The Online REPORTER Issue no. 28, December 1996
WEEKLY DISPATCHES FROM THE INTERNET FRONT
JAVASOFT EXPANDS JAVA OPTIONS, ENCRYPTION COMING
Sun Microsystems Inc's JavaSoft Inc division last week updated and expanded the Java platform, with a new version of the Java Developers Kit (JDK), which includes the Java virtual machine, class libraries and tools, and an electronic commerce platform based on the Java Commerce APIs and the recently-announced Java Card API (OR 23). The company is also preparing Java encryption APIs.
The JDK 1.1 includes APIs that support various international languages, and the abstract windowing toolkit (AWT) element has been tweaked to give two to three-times the performance than before, according to David Spenhoff, JavaSoft's director of product marketing, though he added that benchmarks and other numbers would be announced when it goes to beta this week.
One thing the JDK does not include just yet is any encryption capabilities. Spenhoff says JavaSoft supports strong encryption, presumably in the 128-bit range, but is waiting until the political dust settles.
There will be some encryption APIs available about the same time the JDK ships next quarter, he said. JavaSoft customers in Asia, Australasia and Europe are apparently really nervous about the key recovery proposal becoming the standard, whereby a portion of the key has to surrendered to the US government for any product to get an export license in the US (OR 26).
Spenhoff wanted to make it clear that no decision on JavaSoft's solution to the problem has been made yet; it's looking at everything. But the feeling right now is that JavaSoft's encryption "probably won't be exportable," according to Spenhoff.
The AWT enables applications to adopt the look and feel of whatever operating system is underneath. The company has added JDBC support to the JDK to link into relational databases, its Java-only Remote Method Invocation (RMI) object transport, which requires Java virtual machines at both ends to talk. Support for Java Beans components has also been added. Security has been enhanced
CULTURES CLASH AS INTERNET COPYRIGHT MEET GETS UNDERWAY
Tempers were starting to fray at the meeting of the United Nations' World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva, Switzerland as we went to press, as the forces of the Internet clashed with the suits who many doubt have ever seen, let alone used a browser.
The point of the meeting is copyright, and specifically the effect of the Internet on intellectual property. More than 150 countries are represented, as are interests including telecommunications, Internet service providers, as well as the various media and content companies.
The aim of the gathering is to update the 110-year old Berne convention to deal with the new set of problems Internet distribution poses. The Berne convention is the premium intellectual property convention in the world. There are three draft texts to achieve the minimum set of standards, if they can be agreed upon. But many doubt whether that will happen any time soon. The drafts that are causing such a stir deal with literary and artistic works, performers and record producers' rights and protection for any information held in an electronic database.
The main complaint from the Internet community - led by the Ad-Hoc Copyright Coalition, whose members include AT&T, Netscape, Netcom, MCI and AOL - is that those making the decision don't realize the power they are wielding and the effect abusing that power, whether intentional or not, could have. Peter Harter of Netscape Communications Corp said the draft treaty is too broad. "Its unintended consequences could be potentially catastrophic," he told
COREL TAPS SANGA TO ADD GROUPWARE TO OFFICE FOR JAVA
Corel Corp is paying a "huge amount of money", to integrate Sanga Corp's Java-written Sanga Pages (OR 23) groupware software into its Corel Office for Java suite, which is due next quarter.
Sanga CEO Shane Maine wouldn't specify just how big the wad is, but it's a one-off payment, rather than a royalty scheme. Corel naturally down-played the amount handed over.
It will give Corel groupware and workflow capabilities to add to the word processor, spreadsheet and other elements of the suite. It will also enable users of Corel Office to customize their applications, and Sanga said Office-type suites could then be created for separate vertical markets, such as accountants, utilities and so on. This seems like a good idea to us, but Corel said it has no plans to do anything like that just now.
However, Sanga is planning something similar with its Sanga Pages suite. It's a suite of components written entirely in Java with which to write applications to link to and use legacy data. The company's going to play up the product's customization capabilities for various vertical markets when it's launched in
January. Sanga's going to concentrate on enterprise customers, leaving the desktop mass market to the likes of Corel and any other licensees it can snag for its stuff.
Names including Novell and Computer Associates International Inc have been mooted as planning similar deals to Corel, and it would not come as a major surprise if one or both of them had something to say about that this week at Internet World in New York City.
