WEEKLY DISPATCHES FROM THE INTERNET FRONT
August 5 9 1996 Issue No 10
COMPUSERVE CONSOLIDATES, LOOKS FOR ALTERNATIVE REVENUE
Compuserve, which last month reported a quarterly projected operating loss, is consolidating the management, editorial and marketing organizations for its two online services; WOW! and the Compuserve Information Service.
There were no figures for job losses at press time. Scott Kauffman, previously general manager of the WOW service has now been put in charge of the restructuring and will also be responsible for trying to find new revenue from transaction fees, online advertising and "interchange relationships". The company says that it is "refocusing much of its marketing efforts on developing new sources of revenue". Though attracting subscribers, WOW's start-up costs have been a millstone around Compuserve's neck and were largely blamed for the projected loss. After two quarters of flat subscriber numbers, last month's figures showed the main Compuserve subscriber base falling by 1% to 3.4 million subscribers. The four month old WOW service, aimed at online neophytes, grew by 44% to 91,000. The restructuring, said a Compuserve statement "will eliminate redundancies and create a more efficient organizational structure".
PATRIOT RE-PITCHES SHBOOM AT JAVA MARKETPLACE
Java processing is now a key target market for Patriot Scientific Corp's ShBoom PSC1000 RISC processor. The first samples of the chip began shipping last week.
The PSC1000 is being sold as a development system with the tools necessary to evaluate performance in diverse applications. Aside from Java, Patriot also sees the part being used in cable modems, television set-top boxes, laser printers and the automotive industry. The PSC1000 is a 32-bit RISC which includes an input-output processor on chip with the main processor. Conceived about eight years before Java, the PSC1000 is now described as being designed "specifically for Java and embedded processing."
WHERE WILL ACTIVEX GO? W3C IS HOT, THE OMG IS NOT
As Microsoft prepares to look for a standards-body home to take charge of ActiveX, the World Wide Web Consortium and the Internet Engineering Task Force are two names that keep cropping up. However Microsoft has already imposed one restriction on the eventual shape of the standard; backwards compatibility must be maintained. John Ludwig, VP of the Internet Platform and Tools Division at Microsoft said his first priority was protecting back-compatibility for the existing ActiveX component provider industry. Second, he wanted the standard to go to what he called an "aggressive and dynamic standards body, not one that was ossified". The W3C fits those criteria, he said, but added that there were a lot of other bodies with the same credentials, including the ad hoc group that put together the Winsock specifications.
The W3C Consortium itself has its lips clamped shut: a spokesperson refused to comment on anything in connection with the Microsoft technology, or the Consortium's suitability to host it.
One name that Ludwig certainly isn't keen on is that of the Object Management Group. If a body like the OMG wanted to try to define ActiveX in terms of Corba then that would be an unacceptable solution. Chris Stone, the OMG's president and CEO has made it clear that this is exactly the kind of option which he would prefer - moreover he sees the OMG as the natural custodian of this type of technology. Indeed the OMG is so keen for a meeting of minds that it will offer Microsoft a free room at Object World in San Jose later this month to hold the first ActiveX workgroup meeting. Microsoft wants the meeting in New York.
Though the Internet Engineering Task Force is looked at by Microsoft more kindly, it's hard to tell how ActiveX would fair at the hands of the IETF's tumultuous standards process, says executive director Steve Coya. The chance of it coming out looking the same way as it went in would be unlikely, he says. "What must be included with the submission, though, is an understanding that change control rests with the IETF". In practice, publishing ActiveX as an Internet Draft would jeopardise Microsoft's requirement to maintain backwards compatibility. Coya is also uncertain whether ActiveX would fit comfortably within the Task Force's remit, "though I would never say never", he comments.
Typically, a submission will be routed to the appropriate existing IETF Working Group, where one exists. If not, the Area Directors may opt to create a Working Group which includes a charter, mailing list, and set of goals and milestones. When Sun decided to submit its Remote Procedure Call technology as an Internet standard, the result was a heated debate about security.
- ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY LEM BINGLEY
Microsoft is considering a tie-up with Yahoo Inc that would intimately associate Yahoo's search engine with the final release of Internet Explorer 3.0. At a press work shop in Redmond last week, Microsoft demoed Autosearch, which lets a user type search terms into the browser's URL address bar. The Autosearch, which was added to the code on the morning of the demo, is triggered by typing any invalid URL into the slot, or by inserting the word "Find" or "go", or a "?" in front of the search text.
The demo uses Yahoo as a search engine to find and display appropriate links. However a spokesperson for Yahoo said negotiations were still under-way and its not a done deal that Yahoo will be the search provider. Still, the company has gone to the trouble of setting up a special machine for the service: readers wanting to simulate an Autosearch on "Bruce Springsteen" can try http://msie.yahoo.com/autosearch?p=Bruce+Springsteen
The location of the search site is stored in the browser's registry, so it can easily be tweaked by Microsoft.
MICROSOFT PONDERS BUILDING AUTOMATIC YAHOO SEARCH INTO IE3
Microsoft invited the great and the good out to Redmond last week for a few days intensive browser browsing. Dr Lem Bingley, deputy editor of sister publication D3, escaped for long enough to send some e-mail jottings which we interpret here:
Internet Explorer 3.0 will ship on August 13th. A beta version of version 4.0 (Nashville as was) is expected to be available by the end of the year, with a final version due in the first quarter of 1997.
Internet Explorer will be on Unix by the end of the year: with the same functionality as Explorer 3.0 on Windows 95 and Windows NT. Initially it will target Solaris, HP and DEC Unix's. A demo running on Solaris was not exactly speedy.
While IE 4.0 (nee Nashville) will let users view their disks as Web sites, the converse is also true - Web sites can be viewed as a folder-tree. It will require the site provider to hold a special sitemap file on the server.
IE 4.0 will also have facilities for offline browsing, with more intelligent caching of a local version of a given site. A facility called Webcheck will monitor the site and change the icon of the shortcut to that site when things change.
Timetable round-up:
IE 2.1 for Mac is in beta now: it has support for borderless frames and tables, animated gifs, IE history and favourites management. It supports Quicktime VR and SSL 3.0.
IE 3.0 for the Mac is due in the fourth quarter and will add support for CSS stylesheets, PICS and Java. Microsoft is working with Metrowerks on the Java engine). As for ActiveX, it will include code signing,
JScript (Microsoft's clone of JavaScript) and VBscript. The Macintosh implementation of ActiveX for Mac will either use native Mac calls or the Metrowerks windows library for Mac.
IE 2.1 for Win3.1 is due to become available next week. It will have support for enhanced frames and tables, animated gifs and background sounds.
IE 2.5 for Win3.1 follows this Fall, and will add inline video, Netscape plug-in compatiblity, SSL3.0, plus the J and VB scripting.
IE 3.0 for Win3.1 is scheduled for Q4 and adds code signing, Java, CSS stylesheets
and PICS.
MICROSOFT EXPLORER SNIPPETS
EYE ON THE WEB PLANS
COOPERATIVE ROAMING MODEL
In a world where Internet Service Providers, and "Web guide" sites are two-a-penny, the cumbersomely named Internet Eye on the Web Inc is attempting a double whammy. The company has put together a Web guide, but rather than going up against Yahoo, or Excite, it hopes to sign up ISPs to integrate the service into their home pages.
ISPs will get the service free, and it will be branded with their own look. EOW will make its money from banner advertising, a proportion of which will be payed out to the participating ISPs on a monthly basis. Once the EOW has 500 to 1000 US ISPs signed up, a second business opportunity will be tapped: the company hopes to launch a national roaming service so that travelling subscribers of one member ISP will be able to get a temporary account with another member.
President and founder of the Coral Springs, Florida-based company, Bob Stern, reckons he will sign up between 50 to 100 ISPs a month with the potent mix of promised cash, a smarter home page and reduced user support costs. The smaller, consumer orientated ISPs, he says:
1) don't want to put resources into building and maintain home pages.
2) don't want their support lines being used by consumers asking about where they can get the latest Web software.
3) want to avoid the churn from disaffected new Web users who either can't find anywhere to browse, or conversely, are overwhelmed by the amount of information.
It is a strategy attempting to garner the kind of access statistics that net advertisers like, without the overheads of a Yahoo: EOW is not attempting to be encyclopedic, its just attempts to present a selection, says Stern.
The company wants to have the proposed roaming service, dubbed NationWeb up in the fourth quarter or early next year. It is a simpler affair than that being planned by Aimnet Corp (OR No 1). The plan is that users will click a NationWeb button on their own ISP's home page before their trip, specifying the dates and location. In response they will be emailed the details of a temporary account on the nearest participating ISP. This is being designed as a reciprocal service, Stern says, so there will be no charge-back billing arrangements between ISPs. Exactly how, say, aA Las Vegas-based ISP will feel about having 1,000 foreign users trying to log in on the first day of Comdex is something that still needs to be sorted out.
