase begins and the channels appear on the site. The last
phase will be the splitting out of the channels into separate
units of their own, each with their own producer, and they will
be honed to focus on the types of people that use them and able
to organize their own distribution deals, the company said.
OR041-11 70 MILLIONS CONSUMER NC DEVICES BY 2000 - ZONA
Zona Research Inc has produced what it modestly calls a "seminal
report" on the number of network computers we're likely to see
around in the next few years.
The Redwood City market researcher reckons the worldwide
commercial NC market size will grow from 1.7 million units this
year to 6.7 million by 2000. The consumer-side numbers are far
more dramatic, but that category ropes in all web-enabled
televisions and telephones and any other device that's used
outside the office that might get the web treatment in the next
few years. Zona reckons that market will explode from two million
units this year, to 70 million by 2000. It also reckons the total
cost of ownership will not be the significant force driving sales
of NCs, it's the same old reason any hardware platform flies or
fails: applications.
Motorola Inc has set up a smartcard unit as part of its land
mobile products sector, promising product by the year-end.
OR041-12 ISVS SCRAP OVER WINDOWS ACCESS FROM JAVA
There's a bit of a scrap going on between purveyors of Windows
application server software over who's first to deliver access to
Windows applications from Java devices, but it's all rather
irrelevant when you consider that Microsoft Corp's plan to
introduce its own multiuser version of Windows NT may adversely
affect the businesses of at least one if not all of them (OR38).
Insignia Solutions Inc says it's now shipping a Java version of
its NTrigue client software that allows any Java-supported
platform or browser to run Windows applications - a necessity for
any Java network computer, considering the deficit of Java
applications and the heavy user demand for running Microsoft
programs.
The Java client is based upon a skinny version of the standard X
Windows graphics protocol developed by Insignia called Keoke. It
requires NTrigue server software be present to run the Windows
applications. The client is actually a Java applet which is
downloaded from an Intel Corp-based server enabling the Java
device to access the NTrigue server and run Windows 95, 3.x and
NT applications.
Insignia is shipping the client as part of an NTrigue enhancement
pack which is being made available to customers with NTrigue
maintenance contracts. Sun Microsystems Inc is bundling the
client on its JavaStations but does not supply the NTrigue server
software which is based upon Citrix Systems Inc's ICA WinFrame
technology that supports concurrent remote access to applications
running on Intel-based NT servers by multiple end-users.
Precisely the technology Microsoft is readying for a future
version of NT and the reason why Citrix's stock has dropped
through the floor.
Insignia expects to make its money from the server, which sells
for $7,500 for 15 concurrent users and a cut-down version for
five concurrent users costs $2,000. Windows applications will be
accessible on JavaStations with the click of an icon.
Meantime, Exodus Technologies Inc, of Bellevue, Washington,
claims it has been shipping a beta of the Java-enabled version of
its NTerprise Windows application server software client to
selected customers for sometime and that a general release will
be made available in a couple of weeks' time. NTerprise competes
directly with NTrigue.
Although NTerprise uses a multiuser NT technology licensed from
Paris-based Groupe Prologue SA - and because Microsoft hasn't
granted Prologue a license to NT 4.0 - Exodus' 4.0 beta is still
sitting on the shelf. Exodus CEO Steve Kangas sees his company's
value-add specifically in terms of the distributed display and
client/server transport protocol it adds in NTerprise. Exodus,
the heir to ConnectSoft Inc, one of the three original companies
including Citrix and Prologue that has been working on multiuser
NT for years, developed the last two technologies and blended
them with Prologue's multiuser operating system. Like rival
Citrix, Exodus' is a software solution.
Prologue's WinTimes is referred to as a hardware solution because
the underlying hardware uses a black box to access WinTimes on
the NT server. Citrix, for its part, is currently rewriting its
WinFrame client to produce a Java version. Citrix is still only
on Intel platforms and Exodus has moved into RISC. Although he
admits the company is in an "uncomfortable" position until
Microsoft makes its plan for Hydra clear, Kangas is confident
Microsoft won't ship a thin client, distributed display
technology in Hydra like the one we heard it might have got from
Intel, nor a client/server transport protocol.
Even if it does, Kangas believes, it'll likely do something
specific like an applet to support Windows CE devices and not a
generic thin client mechanism. In any case "we are not in the
business of selling multiuser NT," Kangas says, although he
admits that if Microsoft ships a Windows application server "it
will have a material affect on our business." His and a whole
bunch of others too.