Sanga will also announce Java Beans and ActiveX support for Sanga Pages at the show. This means, for instance that a Java Beans spreadsheet component can be dropped into a word processor and the component will retain its functionality.
Sanga will aim for deals valued between $2m and $10m when it launches Pages next month, according to Maine. The company will work with systems integrators to get in its foot in the door of large corporates in vertical markets.
Sanga plans an announcement on Wednesday at Internet World regarding financing options for its customers, but further details were not available.
http://www.sangacorp.com
GOODBYE RFCS: IETF TO TRADEMARK STANDARDS NAME
In an effort to clarify just what an Internet standard is, The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) will finalize plans to trademark the term 'Global Internet Standard' (GIS) at its meeting next week in San Jose.
It seems that the mad rush by companies to adopt open standards has led to the creation of documents with what IETF Chair Fred Baker calls "very misleading names". Baker declined to point the finger at anyone (now we couldn't be thinking of Redmond, could we Fred?), but he says that registering 'Global Internet Standard' as a trademark would clarify the situation.
Trademarking would also give the IETF the ability to sue anyone misusing the GIS name. Presently, IETF Request for Comments (RFCs) can include proposed or accepted standards, but informational documents like white papers or even poems can also be published as RFCs. And anyone who wants to can call a document an RFC if they choose to publish it themselves.
The GIS mark would be associated with only those documents that had become IETF-accepted standards. In order to make this happen, Baker says the IETF needs to complete a trademark name search and finalize the details with the RFC Editor and the Internet Architecture Board next week. The proposal calling for GIS has been posted at http://www.ietf. org/ids.by.wg/poisson.html. In addition to the trademark, it calls for the axing of the RFC business altogether.
Once selected for the standards process, documents would go through two draft stages before becoming Global Internet Standards. Informational documents would be called 'Internet Notes'. Documents not yet selected for the standards track, now called Internet Drafts, would be called Working Papers. http://www.ietf.org
SAN JOSE INTERNET TASK FORCE MEETING THE LARGEST EVER
With 1,625 pre-registered attendees, this week's IETF meeting in San Jose will be, by far, the largest ever, with IETF members wondering whether the event has become too popular to achieve the running code and rough consensus on which it prides itself.
Suggestions have been flying about IETF discussion groups about quarantining mere observers (IETF tourists in Internet parlance) so they don't get in the way of the real work, which, by the way, is scheduled to go from 8am to 10pm. With the greater attention and increased media focus on the workings of the IETF, the San Jose meeting will be far removed from the first IETF meeting back in 1986: it drew a crowd of 21. And whether the IETF wants to admit it or not, its little get-together is beginning to resemble a good old-fashioned convention. And why not involve the IETF with a trade show? MecklerMedia's Internet World happens to be occurring simultaneously on the other side of the continent. Netscape's standards guru Carl Cargill thinks it's silly that the two events occur so far apart. He says that from Netscape's point of view it would make sense to send engineers and marketing people to the same place so there can be some sort of "co-mingling". IETF Chair Fred Baker bristles at the suggestion, saying, "it really doesn't make sense... [an IETF meeting] needs to be a place where people can literally walk in and drop their pants," as it were. A marketing presence would, presumably, deter such an open and frank exchange of ideas. Hot topics at this year's meeting include Top Level Domains (TLDs),which will come up in a Birds of a Feather session and again in a report from the International Ad-Hoc Committee (OR 22) set up to address the issue of creating more TLDs. www.ietf.org/meetings/SanJose.html
WORLD WIDE WEB CONSORTIUM PICKS PICS CONTENT RATING
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has endorsed the Platform for Internet Content Selection (PICS) as a W3C recommendation, clearing the way for what it calls "values-neutral" censorship on the Internet. Designed to help parents and teachers control children's access to the Internet, PICS provides a standard place and format for Website's to rate their content.
The W3C says it is analogous to specifying where on a package a label should appear and what font it should use. PICS does come with a set of ratings like X, R or PG-13, but simply designates a standard way for a browser to find a Web page's rating, which is then interpreted by the browser. Determining what goes in the label is up to companies like the Receational Software Advisory Council or SafeSurf, which have systems for issuing PICS-compatible labels to any Website that might want a rating.
SurfWatch and CyberPatrol have PICS-compatible software that works with most browsers. W3C Technology and Society Domain Leader Jim Miller says that PICS could be used for more than simply keeping children out of trouble. Because a PICS rating does not necessarily have anything to do with how raunchy or obscene a Website is, Miller suggests that PICS information could be used to enhance Web searches or even protect intellectual property rights by blacklisting material that has been illegally copied. This, presumably, after users choose a browser or plug-in that would deny them access to such material.