The company is privately funded and says it isn't looking for venture funding right now. Other future plans include a version of Eye On the Web aimed at intranet users.www.eyeontheweb.com
l The number of Internet advertising brokers continues to grow apace, there are now at least 13 companies offering Web sites the chance to carry advertising for a cut of the proceeds. Perhaps the best known is the Commonwealth Network which is now claiming 2,000 "affiliates" and an advertisers list which includes Apple, Microsoft and Ziff-Davies among its advertisers. An excellent comparative listing as to who's offering what has been put together by attorney Mark Welch. Find it at www.ca-probate.com/comm_net.htm
CNET GETS INTO SOFTWARE SALES
CNET Inc is getting into the software sales business. The company says it has signed 30 software developers to sell their products - and is in negotiations with over 100 more. A wholly owned subsidiary, CNET Direct Inc will launch three Web sites in the Fall. Buydirect.com will be set up for the download and purchase of commercial software; Activex.com is self explanatory and Download.com will cover everything else; "the Internet's largest library of software titles" says the company. Both the ActiveX and Download.com sites will carry advertising.
CNET garnered immediate support for ActiveX site from Microsoft. Apple weighed in too, with words of support for Buydirect.com. CNET Direct is headed by Bill Headapohl, formerly Manager of Channel Strategy and Business Development for Applesoft. Apple is currently preoccupied with the low visibility of Mac software in the shops.
SPACEWORKS LINKS ORDER
PROCESSING TO THE WEB
Rockville, Maryland-based Spaceworks Inc launched its electronic commerce software suite last week, claimed to move order entry, account management and electronic commerce onto the intra/Internet. Aimed primarily at wholesalers, manufacturers and service providers, it has three main modules: OrderManager lets resellers or distributors order via an electronic catalogue via the net. ChannelManager is used to get dealer-sensitive information out sales reps etc and lets them verify purchase orders and verify purchase orders: Customer Manager is designed to give access to customer records, billing information or trouble tickets: Customers themselves can access some of their information over the Internet.
The back-end of the suite links multiple back-office systems and Spaceworks either sells the software straight-out, or operates it on a service bureau basis. The system is also claimed to have a integrated real-time credit-card payment system.
NETSCAPE ONE: SMALL EARTHQUAKE, FEW AFFECTED
Netscape Communications' publicity machine went into overdrive last week with the announcement of ONE, its Open Network Environment, a "standards based platform for creating a new generation of client/server applications". Companies were queueing up to license the thing, we were told, with "more than 50 supporting it" and "21 licensing it". For the most part, however, the ONE is a repackaging of existing technology and bits-and-bobs that the company had anyway. That companies license it isn't surprising given that the software development kit is free. Actual new technology is confined to the predicted support for the Object Management Group's Internet Inter-ORB (IIOP) standard; an update to JavaScript and a set of Java-based foundation classes for developers to use and which will be bundled with a future release of Navigator.
JAVA FOUNDATION CLASSES TO BE BUNDLED
It is these Netscape Internet Foundation Classes (NIFC) which offer most to applications developers and may help to boost Netscape's reputation for speed among end users. The classes, available in beta to members of Netscape's DevEdge program, are currently limited to drag and drop, animation and other nice GUI widgets. They are built on top of the standard Java AWT windowing toolkit. However Netscape promises that NIFC will "soon represent all of the functionality... [including] security, network protocols, database access, and distributed object services" found in its browsers and servers. If that sounds familiar, it's because Netscape's strategy mirrors that taken by JavaSoft, which intends to exploit the classes that make up its HotJava browser.
If developers adopt NIFC as the basis of their Java applications, Netscape gets an edge over rival Java-enabled browsers. Since the base classes will be distributed with the next major release of Navigator, its users should see applets arrive at their machines much faster. Though other browsers will run the applets too, these will have to download the foundation classes from scratch.
The new release of JavaScript adds support for LiveConnect, Netscape's Java-to-HTML-to-plugin-to-JavaScript linking system. LiveConnect is the primary way that developers will access IIOP.
As expected, Netscape and Visigenic signed the deal that will see the latter's Java-written Object Request Broker appear in Netscape's browsers and servers. However, the duo also announced future joint development work to produce "an automatic Java binding of Java objects to Visigenic's VisiBroker for Java, eliminating the need to program in the Interface Definition language (IDL)." A Visigenic spokesperson said the work would not be limited to Visigenic's own ORB, but had no information as to how the technology/standard would be disseminated. www.visigenic.com
MYSTERY GROUP SNAPS UP IBM'S WIN3.1 JAVA PORT
The good news: IBM's Hursley Centre for Java Technology, has completed its port of Java to Windows 3.1. It runs HotJava, it runs applet viewer. It even runs them not too slowly, according to Simon Phipps, the group's programme manager. The bad news is that the plans to make it available last week on Hursley's Web site were scuttled when a US project group requested it be allowed to host it on its Web site instead.
Exactly who this US group is isn't being talked about, but it appears to be tied up with the mysterious "Tazza" Java development project which we reported on in issue 4. Tazza and the Windows 3.1 port are being pulled into some bigger announcement scheduled to emerge at the end of August. For those who enjoy collecting codenames, look out for "Alphaworks", being muttered sotto vocŽ.
As for the performance of the Windows 3.1 Java port, the group was targeting it to work reasonably on an 8MB RAM, 66MHz 486. In the event, Phipps says his gut feel is that it should "just about be useable" on a 33MHz 486.
l Despite the slip, IBM is still on schedule to beat anyone else to the punch. Netscape Communications now says Java on Win3.1 is roughly scheduled to arrive a month after the final release of Navigator 3.0 - around mid-September. Microsoft isn't now expecting to ship Java on Win 3.1 until the fourth quarter.
NETOBJECTS SITE-ORIENTED WEB TOOLS GAIN SUPPORT
Eight-month-old NetObjects Inc has launched its NetObjects Fusion Web site building and maintenance application, claiming it's the easiest way yet of building a site and ensuring everything's kept up to date. The Redwood City, California company also signed deals with IBM Corp, UUNet Technologies Inc, Netscape Communications Corp and Sun Microsystems Inc's JavaSoft Inc division for support and marketing initiatives.
The company is claiming the tool to be the first to take a "site-oriented" approach, rather than a page-oriented one, and somewhat grandiosely, that it's a quantum leap akin to the Macintosh interface over text-based interfaces in the 1980s. Its principal features are SiteStructure, which gives a hierarchical view of the site, and enables pages to be dragged and dropped around the site. PageDraw is the visual page development tool that gives pixel-level control over a page's content, supporting Java, ActiveX and Shockwave, with no HTML knowledge required. And SiteStyle enables a uniform look-and-feel to be applied to the site. It also includes some 50 pre-designed site styles. In fact, style is something the folks at NetObjects are very keen on.
The so-called chief creative officer is Clement Mok, a leading Web site designer, and CEO Samir Arora was one of the Macintosh interface design team in the 1980s, as well as the former CEO at Rae Technology Inc. NetObjects raised $5.4m in first-round financing from Norwest Venture Capital in February, and is currently negotiating for more. The beta version of NetObjects Fusion for Windows 95 and Windows NT Workstation 3.51 is free at www.netobjects.com, while version 1.0 will be released next month for $700; $500 if bought before September 25.
THOUGHT TURNS TO DYNAMIC MAPS OF JAVA OBJECTS
Thought Inc, a five person, three-year-old class library vendor turned Java adherent, is offering a family of tools based upon the Java Database Connectivity specification (JDBC) it says can be used to create and maintain dynamic maps of Java objects to relational database tables across the Internet.
The San Francisco, California-based company claims its new libraries, known collectively as CocoBase, create an internal catalog which can be modified without recompiling the application, allowing Java objects to point to new relational fields that might be stored in a completely different table. It claims a single map can span multiple database tables, not just for lookups, but also for updates, inserts and deletes. CocoBase includes CocoPowder, which allows multiple Java objects to share the same map, and object retrieval; and CocoButter, a Java-based GUI tool for building and maintaining SQL, administering the mapping and catalog access. It costs $4,000.
Two add-on products at $1,500 apiece are CocoNibs, providing remote access to CocoPowder using JavaSoft's Java remote method invocation interfaces; and CocoBeans, for remote access to CocoPowder using Corba. CocoBase can be integrated with Thought's non-GUI Java class libraries such as Nutmeg and VanillaSearch, for which it claims an installed base of 25,000 users.
Thought's seeking a bundling deal with JavaSoft and claims to have two GUI vendors in its pocket. They'll bundle CocoBase libraries with their products allowing users to seamlessly add Java-based tickers, newsfeeds and the like without having to understand the Thought that's gone into it.
SPEC LAUNCHES SPECWEB96 SERVER BENCHMARKS
The vendor-independent Systems Performance Evaluation Council has announced its first SPECweb96 Web server benchmarks, intended to measure a server's ability to deliver static HyperText Mark-up Language pages to clients. Hewlett-Packard Co's HP 9000 K400 came out top of the first results with a SPECweb96 mark of 500 running HP-UX. Digital Equipment Corp's AlphaServer 1000A 4/266 running Digital Unix 4.0 delivered 252 and the HP 9000 D210 came in third at 216. Further results will be posted at www.specbench.org/osg/web96.