OR041-13 NETSCAPE SEARCH PARTNERS RE-SIGN ON SEARCH BUTTON
Despite a lot of talk about the high cost and questionable value,
Netscape Communications Corp duly persuaded its premier partners
to re-sign for another year to have their search engines featured
on every Netscape desktop.
The four partners are Yahoo! Inc, Excite Inc, Infoseek Inc and
Lycos Inc. Excite also owns the Webcrawler engine which has a
place on the fifth button, which is now a pot pourri of search
engines. Netscape wasn't saying last week what the other ones on
the fifth button will be.
So, from May 1, the 'Net Search' button will give users the
option to pick their favorite from the four in a search engine
beauty contest, and the fifth button can also be customized for
an engine of their choice from the list of Marquee Providers - a
kind of 'fastest loser' arrangement. Netscape said the partners
are optimizing their sites for use with its forthcoming
Communicator follow-up to Navigator.
Last year each premier partner had to pay $5m for the privilege
of appearing on a button, but the deals are structured
differently this year. Because of the user's ability to set
defaults, Netscape can't guarantee the level of traffic that each
site will get - last year the tabs were rotated across all the
traffic giving everyone a fair shot. So there's a minimum
guarantee for each partner and then the rest is done on a pay-
per-view basis, so the amount will vary from partner to partner,
according to Jennifer Bailey, Netscape's VP electronic marketing.
Bailey added that the cost per impression is similar to last
year's deal.
Excite and Lycos have both told us recently that they were
seeking out new distribution channels as an alternative to the
buttons, so Maybe the Netscape deal is more attractive for them
this year. We won't know until one of the search engine companies
reports its figures containing the cost.
OR041-14 NEWFIRE IGNITES TORCH 3D PLUG-IN
Newfire Inc, a start-up formerly known as Axial Systems Inc has
got its browser 3D plug-in available on its website, which it
claims is four to six times faster than any other VRML (Virtual
Reality Modeling Language) plug-in and beats the pants off
performance found in today's games consoles.
The company has also renamed the product, from Heat to Torch. It
claims more than 300 software developers have signed up to its
Ignition developer program. Newfire's secret weapon, it reckons,
is its Visible Scene Management, which only shows those polygons
that can possibly be viewed from a given point, cutting down on
the amount of rendering that's required and thus making the
animation smoother and faster, the company claims.
But Newfire's real focus will eventually be on tools. This week
its showing an optimizer tool and will be ready to show the rest
of them around the end of April. At that time the company is also
expected to announce support for Microsoft Internet Explorer: its
just a Navigator plug-in right now.
OR041-15 NETPC MAY NOT CUT IT, SO INTEL "COZIES UP TO ORACLE, ELLISON"
Larry Ellison has got Intel Corp worried with his assiduous
campaigning for the network computer, InformationWeek reckons.
The paper reports that Intel CEO Andrew Grove met Ellison
recently to discuss a plan for Intel to provide more active
support to the cause of the NC, a move the paper reckons would
enable NC holdouts Compaq, Dell and HP to embrace the concept
without losing face.
The talks, also involving Jerry Baker, president of Oracle
subsidiary Network Computer Inc, reportedly covered motherboards
optimised for network computers, and pricing issues. The Oracle
spec already calls for a 133MHz Pentium, but Grove suggested that
faster Pentiums should be used. Any such move by Intel would
minimize the embarrassment if the threadbare and overpriced NetPC
design fails to take off.
OR041-16 NOVELL'S NEW CHIEF EXECUTIVE WILL BOOST INTERNET CREDIBILITY
By Gary Flood
Novell Inc finally announced Tuesday that it had been able at
last to persuade a heavy hitter to become its leader. In the
event it wasn't bookie's candidate Ray Lane, chief operating
officer of Oracle Corp - probably because Oracle threw a golden
force field of guaranteed share options around him to keep him in
Redwood City. Instead, Novell snagged Sun Microsystems Inc's
chief technology officer, Eric Schmidt.
Its success in persuading the 41-year old 14-year Sun
Microsystems Inc veteran to move his family photos into its
seven-month long vacant corner office marked 'CEO' is designed to
send out one loud message: intranet, intranet, intranet. Why else
choose a highly respected technologist with impeccable intranet
credentials - the man who more than many in Sun really tried to
make its gnomic 1980s slogan 'The network is the computer'
finally into something real, by championing the development of
Java inside a company that at one time was so web-averse it
wanted to charge its developers $50 a month for using the web?