In January, Miller says, work will begin to extend the feature set of PICS into what will become PICS 1.2. http://www.w3.org/
UNISYS TAPS HARBINGER FOR NET-BASED E-COMMERCE PRODUCTS
Unisys Corp and Harbinger Corp have inked a deal whereby Unisys' Information Services Group (ISG) systems integration unit will sell Harbinger's TrustedLink Instant Net Presence (INP) electronic commerce package, which includes a Website builder and Netscape Navigator, as well as TrustedLink Guardian secure EDI product, and a line of translators and gateways (OR 21).
Unisys will also plug Harbingers' Value Added Network (VAN) offerings and trading community rollout services, which get trading partners together for e-commerce. It's the first time Unisys has offered an Internet-enabled e-commerce package, having concentrated on EDI previously. Unisys will be going after vertical markets such as finance, transport and retail with this stuff, which is increasingly being based on Windows NT, rather than Unix boxes, according to Gus Wing, Unisys's electronic commerce manager within the ISG. However, Unisys doesn't do any of its business over the net just yet. It prefers to stick to EDI over a couple of VANs, said Wing.
REUTERS' TIBCO SET TO GIVE AWAY ITS TIB MIDDLEWARE
Reuters Holdings Plc's Tibco Inc is expected to begin offering its core Tib middleware technology free over the net from next week aiming to establish the stuff as the de facto middleware standard.
It aims to knock spots off the likes of Marimba and PointCast Inc, licensing its technology to software and content creators who want to use it commercially to distribute their wares on the Internet. It's expected to name a bunch of partners including Microsoft Corp.
Microsoft is expected to take the stuff for use in its Viper server for handling Web transactions. Palo Alto, California based Tibco's Tib technology enables subject-based, rather than address-based, interchange of information between apps and is used in publish-subscribe communications middleware including both real-time messaging and message queuing for secure delivery.
It comes integrated with Tibco's own Corba 2.0 compliant Object Request Broker (ORB). Tibco develops a host of end-to-end solutions on top of Tib. Further details were not forthcoming as the company insisted it was all top secret. http://www.tibco.com
Starnine Technologies Inc has updated the Microsoft Mail for AppleTalk Networks product - which it now owns - for the first time in four years, including "everything people expect in an electronic mail package" - now called Quarterdeck Mail 4.0, it is priced from $260 per server and $300 for 10 clients.
IBM TO DEBUT TWO AIX SERVERS AT INTERNET WORLD
IBM Corp had a few things up its sleeve at Internet World this week, mostly derived from the RS/6000 division.
First up is Network Dispatcher, an extension to AIX that receives incoming packets and spreads them out among Web servers, balancing the load, using a four-year-old IBM algorithm. It's been road-tested at Wimbledon, the US Open and Atlanta Olympics, and will cost $1,500 per server when it arrives December 27. Windows NT and Solaris versions are next up.
VideoCharger for AIX is a client-server that delivers real-time video and audio at rates between 20Kbps and 1.5Mbps. It differs from IBM's earlier Multimedia server as it's a push rather than pull technology, according to Teresa Golden, RS/6000 program director. It'll be general available in February for AIX 4.2 at $1,200. It was jointly developed with the Internet division.
NOW IN THE SWIM, NEXT RE-WRITES WEBOBJECTS IN JAVA
It was only a couple of years ago that a Steve Jobs' keynote would still pack a conference hall with punters keen to see what amounted to little more than a product pitch. But a product pitch for Jobs' widely-acclaimed object-oriented NextStep user interface and Mach microkernel-based operating system was still something to see back then, which of course is eons in Internet time.