UK LORDS NOD AT US, PUSH OPEN GOVERNMENT ON THE NET
In the UK, an all-party select committee on Science and Technology has recommended fundamental changes to the regulatory framework governing telecommunications and broadcasting in the UK. The committee of the House of Lords, heavily influenced by developments in the US, wants to see an Al Gore-esque "Information Society Task Force" (ISTF). Its findings come ahead of a UK Government consultative paper on the use of IT to improve Government services to the public and business which is expected this Fall.
Key recommendations include that the ISTF should be "chaired by an enthusiast" and that all government publications providing information of widespread interest to citizens should be made available, for free in electronic form. In addition the report suggests that all Green Papers (consultative documents) should also be available online for the consultative process.
The whole question of making UK information freely available will be complicated by the imminent privatization of Her Majesty's Stationery Office; the agency responsible for publishing government documents. A spokesperson for the agency said it "stood ready" to make the full range of documents available on the Net, but pointed out that funding such an effort will be up to individual government departments.
NOMINET UK HOLDS ITS FIRST NAMING MEETING
Nominet UK, the new not-for-profit national body established to support all sections of the UK's Internet industry and take responsibility for registering Internet names, held its first meeting last week.
Until recently, Internet registration had been undertaken on a voluntary basis, but due to the Web's increasing popularity and growing expense, all new registrations of Internet names in the .uk, plc and ltd.uk domain will now cost £100 for two years, with subsequent renewals charged at a maximum £50 a year, although the prices will be reviewed during the current year.
NETPRESENTER TO BATTLE POINTCAST FOR THE INTRANET
While PointCast has grabbed all the headlines in the emerging "information TV" screensaver marketplace, a tiny privately held firm from the Netherlands has been working at a similar problem from a different angle.
NETpresenter BV, which has 10 staff, launched version 2.0 of its eponymously-named software at the beginning of the year, but began by concentrating on the LAN and WAN marketplace before tackling the Internet. This month it is set to launch a free plug-in for Netscape 2.0 and Microsoft's Internet Explorer.
The company was founded in 1995 by Frank Hoen, at 29 an Amiga multimedia veteran who switched platforms in the nick of time. NETpresenter is a multimedia authoring tool that allows a company to broadcast information across its own network in the form of screensavers - their own information rather than external published news sources, as PointCast does. It is in two parts: the editor for creating content, and the player, for Windows desktops or even televisions.
Content is produced in the Editor, and the resultant script saved on the server (any that is network-accessible from Windows clients). The player then polls the server, subscribes to a channel, downloads any new script files and executes them. Network bandwidth used up is "non-existent", claims Hoen, which is why the technology is attractive for the Internet. The players themselves take up only 200kB, and the plug-in is 100kB, compared with 2.54MB for Shockwave, he says.
As well as the browser plug-in, NETpresenter is set to launch version 2.1 this month, adding 32-bit client support for the first time. By year-end, version 3.0 should be fully Internet/intranet-enabled, with advanced HTML authoring included, allowing it to be used to produce more-complex Web sites.
The product caught the eye of Microsoft's German division when it was shown off at CeBIT earlier this year - hence the support for Explorer. It's also been installed as a means of inter-office communications at some pretty large companies, including Philips and General Motors, and been used for information kiosks and airport or railway travel information systems. Players currently cost around £8 each in the UK. The company has set up a US office in Lightfoot, Virginia.
Meanwhile, PointCast is readying its own content authoring tools, dismissed by Hoen as "vapourware". www.netpresenter.com
BEA WEB-ENABLES TUXEDO
Like NCR Corp's already done for its Top End OLTP monitor, BEA Systems Inc is Web-enabling and Java-izing Tuxedo as Jolt, for Java OnLine Transactions, allowing transactions to be processed from browser front-ends. Not that BEA sees it quite like that. It claims its Jolt will provide a "more intelligent implementation of connectivity over the Internet" than NCR.
BEA aims to provide turnkey Web-based transaction solutions. It says it's not simply bolting a Web front end on to Tuxedo and Jolt will be delivered as new technology items. BEA considers itself looking from mission critical environments out to the Web rather than from browsers into the back end.
MACROMEDIA PROMISES CRYSTAL CLEAR SOUND FROM THE WEB
Macromedia Inc is promising compact disk quality sound over the Internet in the next release of its Shockwave Internet animation software. The new release is also claimed to cut the time it takes to download audio before it can be played, by making use of audio streaming and compression.
The client end of Shockwave is downloadable free and the company looks to make its money from developers that buy it as part of the Director Multimedia Studio tools. The new release will be in Macromedia's Director 5 and SoundEdit 16 products, part of Multimedia Studio 2, which will cost $1,000. The client version will be available as part of Netscape's PowerPack software, Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Windows95, Apple's newest Macintoshes, and in the next version of America Online's access software.
MITSUBISHI SETS JAPANESE INTERNET TV FOR OCTOBER
Mitsubishi Electric Corp says it plans to launch a next-generation color television set that can also be used on the Internet, in the fourth quarter in Japan. The new Internet television will be the first of its kind to be produced by the Japanese electronics industry, Mitsubishi claims.
The machine will include a 32-bit processor - Pentium, presumably - a World Wide Web browser and a modem; the remote control will be used with the browser. The machine - the 28W-MM1 - will cost a daunting $2,500 when it goes on sale in October - but it is a wide-screen 28" model. Mitsubishi says it plans to manufacture 2,000 a month, but has no immediate plans to export them.
CyberOptics Corp has reported second quarter net profits that were down 36.4% at $700,000 on turnover up 7.9% at $7.8m; mid-term net profits rose 32.7% to $2.1m on turnover up 38.4% at $16.3m. Net earnings per share fell 50.0% to $0.12 in the quarter, were up 5.9% to $0.36 in the half.
NetManage Inc reported second quarter net profits down 73.3% at $1.6m on turnover up 16.4% at $26.8m; mid-term net profits fell 42.0% to $6.7m on turnover up 1.4% at $59.8m. Net per share fell 71.4% to $0.04 in the quarter 44.4% to $0.15 in the half.
UUNet Technologies Inc has reported second quarter net profits of $1.1m against losses last time of $1.9m on turnover up 185.0% at $57.0m; mid-term net profits were $1.3m on turnover up 185.6% at $100.0m. Net earnings per share were $0.03 in the quarter, and were $0.04 in the half year.
WorldCom Inc has reported second quarter net losses at $268.5m, which includes $344m exceptional write-down charge and a $24m gain for early repayment of debt, from profits of $54.9 before on turnover up 18.6% at $1,061m; mid-term net losses were at $183.5m, which includes the above charge and exceptional gain, from profits of $101.9m last time, on turnover that rose by 18.6% at $2,088m.
Network Computing Devices Inc has reported second quarter net losses at $6.0m from profits of $85,000 last time on turnover down 16.3% at $29.3m; mid-term net losses were at $6.3m from profits of $389,000 before on turnover down 17.6% at $59.8m.
Platinum Software Corp saw second quarter net losses of $3.0m up from losses last time of $981,000 on turnover down 37.2% at $9.4m; mid-term net losses were $32.9m, including a $5.6m pretax restructuring charge, on turnover down 27.8% at $40.6m.
Silicon Graphics Inc has reported a fourth quarter net loss of $48.7m after a pre-tax charge of $102m to cover the cost of the Cray Research Inc acquisition, against a profit last time of $52.7m, on turnover that rose 49.6% at $977.4m; net profit for the year to June 30 fell 48.8% at $115.0m on turnover that rose 31.1% at $2,921.1m. Net earnings per share fell 49% to $0.65. Comparisons are with figures restated to reflect the Cray acquisition.
COMPANY RESULTS
SMARTALEX FILTERS WEB CONTENT
A new "intelligent" filtering system has made its way into the consumer domain in the form of SmartAlex - an image content analyser that its creators are marketing as a detector for sexually-explicit pictures.
"It's not meant to be foolproof," confessed Alex Massimi, head of New York-based SuperWare Corp and one of the developers of the software. "But if [SmartAlex] detects even a small percentage of everything out there, then we've succeeded." Massimi began the project as a result of seeing the success his son, Alex Jr, had in locating pictures on the Internet. A year on, Massimi believes he has a workable method to enable guardians to limit the amount of on-line access their minors can have. He is pushing SmartAlex at on-line services such as America Online Inc.
In the same vein as software that steers children away from unsuitable sites such as Net Nanny, CyberPatrol and Spyglass Inc's recently acquired filtering software SurfWatch, SmartAlex looks for objective characteristics that are common to the majority of graphics that contain nudity - colour content and distribution, image resolution and size, file names and textual content. SmartAlex will also scan text files on a computer for occurrences of obscene words.
The software comes from a technology partnership between SuperWare and Sutton, Surrey-based image specialist MOR Ltd, a company that has been working on Fingerprinted Bitmapped Identification technology, enabling image authors to insert durable signatures in electronic pictures without modifying them.