Three degrees
So needy is Novell as regards intranet capability that it may as
well have chosen web progenitor Tim BernersLee as its chief
executive. Maybe it asked him. For "web cred" has to be the only
reason it chose Schmidt, who has never run a company, to pick it
up from its slump in favor of a financial engineer - the Gerstner
fix a la IBM Corp - or asking a past luminary like former head
Ray Noorda back - the Bring Steve And Woz Back fix a la Apple
Computer Inc.
Schmidt, who boasts three degrees including a PhD from Berkeley,
and who is also a former alumnus of legendary braintrust Xerox
Palo Alto Research Center, has already told The Wall Street
Journal his recipe for rebooting Novell when he takes up the job
full time on April 7: co-existence with Microsoft Corp,
especially Windows NT, which is by ill repute alone seen as
driving Novell's core network operating system NetWare out of its
natural habitat.
Yet plainly this is not all he intends, for that was essentially
the strategy of underpowered former Novell chief executive Robert
Frankenberg, who in his brief tenure before his board nuked him
last August was often desperately back-pedalling the 'embrace and
surround' anti-Microsoft stance of Novell founder Ray Noorda.
Frankenberg must at least be credited with divesting Novell of
Noorda bonehead buys like Unix and WordPerfect and is back down
to its knitting - network operating systems - its future, if it
has one, is in the intranet.
Frankenberg, a personally charming and diffident man but a
lackluster leader, tried to come up with something to get us all
excited about Novell again by misty talk of a giant super-Novell
network of the future, with "a billion connections by the year
2000" and smart houses where you could open your fridge door
remotely via your personal computer on your office desk. Novell
has realised that this was not going to cut it in time, and so it
started banging on its intranet drum late last year.
Intranet in a box
Analysts Forrester Research polled some of its Fortune 500
clients on Novell six months ago, and found that while 90% were
users of NetWare, only 48% expected to still be so in three
years' time: even worse, 72% said they saw no part for Novell to
play in its current or future internet plans. At that time
Forrester concluded Novell's only hope was to become a provider
of intranet technology.
That so many corporations are Novell clients should be no
surprise - NetWare is supposed to have been licensed to 60m users
and run on 1m networks - and just as unsurprising is that up
until very recently Novell had no soundly theorized position on
the network post-internet to offer. NetWare still hasn't wholly
embraced TCP/IP, and is still based on the older and less
internet-friendly IPX protocol.
But now one is meant to speak not of NetWare but its Web-enabled
successor, IntraNetware, a product that combines NetWare with
network services, including integrated messaging, Internet, Web
communications and publishing. Perhaps a better way to think of
the product, though, is as an 'intranet in a box,' since it
combines version 2.5 of Novell's Web server, 50 Netscape browser
licences, an IPX to TCP/IP gateway and a multi-protocol router.
Launched late in 1996, it still made some positive impact on
Novell's last fiscal year (which ends in October).
>From a standing start it sold $103m, helping Novell's third to
fourth quarter sales rise a modest but positive 5%. But all in
all Novell's last financial year was still down 33% to $1.38bn
and it saw its net profits down 63% at $126m. Its first 1997
fiscal quarter showed more IntraNetWare growth but, overall, if
this is a recovery then it is taking place in a sanatorium and
the patient is hardly up jogging yet.
Net profits were down 20% to $51m on revenues down 14% at $375m,
and that after Novell got $61m one-off for selling UnixWare to
Santa Cruz Operation Inc. But core network operating system sales
saw 10% growth year on year, to $251m, the IntraNetware part of
which was $185m.
CEOShip for Dummies
The life sign that investors look to most - share price - is
hardly something to shout about, either. It now seems hard to
believe, but five years ago Novell hit $57; while it rose 10%
Tuesday on the news it still closed at $9.50, which is still way
below its most recent 52-week high of around $15.
So what will Schmidt do at Novell, apart from buy 'CEOShip For
Dummies' down at Barnes & Noble? He'll have to use Novell's
impressive $1.1bn cash pile to acquire some hot intranet start-up
companies to shore up the IntraNetWare message - perhaps a good
area would be intranet systems management, which segues nicely
into what NetWare used to do for us on local area networks.
What is certain is that Novell stands an excellent chance of
getting back on track with one of the top five individuals
responsible for launching Unix and then Java on the world at its
helm.