POINTCAST RAISES MORE MONEY, WINS ONE MILLION VIEWERS
PointCast Inc, Cupertino, California has raised more than $36m in venture capital with the sale of Series D preferred stock with Adobe Systems Inc, Compaq Computer Corp, CUC International Inc, Gannett International Communications Inc, General Electric Capital Corp, Knight-Ridder Investment Co, PAFET member co.s, Softbank Holdings Inc and Times Mirror Co. Morgan Stanley Co Inc acted as placing agent for the investments - and no doubt had its hands bitten off as people leaped at the opportunity to get in ahead of the crowd.
PointCast says its central broadcast facility in Cupertino is now receiving more than 35m hits each day to its file server Internet news network, and that it has now reached its goal of 1m registered viewers for its Internet news service. This figure, achieved only five months after the service initially became available, is well ahead of its previous projections, said the company. Founded in 1992, the company had already raised over $12m in venture capital funding from Benchmark Capital, Merrill Pickard Anderson & Eyre, and Mohr Davidow Ventures.
l Pointcast also looks to be under attack from Microsoft's plans for an "active desktop" with newsfeed capabilities - part of Internet Explorer 4.0.
BORLAND UNVEILS "INTRABUILDER" RAPID DEVELOPMENT TOOL
Scotts Valley development tools vendor Borland International helped crowd the bandwagon last week, announcing the "Golden Gate" Internet/intranet strategy at its developers' conference in Anaheim, California. Borland cut the tape on Golden Gate with IntraBuilder, a new tool for rapid development of active, browser-based, client/server applications. IntraBuilder resembles the popular Delphi product and allows JavaScript, Java applets, and ActiveX controls to integrate with a wide range of back-end databases. Drag-and-drop editing and painting facilities are used to tie data and controls together on convenient tables and forms, and an HTML generator presents the results in Web format. The product is in public beta at:http://netserv.borland.com/
intrabuilder/download.html.
HAUSER'S NETCHANNEL IS READY FOR ACORN NETSTATION
NetChannel Inc, Palo Alto, California will be ready for Acorn Computer Group Plc's NetStation Network Computer when it launches in the US in the autumn - not much of a surprise, as the company is yet another of Acorn co-founder Hermann Hauser's creations.
NetChannel has created a suite of consumer services that it says can be deployed across all Oracle Network Computer-compatible devices and says the Acorn NetStation will be the first such device signed on to use the NetChannel personalized service suite. The suite combines television programming with real-time access to the World Wide Web, with Web pages "transformed into Web channels", though details are conspicuously thin on the ground.
"NetChannel will enable everyone to have easy and affordable access to the Internet with personalized information and a wealth of new experiences - all from a remote control or wireless keyboard in the comfort of their very own easy chair," says Hauser breathlessly. Oracle likes the company well enough, and its Network Computer Inc subsidiary asserts that "NetChannel's grasp of the consumer market and understanding of the importance of delivering compelling end-user experiences will make them a market leader in this new emerging industry of Internet consumer devices and services."
DOT Gossip
As the "I'm more open than you are" war gathers pace between Microsoft and the Netscape/Java camps, will JavaSoft feel it necessary to respond with an "Open Java Foundation" or somesuch? No, says a JavaSoft spokesperson, who points out the company is already consulting widely about the future of the language: "We believe our position is solid... there is no point in re-naming what we are doing anyway".
Xing Technologies has released version 2 of its StreamWorks streaming audio and video Internet tools. Support for MPEG 2 audio is now included and the software now throttles back more efficiently where net connections are slow www.xing.com
Microsoft may have removed the technical 10 TCP/IP connection restriction on Windows NT 4.0 Workstation, however PCWeek Online reports that the licensing agreement still states users aren't legally allowed to permit more than 10 concurrent TCP/IP connections. Which will be an interesting one to enforce...
InSync Media has launched www.neverforget.com, a free Internet e-mail reminder service. The Web site lets users register all their pet holidays and special events and the site e-mails reminders shortly before the big day. The service is advertising funded.
The guys behind Paintshop Pro have delayed the release of shareware version 4 until mid to late August. They are waiting for Microsoft to fix the problems which the COMMCTRL.DLL shipped with the latest Explorer beta which causes a number of apps to mis-behave. They will also be adding more changes as requested by users.
Bandai Digital Entertainment and Holiday Inn are running a pilot scheme in the chain's Atlanta hotel, giving 100 Holiday Innmates unlimited, free Internet net access. Each Room will come with an Internet-enabled Pippin box and will be connected via Atlanta's Mindspring Enterprises ISP.
One of Microsoft's most befuddled products, Internet Studio, is set to go into beta this Fall. The Web development tool was originally conceived as 'Blackbird' an authoring tool for the old-style, proprietary MSN When Microsoft turned to the Internet, the whole thing was completely re-thought.
UK-based Active Imaging is touting what it describes as the "world's smallest video Web server". Essentially, each Mv-NET box encompasses a CCD color camera, a 50MHz 486 PC board, a JPEG image compression card and and an Ethernet or modem network connection. The whole thing is a little larger than a well-stuffed Filofax. It can be mounted in an enclosure which allows tilt, pan and zoom etc. Prices are from $4,000 in the US, or £2,950 in the UK: www.imaging.co.uk.
The US Communications Decency Act suffered another court defeat last week when three Federal New York judges upheld American Reporter editor and publisher Joe Sea's complaint. They found that the CDA is overly broad and unconstitutional. The New York case is likely to get bundled with the earlier Philadelphia ruling when the DOJ appeals before the Supreme Court.
America Online is to quit the choppy fiscal waters of NASDAQ for the hopefully calmer NYSE New York Stock Exchange, according to the Wall Street Journal. No date was given for the switch.
UUNet Technologies Inc has taken on Nielsen Media Research to provide Web traffic measurement and analysis services for its customers. Nielsen will get direct access to UUNet's encrypted server logs. Neilsen, a Dunn & Bradstreet company has developed a number of Web auditing programs with Internet Profiles Corp.
Fujitsu Ltd, Hitachi Ltd and NEC Corp say they will work together to develop a common system to secure commercial transactions on networks such as the Internet: it will use secure electronic transaction standards established by Microsoft Corp and major credit-card issuers.
Iona Technologies Inc has announced OrbixWeb 2.0, the next version of it's Java object request broker. The difference between it and the first version is the ability to build back-end Corba services in Java, according to the company. It's in beta from next month.
Lotus Development Corp has started shipping its native SMTP, MIME, and cc:Mail message transfer agents for Notes. It says it will have an X.400 MTA within a month.
Finding a suitable home for the development of ActiveX won't be easy, says Jamie Lewis, president of the Burton Group, the impartial "facilitator" that Microsoft has recruited. "I think that there are some very complex dynamics at play here... If Microsoft starts a new standards body it will be very difficult for that to be seen as anything other than a Microsoft instrument" Lewis said. "However a lot of the existing standards bodies have created their own frameworks". He worries too that by following the standard route, Microsoft will hobble its ability to innovate; "it will be a tricky proposition".
E-Trade Securities Inc, which sells stocks over the Internet, wants to get into the IPO business and has asked the National Association of Securities Dealers for permission to set itself up as an under-writer.
Malaysia's plans for a Multimedia Super Corridor are beginning to take shape: the corridor aims to create an information technology hub in an area stretching from Kuala Lumpur 15 miles south to a new federal capital and international airport under construction, and Malaysia is trying to lure all kinds of multimedia companies - from electronic publishers and Internet providers to software engineers, distance learning and entertainment firms - to set up shop there.
Nomura Research Institute will start online shopping trials in October. Companies involved the Cardless Card System Platform Committee include JCB, Tobu Department Store and Hitachi. www.ccp.or.jp
HotWired this week is going to claim that its HotBot search engine has mapped the entire Web, making its 54 million documents searchable in one database using any word or phrase it contains. HotBot's cheerleaders say that anybody else who says they've done this is, well, fibbing.
Former Sybase chief operating officer Dav
id Peterschmidt has become hot-bot builder Inktomi's chief executive officer.
Not for the squeamish: CNET Inc accompanied the news of its move into software distribution with the comment that it "has its finger on the pulse of an exploding segment of the Internet" Should someone should dial the emergency services, do you think?
(c) 1996 May not be copied
online REPORTER, a sister publication of Unigram.X and ClieNT Server News, is published weekly in Europe by:
APT Data News Ltd, 12 Sutton Row, London W1V 5FH, UK, Tel: +44 171 208 4200
European Publisher: Simon Thompson (simont@aptdata.com), Editor: Chris Rose (chrisr@computerwire.com),
Associate Editor: Jeffrey Sweat (jsweat@panix.com), Consultant Editor, John Abbott (johna@aptdata.co.uk)
London Editorial Tel: +44 171 208 4226, Fax +44 171 439 1105. New York: Tel +1 516 759 7025, Fax +1 516 759 7028
Price: £395 for 52 issues. Available online to groups, departments and companies at OEM prices.
(c) Copyright 1996, G-2 Computer Intelligence, Inc. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior written permission.
August 5 9 1996 Issue No 10
COMPUSERVE CONSOLIDATES, LOOKS FOR ALTERNATIVE REVENUE
Compuserve, which last month reported a quarterly projected operating loss, is consolidating the management, editorial and marketing organizations for its two online services; WOW! and the Compuserve Information Service.
There were no figures for job losses at press time. Scott Kauffman, previously general manager of the WOW service has now been put in charge of the restructuring and will also be responsible for trying to find new revenue from transaction fees, online advertising and "interchange relationships". The company says that it is "refocusing much of its marketing efforts on developing new sources of revenue". Though attracting subscribers, WOW's start-up costs have been a millstone around Compuserve's neck and were largely blamed for the projected loss. After two quarters of flat subscriber numbers, last month's figures showed the main Compuserve subscriber base falling by 1% to 3.4 million subscribers. The four month old WOW service, aimed at online neophytes, grew by 44% to 91,000. The restructuring, said a Compuserve statement "will eliminate redundancies and create a more efficient organizational structure".
PATRIOT RE-PITCHES SHBOOM AT JAVA MARKETPLACE
Java processing is now a key target market for Patriot Scientific Corp's ShBoom PSC1000 RISC processor. The first samples of the chip began shipping last week.
The PSC1000 is being sold as a development system with the tools necessary to evaluate performance in diverse applications. Aside from Java, Patriot also sees the part being used in cable modems, television set-top boxes, laser printers and the automotive industry. The PSC1000 is a 32-bit RISC which includes an input-output processor on chip with the main processor. Conceived about eight years before Java, the PSC1000 is now described as being designed "specifically for Java and embedded processing."
WHERE WILL ACTIVEX GO? W3C IS HOT, THE OMG IS NOT
As Microsoft prepares to look for a standards-body home to take charge of ActiveX, the World Wide Web Consortium and the Internet Engineering Task Force are two names that keep cropping up. However Microsoft has already imposed one restriction on the eventual shape of the standard; backwards compatibility must be maintained. John Ludwig, VP of the Internet Platform and Tools Division at Microsoft said his first priority was protecting back-compatibility for the existing ActiveX component provider industry. Second, he wanted the standard to go to what he called an "aggressive and dynamic standards body, not one that was ossified". The W3C fits those criteria, he said, but added that there were a lot of other bodies with the same credentials, including the ad hoc group that put together the Winsock specifications.
The W3C Consortium itself has its lips clamped shut: a spokesperson refused to comment on anything in connection with the Microsoft technology, or the Consortium's suitability to host it.
One name that Ludwig certainly isn't keen on is that of the Object Management Group. If a body like the OMG wanted to try to define ActiveX in terms of Corba then that would be an unacceptable solution. Chris Stone, the OMG's president and CEO has made it clear that this is exactly the kind of option which he would prefer - moreover he sees the OMG as the natural custodian of this type of technology. Indeed the OMG is so keen for a meeting of minds that it will offer Microsoft a free room at Object World in San Jose later this month to hold the first ActiveX workgroup meeting. Microsoft wants the meeting in New York.
Though the Internet Engineering Task Force is looked at by Microsoft more kindly, it's hard to tell how ActiveX would fair at the hands of the IETF's tumultuous standards process, says executive director Steve Coya. The chance of it coming out looking the same way as it went in would be unlikely, he says. "What must be included with the submission, though, is an understanding that change control rests with the IETF". In practice, publishing ActiveX as an Internet Draft would jeopardise Microsoft's requirement to maintain backwards compatibility. Coya is also uncertain whether ActiveX would fit comfortably within the Task Force's remit, "though I would never say never", he comments.
Typically, a submission will be routed to the appropriate existing IETF Working Group, where one exists. If not, the Area Directors may opt to create a Working Group which includes a charter, mailing list, and set of goals and milestones. When Sun decided to submit its Remote Procedure Call technology as an Internet standard, the result was a heated debate about security.
- ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY LEM BINGLEY
Microsoft is considering a tie-up with Yahoo Inc that would intimately associate Yahoo's search engine with the final release of Internet Explorer 3.0. At a press work shop in Redmond last week, Microsoft demoed Autosearch, which lets a user type search terms into the browser's URL address bar. The Autosearch, which was added to the code on the morning of the demo, is triggered by typing any invalid URL into the slot, or by inserting the word "Find" or "go", or a "?" in front of the search text.
The demo uses Yahoo as a search engine to find and display appropriate links. However a spokesperson for Yahoo said negotiations were still under-way and its not a done deal that Yahoo will be the search provider. Still, the company has gone to the trouble of setting up a special machine for the service: readers wanting to simulate an Autosearch on "Bruce Springsteen" can try http://msie.yahoo.com/autosearch?p=Bruce+Springsteen
The location of the search site is stored in the browser's registry, so it can easily be tweaked by Microsoft.
MICROSOFT PONDERS BUILDING AUTOMATIC YAHOO SEARCH INTO IE3
Microsoft invited the great and the good out to Redmond last week for a few days intensive browser browsing. Dr Lem Bingley, deputy editor of sister publication D3, escaped for long enough to send some e-mail jottings which we interpret here:
Internet Explorer 3.0 will ship on August 13th. A beta version of version 4.0 (Nashville as was) is expected to be available by the end of the year, with a final version due in the first quarter of 1997.
Internet Explorer will be on Unix by the end of the year: with the same functionality as Explorer 3.0 on Windows 95 and Windows NT. Initially it will target Solaris, HP and DEC Unix's. A demo running on Solaris was not exactly speedy.
While IE 4.0 (nee Nashville) will let users view their disks as Web sites, the converse is also true - Web sites can be viewed as a folder-tree. It will require the site provider to hold a special sitemap file on the server.
IE 4.0 will also have facilities for offline browsing, with more intelligent caching of a local version of a given site. A facility called Webcheck will monitor the site and change the icon of the shortcut to that site when things change.
Timetable round-up:
IE 2.1 for Mac is in beta now: it has support for borderless frames and tables, animated gifs, IE history and favourites management. It supports Quicktime VR and SSL 3.0.
IE 3.0 for the Mac is due in the fourth quarter and will add support for CSS stylesheets, PICS and Java. Microsoft is working with Metrowerks on the Java engine). As for ActiveX, it will include code signing,
JScript (Microsoft's clone of JavaScript) and VBscript. The Macintosh implementation of ActiveX for Mac will either use native Mac calls or the Metrowerks windows library for Mac.
IE 2.1 for Win3.1 is due to become available next week. It will have support for enhanced frames and tables, animated gifs and background sounds.
IE 2.5 for Win3.1 follows this Fall, and will add inline video, Netscape plug-in compatiblity, SSL3.0, plus the J and VB scripting.
IE 3.0 for Win3.1 is scheduled for Q4 and adds code signing, Java, CSS stylesheets
and PICS.
MICROSOFT EXPLORER SNIPPETS
EYE ON THE WEB PLANS
COOPERATIVE ROAMING MODEL
In a world where Internet Service Providers, and "Web guide" sites are two-a-penny, the cumbersomely named Internet Eye on the Web Inc is attempting a double whammy. The company has put together a Web guide, but rather than going up against Yahoo, or Excite, it hopes to sign up ISPs to integrate the service into their home pages.
ISPs will get the service free, and it will be branded with their own look. EOW will make its money from banner advertising, a proportion of which will be payed out to the participating ISPs on a monthly basis. Once the EOW has 500 to 1000 US ISPs signed up, a second business opportunity will be tapped: the company hopes to launch a national roaming service so that travelling subscribers of one member ISP will be able to get a temporary account with another member.
President and founder of the Coral Springs, Florida-based company, Bob Stern, reckons he will sign up between 50 to 100 ISPs a month with the potent mix of promised cash, a smarter home page and reduced user support costs. The smaller, consumer orientated ISPs, he says:
1) don't want to put resources into building and maintain home pages.
2) don't want their support lines being used by consumers asking about where they can get the latest Web software.
3) want to avoid the churn from disaffected new Web users who either can't find anywhere to browse, or conversely, are overwhelmed by the amount of information.
It is a strategy attempting to garner the kind of access statistics that net advertisers like, without the overheads of a Yahoo: EOW is not attempting to be encyclopedic, its just attempts to present a selection, says Stern.
The company wants to have the proposed roaming service, dubbed NationWeb up in the fourth quarter or early next year. It is a simpler affair than that being planned by Aimnet Corp (OR No 1). The plan is that users will click a NationWeb button on their own ISP's home page before their trip, specifying the dates and location. In response they will be emailed the details of a temporary account on the nearest participating ISP. This is being designed as a reciprocal service, Stern says, so there will be no charge-back billing arrangements between ISPs. Exactly how, say, aA Las Vegas-based ISP will feel about having 1,000 foreign users trying to log in on the first day of Comdex is something that still needs to be sorted out.