As for Sun, we understand that it will look for a replacement for
Schmidt, even though the role was created primarily to keep him
within the company.
But his mission there is surely over, and not yet begun at
Novell, which once more must remake itself or die.
OR041-17 NCD REVS WINCENTER TO 3.0
Network Computing Devices Inc (NCD) has duly revved its WinCenter
multi-user Windows NT server application to version 3.0 (OR 38).
In addition, the interface has been changed so that there is no
need for any middleware to handle the various streams of data
from Windows, Java, Unix or legacy applications.
This version also adds load balancing, automated downloading of
operating system patches and a shadowing feature that enables two
or more users to be on the same session simultaneously. This is
especially useful, says the company for technical support staff
to walk users through a problem or for multi-users training.
WinCenter sits atop Citrix Systems Inc's WinFrame multi-users NT
extensions. The load balancer assigns to users to other servers
when one is over-loaded. The new Dynamic BootP enables WinCenter
servers to assign IP addresses to network computers, printers,
routers and other machines.
Available now, WinCenter 3.0 costs $2,300 for a five-user version
- about the same price as the previous version, 2.1, said the
company. Upgrades start at $135 for the package.
http://www.ncd.com
OR041-18 DOT GOSSIP
Haht Software Inc, the much-talked about developer of the
HahtSite web development toolset that SAP AG also resells as well
as uses says it's planning one more round of financing - which
would be its second - before going to an IPO. The Raleigh-North
Carolina company also says it's had 30,000 downloads of the free
trial version of its software from http://www.microsoft.com,
where it's been residing since mid-January, even though one of
its main rivals is Microsoft's own InterDev product, according to
Rowland Archer, co-founder and chief operating officer. Haht
claims 400 corporate customers. HahtSite 2.0 has just been
released and the company's first round financing happened last
April, when it raised $7m. It'll be two years-old in June.
BackWeb Technologies is looking to join the W3C, now its got the
air of respectability having announced its BackWeb client
supporting HTTP to get it through firewalls. The first version
only used its UDP-based Polite Agent protocol to talk to its
channels.
We hear banks linked with CyberCash are wondering why they don't
do the work themselves and eliminate the company's 4% cut.
OK, we were wrong, but the confusion is perhaps understandable
given Sun's planets whizzing round our head in different orbits.
In last week's story about Hewlett-Packard licensing Sun's Java
Workshop we said Sun doesn't have a Just-In-Time (JIT) compiler
(OR 40). Of course, Sun's SunSoft unit does have such a thing and
has had it in beta since December. But, and this is where it gets
muddier still, the JIT is not in Java Workshop 1.0, the current
release, but there is the likelihood, says the company that it
will be in the next cut. And when is that due you may ask? Sun
cannot say just yet. It's JavaOS that doesn't yet have a JIT
compiler of its own, and Sun won't comment on when or if it will
have one (OR 39). Hope that clears it up!
Expect Netcom to announce its new pricing plan for business
customers this week, that it hopes will drag it out of the
financial mire (OR 36). It announced in December that it was
abandoning flat-rate prices and offering premium rates, but has
taken until now to tell us what they are. The ISP's share price
has been steadily sliding towards its 52-week low since mid-way
through last year.
We hear that the Intel Pentium-based network computer that Oracle
Corp's Network Computer Inc (NCI) subsidiary cobbled together,
and Larry Ellison waved around in San Francisco a few weeks back,
got so hot that holes had to be drilled in it to avoid Larry
getting his fingers burned (OR 39).
Sun says the server-side part of its vision will drop as soon as
next month's JavaOne Developers' Conference in San Francisco,
when it'll unfurl those promised Servelet technologies for
creating server-based Java applications and pumping applets down
to Java clients (OR 1). It'll use JavaSoft's Java Beans object-
based component architecture. The big play is to use transaction,
messaging and directory Java APIs in conjunction with Java Beans
and Serverlet to build a middleware layer connecting Java clients
to legacy applications and back-end databases.
Oracle Corp CEO Larry Ellison said last week that there will be
just two clients and two servers revealed in Japan on April 15,
by which the Network Computer Inc (NCI) subsidiary thinks he
means the ARM RISC and Intel versions, rather than just two
client hardware configurations. The two servers are the
enterprise version and the low-end version. He'll also be showing
a visual user interface, as he called it, to make it easier for
new users to do basic tasks.