The company is privately funded and says it isn't looking for venture funding right now. Other future plans include a version of Eye On the Web aimed at intranet users.www.eyeontheweb.com
l The number of Internet advertising brokers continues to grow apace, there are now at least 13 companies offering Web sites the chance to carry advertising for a cut of the proceeds. Perhaps the best known is the Commonwealth Network which is now claiming 2,000 "affiliates" and an advertisers list which includes Apple, Microsoft and Ziff-Davies among its advertisers. An excellent comparative listing as to who's offering what has been put together by attorney Mark Welch. Find it at www.ca-probate.com/comm_net.htm
CNET GETS INTO SOFTWARE SALES
CNET Inc is getting into the software sales business. The company says it has signed 30 software developers to sell their products - and is in negotiations with over 100 more. A wholly owned subsidiary, CNET Direct Inc will launch three Web sites in the Fall. Buydirect.com will be set up for the download and purchase of commercial software; Activex.com is self explanatory and Download.com will cover everything else; "the Internet's largest library of software titles" says the company. Both the ActiveX and Download.com sites will carry advertising.
CNET garnered immediate support for ActiveX site from Microsoft. Apple weighed in too, with words of support for Buydirect.com. CNET Direct is headed by Bill Headapohl, formerly Manager of Channel Strategy and Business Development for Applesoft. Apple is currently preoccupied with the low visibility of Mac software in the shops.
SPACEWORKS LINKS ORDER
PROCESSING TO THE WEB
Rockville, Maryland-based Spaceworks Inc launched its electronic commerce software suite last week, claimed to move order entry, account management and electronic commerce onto the intra/Internet. Aimed primarily at wholesalers, manufacturers and service providers, it has three main modules: OrderManager lets resellers or distributors order via an electronic catalogue via the net. ChannelManager is used to get dealer-sensitive information out sales reps etc and lets them verify purchase orders and verify purchase orders: Customer Manager is designed to give access to customer records, billing information or trouble tickets: Customers themselves can access some of their information over the Internet.
The back-end of the suite links multiple back-office systems and Spaceworks either sells the software straight-out, or operates it on a service bureau basis. The system is also claimed to have a integrated real-time credit-card payment system.
NETSCAPE ONE: SMALL EARTHQUAKE, FEW AFFECTED
Netscape Communications' publicity machine went into overdrive last week with the announcement of ONE, its Open Network Environment, a "standards based platform for creating a new generation of client/server applications". Companies were queueing up to license the thing, we were told, with "more than 50 supporting it" and "21 licensing it". For the most part, however, the ONE is a repackaging of existing technology and bits-and-bobs that the company had anyway. That companies license it isn't surprising given that the software development kit is free. Actual new technology is confined to the predicted support for the Object Management Group's Internet Inter-ORB (IIOP) standard; an update to JavaScript and a set of Java-based foundation classes for developers to use and which will be bundled with a future release of Navigator.
JAVA FOUNDATION CLASSES TO BE BUNDLED
It is these Netscape Internet Foundation Classes (NIFC) which offer most to applications developers and may help to boost Netscape's reputation for speed among end users. The classes, available in beta to members of Netscape's DevEdge program, are currently limited to drag and drop, animation and other nice GUI widgets. They are built on top of the standard Java AWT windowing toolkit. However Netscape promises that NIFC will "soon represent all of the functionality... [including] security, network protocols, database access, and distributed object services" found in its browsers and servers. If that sounds familiar, it's because Netscape's strategy mirrors that taken by JavaSoft, which intends to exploit the classes that make up its HotJava browser.
If developers adopt NIFC as the basis of their Java applications, Netscape gets an edge over rival Java-enabled browsers. Since the base classes will be distributed with the next major release of Navigator, its users should see applets arrive at their machines much faster. Though other browsers will run the applets too, these will have to download the foundation classes from scratch.
The new release of JavaScript adds support for LiveConnect, Netscape's Java-to-HTML-to-plugin-to-JavaScript linking system. LiveConnect is the primary way that developers will access IIOP.
As expected, Netscape and Visigenic signed the deal that will see the latter's Java-written Object Request Broker appear in Netscape's browsers and servers. However, the duo also announced future joint development work to produce "an automatic Java binding of Java objects to Visigenic's VisiBroker for Java, eliminating the need to program in the Interface Definition language (IDL)." A Visigenic spokesperson said the work would not be limited to Visigenic's own ORB, but had no information as to how the technology/standard would be disseminated. www.visigenic.com
MYSTERY GROUP SNAPS UP IBM'S WIN3.1 JAVA PORT
The good news: IBM's Hursley Centre for Java Technology, has completed its port of Java to Windows 3.1. It runs HotJava, it runs applet viewer. It even runs them not too slowly, according to Simon Phipps, the group's programme manager. The bad news is that the plans to make it available last week on Hursley's Web site were scuttled when a US project group requested it be allowed to host it on its Web site instead.
Exactly who this US group is isn't being talked about, but it appears to be tied up with the mysterious "Tazza" Java development project which we reported on in issue 4. Tazza and the Windows 3.1 port are being pulled into some bigger announcement scheduled to emerge at the end of August. For those who enjoy collecting codenames, look out for "Alphaworks", being muttered sotto vocŽ.
As for the performance of the Windows 3.1 Java port, the group was targeting it to work reasonably on an 8MB RAM, 66MHz 486. In the event, Phipps says his gut feel is that it should "just about be useable" on a 33MHz 486.
l Despite the slip, IBM is still on schedule to beat anyone else to the punch. Netscape Communications now says Java on Win3.1 is roughly scheduled to arrive a month after the final release of Navigator 3.0 - around mid-September. Microsoft isn't now expecting to ship Java on Win 3.1 until the fourth quarter.
NETOBJECTS SITE-ORIENTED WEB TOOLS GAIN SUPPORT
Eight-month-old NetObjects Inc has launched its NetObjects Fusion Web site building and maintenance application, claiming it's the easiest way yet of building a site and ensuring everything's kept up to date. The Redwood City, California company also signed deals with IBM Corp, UUNet Technologies Inc, Netscape Communications Corp and Sun Microsystems Inc's JavaSoft Inc division for support and marketing initiatives.
The company is claiming the tool to be the first to take a "site-oriented" approach, rather than a page-oriented one, and somewhat grandiosely, that it's a quantum leap akin to the Macintosh interface over text-based interfaces in the 1980s. Its principal features are SiteStructure, which gives a hierarchical view of the site, and enables pages to be dragged and dropped around the site. PageDraw is the visual page development tool that gives pixel-level control over a page's content, supporting Java, ActiveX and Shockwave, with no HTML knowledge required. And SiteStyle enables a uniform look-and-feel to be applied to the site. It also includes some 50 pre-designed site styles. In fact, style is something the folks at NetObjects are very keen on.
The so-called chief creative officer is Clement Mok, a leading Web site designer, and CEO Samir Arora was one of the Macintosh interface design team in the 1980s, as well as the former CEO at Rae Technology Inc. NetObjects raised $5.4m in first-round financing from Norwest Venture Capital in February, and is currently negotiating for more. The beta version of NetObjects Fusion for Windows 95 and Windows NT Workstation 3.51 is free at www.netobjects.com, while version 1.0 will be released next month for $700; $500 if bought before September 25.
THOUGHT TURNS TO DYNAMIC MAPS OF JAVA OBJECTS
Thought Inc, a five person, three-year-old class library vendor turned Java adherent, is offering a family of tools based upon the Java Database Connectivity specification (JDBC) it says can be used to create and maintain dynamic maps of Java objects to relational database tables across the Internet.
The San Francisco, California-based company claims its new libraries, known collectively as CocoBase, create an internal catalog which can be modified without recompiling the application, allowing Java objects to point to new relational fields that might be stored in a completely different table. It claims a single map can span multiple database tables, not just for lookups, but also for updates, inserts and deletes. CocoBase includes CocoPowder, which allows multiple Java objects to share the same map, and object retrieval; and CocoButter, a Java-based GUI tool for building and maintaining SQL, administering the mapping and catalog access. It costs $4,000.
Two add-on products at $1,500 apiece are CocoNibs, providing remote access to CocoPowder using JavaSoft's Java remote method invocation interfaces; and CocoBeans, for remote access to CocoPowder using Corba. CocoBase can be integrated with Thought's non-GUI Java class libraries such as Nutmeg and VanillaSearch, for which it claims an installed base of 25,000 users.
Thought's seeking a bundling deal with JavaSoft and claims to have two GUI vendors in its pocket. They'll bundle CocoBase libraries with their products allowing users to seamlessly add Java-based tickers, newsfeeds and the like without having to understand the Thought that's gone into it.
SPEC LAUNCHES SPECWEB96 SERVER BENCHMARKS
The vendor-independent Systems Performance Evaluation Council has announced its first SPECweb96 Web server benchmarks, intended to measure a server's ability to deliver static HyperText Mark-up Language pages to clients. Hewlett-Packard Co's HP 9000 K400 came out top of the first results with a SPECweb96 mark of 500 running HP-UX. Digital Equipment Corp's AlphaServer 1000A 4/266 running Digital Unix 4.0 delivered 252 and the HP 9000 D210 came in third at 216. Further results will be posted at www.specbench.org/osg/web96.
UK LORDS NOD AT US, PUSH OPEN GOVERNMENT ON THE NET
In the UK, an all-party select committee on Science and Technology has recommended fundamental changes to the regulatory framework governing telecommunications and broadcasting in the UK. The committee of the House of Lords, heavily influenced by developments in the US, wants to see an Al Gore-esque "Information Society Task Force" (ISTF). Its findings come ahead of a UK Government consultative paper on the use of IT to improve Government services to the public and business which is expected this Fall.
Key recommendations include that the ISTF should be "chaired by an enthusiast" and that all government publications providing information of widespread interest to citizens should be made available, for free in electronic form. In addition the report suggests that all Green Papers (consultative documents) should also be available online for the consultative process.
The whole question of making UK information freely available will be complicated by the imminent privatization of Her Majesty's Stationery Office; the agency responsible for publishing government documents. A spokesperson for the agency said it "stood ready" to make the full range of documents available on the Net, but pointed out that funding such an effort will be up to individual government departments.
NOMINET UK HOLDS ITS FIRST NAMING MEETING
Nominet UK, the new not-for-profit national body established to support all sections of the UK's Internet industry and take responsibility for registering Internet names, held its first meeting last week.
Until recently, Internet registration had been undertaken on a voluntary basis, but due to the Web's increasing popularity and growing expense, all new registrations of Internet names in the .uk, plc and ltd.uk domain will now cost £100 for two years, with subsequent renewals charged at a maximum £50 a year, although the prices will be reviewed during the current year.
NETPRESENTER TO BATTLE POINTCAST FOR THE INTRANET
While PointCast has grabbed all the headlines in the emerging "information TV" screensaver marketplace, a tiny privately held firm from the Netherlands has been working at a similar problem from a different angle.
NETpresenter BV, which has 10 staff, launched version 2.0 of its eponymously-named software at the beginning of the year, but began by concentrating on the LAN and WAN marketplace before tackling the Internet. This month it is set to launch a free plug-in for Netscape 2.0 and Microsoft's Internet Explorer.
The company was founded in 1995 by Frank Hoen, at 29 an Amiga multimedia veteran who switched platforms in the nick of time. NETpresenter is a multimedia authoring tool that allows a company to broadcast information across its own network in the form of screensavers - their own information rather than external published news sources, as PointCast does. It is in two parts: the editor for creating content, and the player, for Windows desktops or even televisions.
Content is produced in the Editor, and the resultant script saved on the server (any that is network-accessible from Windows clients). The player then polls the server, subscribes to a channel, downloads any new script files and executes them. Network bandwidth used up is "non-existent", claims Hoen, which is why the technology is attractive for the Internet. The players themselves take up only 200kB, and the plug-in is 100kB, compared with 2.54MB for Shockwave, he says.
As well as the browser plug-in, NETpresenter is set to launch version 2.1 this month, adding 32-bit client support for the first time. By year-end, version 3.0 should be fully Internet/intranet-enabled, with advanced HTML authoring included, allowing it to be used to produce more-complex Web sites.
The product caught the eye of Microsoft's German division when it was shown off at CeBIT earlier this year - hence the support for Explorer. It's also been installed as a means of inter-office communications at some pretty large companies, including Philips and General Motors, and been used for information kiosks and airport or railway travel information systems. Players currently cost around £8 each in the UK. The company has set up a US office in Lightfoot, Virginia.
Meanwhile, PointCast is readying its own content authoring tools, dismissed by Hoen as "vapourware". www.netpresenter.com
BEA WEB-ENABLES TUXEDO
Like NCR Corp's already done for its Top End OLTP monitor, BEA Systems Inc is Web-enabling and Java-izing Tuxedo as Jolt, for Java OnLine Transactions, allowing transactions to be processed from browser front-ends. Not that BEA sees it quite like that. It claims its Jolt will provide a "more intelligent implementation of connectivity over the Internet" than NCR.
BEA aims to provide turnkey Web-based transaction solutions. It says it's not simply bolting a Web front end on to Tuxedo and Jolt will be delivered as new technology items. BEA considers itself looking from mission critical environments out to the Web rather than from browsers into the back end.
MACROMEDIA PROMISES CRYSTAL CLEAR SOUND FROM THE WEB
Macromedia Inc is promising compact disk quality sound over the Internet in the next release of its Shockwave Internet animation software. The new release is also claimed to cut the time it takes to download audio before it can be played, by making use of audio streaming and compression.
The client end of Shockwave is downloadable free and the company looks to make its money from developers that buy it as part of the Director Multimedia Studio tools. The new release will be in Macromedia's Director 5 and SoundEdit 16 products, part of Multimedia Studio 2, which will cost $1,000. The client version will be available as part of Netscape's PowerPack software, Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Windows95, Apple's newest Macintoshes, and in the next version of America Online's access software.
MITSUBISHI SETS JAPANESE INTERNET TV FOR OCTOBER
Mitsubishi Electric Corp says it plans to launch a next-generation color television set that can also be used on the Internet, in the fourth quarter in Japan. The new Internet television will be the first of its kind to be produced by the Japanese electronics industry, Mitsubishi claims.
The machine will include a 32-bit processor - Pentium, presumably - a World Wide Web browser and a modem; the remote control will be used with the browser. The machine - the 28W-MM1 - will cost a daunting $2,500 when it goes on sale in October - but it is a wide-screen 28" model. Mitsubishi says it plans to manufacture 2,000 a month, but has no immediate plans to export them.
CyberOptics Corp has reported second quarter net profits that were down 36.4% at $700,000 on turnover up 7.9% at $7.8m; mid-term net profits rose 32.7% to $2.1m on turnover up 38.4% at $16.3m. Net earnings per share fell 50.0% to $0.12 in the quarter, were up 5.9% to $0.36 in the half.
NetManage Inc reported second quarter net profits down 73.3% at $1.6m on turnover up 16.4% at $26.8m; mid-term net profits fell 42.0% to $6.7m on turnover up 1.4% at $59.8m. Net per share fell 71.4% to $0.04 in the quarter 44.4% to $0.15 in the half.
UUNet Technologies Inc has reported second quarter net profits of $1.1m against losses last time of $1.9m on turnover up 185.0% at $57.0m; mid-term net profits were $1.3m on turnover up 185.6% at $100.0m. Net earnings per share were $0.03 in the quarter, and were $0.04 in the half year.
WorldCom Inc has reported second quarter net losses at $268.5m, which includes $344m exceptional write-down charge and a $24m gain for early repayment of debt, from profits of $54.9 before on turnover up 18.6% at $1,061m; mid-term net losses were at $183.5m, which includes the above charge and exceptional gain, from profits of $101.9m last time, on turnover that rose by 18.6% at $2,088m.
Network Computing Devices Inc has reported second quarter net losses at $6.0m from profits of $85,000 last time on turnover down 16.3% at $29.3m; mid-term net losses were at $6.3m from profits of $389,000 before on turnover down 17.6% at $59.8m.
Platinum Software Corp saw second quarter net losses of $3.0m up from losses last time of $981,000 on turnover down 37.2% at $9.4m; mid-term net losses were $32.9m, including a $5.6m pretax restructuring charge, on turnover down 27.8% at $40.6m.
Silicon Graphics Inc has reported a fourth quarter net loss of $48.7m after a pre-tax charge of $102m to cover the cost of the Cray Research Inc acquisition, against a profit last time of $52.7m, on turnover that rose 49.6% at $977.4m; net profit for the year to June 30 fell 48.8% at $115.0m on turnover that rose 31.1% at $2,921.1m. Net earnings per share fell 49% to $0.65. Comparisons are with figures restated to reflect the Cray acquisition.
COMPANY RESULTS
SMARTALEX FILTERS WEB CONTENT
A new "intelligent" filtering system has made its way into the consumer domain in the form of SmartAlex - an image content analyser that its creators are marketing as a detector for sexually-explicit pictures.
"It's not meant to be foolproof," confessed Alex Massimi, head of New York-based SuperWare Corp and one of the developers of the software. "But if [SmartAlex] detects even a small percentage of everything out there, then we've succeeded." Massimi began the project as a result of seeing the success his son, Alex Jr, had in locating pictures on the Internet. A year on, Massimi believes he has a workable method to enable guardians to limit the amount of on-line access their minors can have. He is pushing SmartAlex at on-line services such as America Online Inc.
In the same vein as software that steers children away from unsuitable sites such as Net Nanny, CyberPatrol and Spyglass Inc's recently acquired filtering software SurfWatch, SmartAlex looks for objective characteristics that are common to the majority of graphics that contain nudity - colour content and distribution, image resolution and size, file names and textual content. SmartAlex will also scan text files on a computer for occurrences of obscene words.
The software comes from a technology partnership between SuperWare and Sutton, Surrey-based image specialist MOR Ltd, a company that has been working on Fingerprinted Bitmapped Identification technology, enabling image authors to insert durable signatures in electronic pictures without modifying them.