Digital Equipment Corp claims that its annual internet-related
business now exceeds $1bn. AltaVista can't be doing more than
$80m or so a year and Alpha-based web server sales can't be
enough to make up the difference, which suggests that the number
has to include every DEC personal computer running Internet
Explorer.
IBM is to formally re-launch Taligent at JavaOne. It's promising
a WebRunner Toolkit for building applications using JavaBeans and
other components, and details of a product roadmap and OEM deals.
Is Sun pricing Java out of its own market, before it gets off the
ground? Sources say the cost of a Java source code license has
risen from nothing, to $128,000 and now to $256,000. We're told
that Oracle's Network Computer Inc (NCI) unit even seriously
contemplated doing its own clean-room Java implementation to
avoid these costs.
Following Marimba Inc's deal with Portland Software Inc for its
ZipLock secure container stuff (see page 3), which Marimba's not
ready to talk about yet, and which raises questions about
Marimba's software delivery mechanism, secure delivery seems like
an issue the push technology companies haven't really addressed
yet. Trusted Information Systems Inc certainly thinks so too, and
the security and encryption veteran is targeting the push
companies next with work that's still in the R&D stage. It's also
working on expanding Domain Name Servers to exchange keys and
certificates and the like.
Check Point Software Technologies Ltd, the firewall and security
management company will this week announce a deal with 3Com Corp
to bundle Check Point's enterprise security management console
software with every copy of 3Com's router-based NetBuilder IP
firewall. A full copy of the software will be available to
NetBuilder purchaser free for 60 days. The console is based on
Check Point's Open Platform for Secure Enterprise Connectivity.
Users will see the Check Point OPSEC GUI, the same used in its
Firewall-1 product. Check Point reckons this is the first time
two firewall vendors have made their products interoperable.
Check Point would not disclose the financial terms.
In submitting to ISO/IEC JTC1 via the PAS Publicly Available
Specification route (see page 3) - Sun Microsystems Inc bypassed
a Java Study Group created by JTC1's SC22 language subcommittee
to investigate Java standardisation options. Although the group
doesn't feel snubbed - a PAS submission is voted on at the JTC1
level (as are all standards), but without having come up through
the subcommittee structure - its convener Bob Mathis was
surprised by the timing of the message. "We called off our early
April meeting because we didn't think Sun would have made its
decision by then." It seems likely the group's June 30 - July 1
meeting in London will have an important agenda.
Sun Microsystems Computer Co boss Ed Zander wishes those
JavaStations were happening faster too (OR 40). Zander's been
waiting for the microSparc IIep technology to start flowing as
much as anyone else given he's promised there'll be 3,000
JavaStations on the desktops of Sun employees - that's one for
every six staff - by July 1.
WebTV Networks Inc and its favorite website - E! Online, the web
version of the E! entertainment channel for those who finds the
lives of celebrities actually interesting, are getting together
to expand the options available to WebTV users. E! will provide
content to act as the anchor for the entertainment channel on
WebTV, and viewers will be able to gave their say in a chat room
for the Oscars, vote for their favorites and get picture-picture
capabilities on their TVs to watch both the web and the TV
simultaneously.
Motorola Inc has set up a smartcard unit as part of its land
mobile products sector, promising product by the year-end, and is
independent of its semiconductor business, which already supplies
chips to smart card vendors.
Sun claims that within a year - 18 months at the outside - there
will be more Java developers than Windows developers. Sun points
to research which suggests there are now 250,000 developers doing
serious Java development work, versus 400,000 Windows
programmers.
The ESPNET SportsZone site last week introduced a daily
subscription rate in addition to its monthly subscriber fee. It's
got together with CyberCash Inc to use the latter's CyberCoin
electronic payments. The site costs from $1 a day upwards,
depending on the content accessed.
Sources tell us that Acorn Computer Plc went along to Lucent
Technologies last summer in the US to talk about the possibility
of Inferno running on the Advanced RISC Machines Ltd ARM RISC
processor and was somewhat surprised by the reaction. Lucent
dismissed the ARM option, saying it wasn't interested in
multimedia.
Meantime, Acorn is so worried about the ARM chip being dumped
completely in favor of Intel - the contract is said by sources to
be "on hold to a degree", that it has even asked Network Computer
Inc if it can become a licensee of the NC design as well, though
we don't know if that would be a more consumer-oriented machine
or not.
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