POINTCAST RAISES MORE MONEY, WINS ONE MILLION VIEWERS
PointCast Inc, Cupertino, California has raised more than $36m in venture capital with the sale of Series D preferred stock with Adobe Systems Inc, Compaq Computer Corp, CUC International Inc, Gannett International Communications Inc, General Electric Capital Corp, Knight-Ridder Investment Co, PAFET member co.s, Softbank Holdings Inc and Times Mirror Co. Morgan Stanley Co Inc acted as placing agent for the investments - and no doubt had its hands bitten off as people leaped at the opportunity to get in ahead of the crowd.
PointCast says its central broadcast facility in Cupertino is now receiving more than 35m hits each day to its file server Internet news network, and that it has now reached its goal of 1m registered viewers for its Internet news service. This figure, achieved only five months after the service initially became available, is well ahead of its previous projections, said the company. Founded in 1992, the company had already raised over $12m in venture capital funding from Benchmark Capital, Merrill Pickard Anderson & Eyre, and Mohr Davidow Ventures.
l Pointcast also looks to be under attack from Microsoft's plans for an "active desktop" with newsfeed capabilities - part of Internet Explorer 4.0.
BORLAND UNVEILS "INTRABUILDER" RAPID DEVELOPMENT TOOL
Scotts Valley development tools vendor Borland International helped crowd the bandwagon last week, announcing the "Golden Gate" Internet/intranet strategy at its developers' conference in Anaheim, California. Borland cut the tape on Golden Gate with IntraBuilder, a new tool for rapid development of active, browser-based, client/server applications. IntraBuilder resembles the popular Delphi product and allows JavaScript, Java applets, and ActiveX controls to integrate with a wide range of back-end databases. Drag-and-drop editing and painting facilities are used to tie data and controls together on convenient tables and forms, and an HTML generator presents the results in Web format. The product is in public beta at:http://netserv.borland.com/
intrabuilder/download.html.
HAUSER'S NETCHANNEL IS READY FOR ACORN NETSTATION
NetChannel Inc, Palo Alto, California will be ready for Acorn Computer Group Plc's NetStation Network Computer when it launches in the US in the autumn - not much of a surprise, as the company is yet another of Acorn co-founder Hermann Hauser's creations.
NetChannel has created a suite of consumer services that it says can be deployed across all Oracle Network Computer-compatible devices and says the Acorn NetStation will be the first such device signed on to use the NetChannel personalized service suite. The suite combines television programming with real-time access to the World Wide Web, with Web pages "transformed into Web channels", though details are conspicuously thin on the ground.
"NetChannel will enable everyone to have easy and affordable access to the Internet with personalized information and a wealth of new experiences - all from a remote control or wireless keyboard in the comfort of their very own easy chair," says Hauser breathlessly. Oracle likes the company well enough, and its Network Computer Inc subsidiary asserts that "NetChannel's grasp of the consumer market and understanding of the importance of delivering compelling end-user experiences will make them a market leader in this new emerging industry of Internet consumer devices and services."
DOT Gossip
As the "I'm more open than you are" war gathers pace between Microsoft and the Netscape/Java camps, will JavaSoft feel it necessary to respond with an "Open Java Foundation" or somesuch? No, says a JavaSoft spokesperson, who points out the company is already consulting widely about the future of the language: "We believe our position is solid... there is no point in re-naming what we are doing anyway".
Xing Technologies has released version 2 of its StreamWorks streaming audio and video Internet tools. Support for MPEG 2 audio is now included and the software now throttles back more efficiently where net connections are slow www.xing.com
Microsoft may have removed the technical 10 TCP/IP connection restriction on Windows NT 4.0 Workstation, however PCWeek Online reports that the licensing agreement still states users aren't legally allowed to permit more than 10 concurrent TCP/IP connections. Which will be an interesting one to enforce...
InSync Media has launched www.neverforget.com, a free Internet e-mail reminder service. The Web site lets users register all their pet holidays and special events and the site e-mails reminders shortly before the big day. The service is advertising funded.
The guys behind Paintshop Pro have delayed the release of shareware version 4 until mid to late August. They are waiting for Microsoft to fix the problems which the COMMCTRL.DLL shipped with the latest Explorer beta which causes a number of apps to mis-behave. They will also be adding more changes as requested by users.
Bandai Digital Entertainment and Holiday Inn are running a pilot scheme in the chain's Atlanta hotel, giving 100 Holiday Innmates unlimited, free Internet net access. Each Room will come with an Internet-enabled Pippin box and will be connected via Atlanta's Mindspring Enterprises ISP.
One of Microsoft's most befuddled products, Internet Studio, is set to go into beta this Fall. The Web development tool was originally conceived as 'Blackbird' an authoring tool for the old-style, proprietary MSN When Microsoft turned to the Internet, the whole thing was completely re-thought.
UK-based Active Imaging is touting what it describes as the "world's smallest video Web server". Essentially, each Mv-NET box encompasses a CCD color camera, a 50MHz 486 PC board, a JPEG image compression card and and an Ethernet or modem network connection. The whole thing is a little larger than a well-stuffed Filofax. It can be mounted in an enclosure which allows tilt, pan and zoom etc. Prices are from $4,000 in the US, or £2,950 in the UK: www.imaging.co.uk.
The US Communications Decency Act suffered another court defeat last week when three Federal New York judges upheld American Reporter editor and publisher Joe Sea's complaint. They found that the CDA is overly broad and unconstitutional. The New York case is likely to get bundled with the earlier Philadelphia ruling when the DOJ appeals before the Supreme Court.
America Online is to quit the choppy fiscal waters of NASDAQ for the hopefully calmer NYSE New York Stock Exchange, according to the Wall Street Journal. No date was given for the switch.
UUNet Technologies Inc has taken on Nielsen Media Research to provide Web traffic measurement and analysis services for its customers. Nielsen will get direct access to UUNet's encrypted server logs. Neilsen, a Dunn & Bradstreet company has developed a number of Web auditing programs with Internet Profiles Corp.
Fujitsu Ltd, Hitachi Ltd and NEC Corp say they will work together to develop a common system to secure commercial transactions on networks such as the Internet: it will use secure electronic transaction standards established by Microsoft Corp and major credit-card issuers.
Iona Technologies Inc has announced OrbixWeb 2.0, the next version of it's Java object request broker. The difference between it and the first version is the ability to build back-end Corba services in Java, according to the company. It's in beta from next month.
Lotus Development Corp has started shipping its native SMTP, MIME, and cc:Mail message transfer agents for Notes. It says it will have an X.400 MTA within a month.
Finding a suitable home for the development of ActiveX won't be easy, says Jamie Lewis, president of the Burton Group, the impartial "facilitator" that Microsoft has recruited. "I think that there are some very complex dynamics at play here... If Microsoft starts a new standards body it will be very difficult for that to be seen as anything other than a Microsoft instrument" Lewis said. "However a lot of the existing standards bodies have created their own frameworks". He worries too that by following the standard route, Microsoft will hobble its ability to innovate; "it will be a tricky proposition".
E-Trade Securities Inc, which sells stocks over the Internet, wants to get into the IPO business and has asked the National Association of Securities Dealers for permission to set itself up as an under-writer.
Malaysia's plans for a Multimedia Super Corridor are beginning to take shape: the corridor aims to create an information technology hub in an area stretching from Kuala Lumpur 15 miles south to a new federal capital and international airport under construction, and Malaysia is trying to lure all kinds of multimedia companies - from electronic publishers and Internet providers to software engineers, distance learning and entertainment firms - to set up shop there.
Nomura Research Institute will start online shopping trials in October. Companies involved the Cardless Card System Platform Committee include JCB, Tobu Department Store and Hitachi. www.ccp.or.jp
HotWired this week is going to claim that its HotBot search engine has mapped the entire Web, making its 54 million documents searchable in one database using any word or phrase it contains. HotBot's cheerleaders say that anybody else who says they've done this is, well, fibbing.
Former Sybase chief operating officer Dav
id Peterschmidt has become hot-bot builder Inktomi's chief executive officer.
Not for the squeamish: CNET Inc accompanied the news of its move into software distribution with the comment that it "has its finger on the pulse of an exploding segment of the Internet" Should someone should dial the emergency services, do you think?
(c) 1996 May not be copied
online REPORTER, a sister publication of Unigram.X and ClieNT Server News, is published weekly in Europe by:
APT Data News Ltd, 12 Sutton Row, London W1V 5FH, UK, Tel: +44 171 208 4200
European Publisher: Simon Thompson (simont@aptdata.com), Editor: Chris Rose (chrisr@computerwire.com),
Associate Editor: Jeffrey Sweat (jsweat@panix.com), Consultant Editor, John Abbott (johna@aptdata.co.uk)
London Editorial Tel: +44 171 208 4226, Fax +44 171 439 1105. New York: Tel +1 516 759 7025, Fax +1 516 759 7028
Price: £395 for 52 issues. Available online to groups, departments and companies at OEM prices.
(c) Copyright 1996, G-2 Computer Intelligence, Inc. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior written permission.
No comments:
Post a Comment