The rise of Windows and Web desktops put paid to both, but Jobs was quick and clever enough to refocus the company's resources to the Internet and Next became one of the first companies to offer software allowing companies to Web-enable their existing applications and data stores and create new HTML-based applications and Web sites to boot. It won some prestigious accounts along the way. Next might not have got this far had Scott McNealy's Sun Microsystems Inc not thrown Jobs a lifeline at a critical time, licensing the NextStep application development environment and interface for use with its Distributed Objects Everywhere (DOE) environment in November 1993, sealing the deal by acquiring a 1.5% equity position in the company for a reported $10m. Ironically if Sun had waited another year or 18 months until Java was more fully formed it would probably have been able to pass-up the Next deal. When do we ever hear about Neo these days anyway? Now Next's swimming with the rest of the Internet tide, much of which will flood to Internet World this week in New York. Last week the company began to offer a beta of version 2.0 of its Enterprise Objects Framework for integrating objects with relational databases on Solaris. Production versions are due next quarter at from $500 per seat. It's also going to extend all of its products to support Informix's Universal Server. French Roast, Next's promised Java language binding for its WebObjects HTML development environment is now available to download from its Web site. It'll do a VBScript version as customers ask. The real news such that it is, is the Java re-write of WebObjects that'll ship by the middle of next year. It hasn't figured out packaging yet, like whether it'll offer one product, or two. The Java configuration will be an end-to-end solution that could be used to develop applications outside of the conventional HTML browser environment. It'll employ JavaSoft's Java-only Remote Method Invocation distributed object system and a Java interface that's yet to be created. Users can add a slew of Windows interface elements and tools to WebObjects by licensing the OpenStep layer of services Next stripped from its NextStep environment and ported to Windows. It says 80% of code is common to both in any case. Next says it can pass objects to Corba-compliant systems via integration with the Iona Technologies Ltd Orbix object request broker. It hasn't added DCOM support yet.
SPYGLASS STEALS MARCH ON NAVIO WITH WEB DEVICE PLAN
Getting the jump on Netscape's silent Navio subsidiary, Spyglass Inc has released a product road map that it figures will give it a foothold in the soon-to-be-emerging Internet appliance market; a market Netscape co-founder and CTO Marc Andreessen thinks will be worth half a billion dollars in a couple of years.
Spyglass hopes to market a complete line of client, server and even groupware applications by the end of 1997. The cornerstone of Spyglass's strategy is a product called Remote Mosaic, scheduled for release second quarter 1997, that would turn browsing on devices like phones or pagers into a client/server operation. Lightweight 'viewers' would be custom-integrated into devices, which would then connect to a 'proxy browser' on a Unix or NT server. The proxy browser would handle resource-demanding browser functions like caching, while connecting the device to other servers. Spyglass says that one proxy browser could support hundreds of clients at a time. The viewers would require about 20-75Kb of RAM. Spyglass also intends to deliver an embedded browser, called Device Mosaic in the first quarter of 1997. Device Mosaic will be targeted at machines, like network computers, with enough resources to handle browsing on their own. Spyglass says that at its smallest, Device Mosaic would require about 1 Mb RAM. A small footprint Web server, called MicroServer, will be delivered in SDK form in the first quarter of next year. Spyglass expects developers to embed the MicroServer into various real time operating systems, turning non-computer devices like office or manufacturing equipment into servers, capable of serving up diagnostic information via Internet protocols. Also in the works is Spyglass Prism, server software that converts Web content into whatever form an embedded browser may prefer; it'll ship in the second quarter. Spyglass will begin to sell Mail and Conferencing servers, acquired from OS Technologies, within the month. Other collaborative software will follow.http://www.spyglass.com
WEB SERVERS TO BE SPUN OUT OF INTERNET WORLD
Sun Microsystems, Oracle Corporation and SunSoft Inc are all expected to announce Web server software at Internet World this week. Oracle will make e-commerce the focus of its newest Web Server release.
The Oracle Web Server will now go by the name of Web Application Server 3.0 and will feature enhancements to Oracle's Web Request Broker. It'll be in beta next week, and due early in 1997. Oracle is also expected to announce more details on its merchant server, code-named Apollo, which is intended to run on the Web Application Server platform (OR 21).
Apollo has been in limited pre-beta up to now, but will go into general beta soon after the show. Oracle will also reveal plans to implement the Java virtual machine in Oracle8 and across its entire product line. Meantime, Microsoft will release its Internet Information Server 3.0, according to sources close to the company. Key to the new release will be Microsoft's 'Denali' ActiveX scripting environment, which lets Web developers use scripting languages like VBScript, JavaScript and Perl within HTML pages.
IIS 3.0 will also ship with a slightly archaic version 4.5 of Seagate Software's Crystal Reports database reporting tool. Crystal Reports, which is now in its 5.0 release, allows Webmasters to design their own Web Server reports based on NCSA or Microsoft-standard Web log files. Not to be left out of the act, SunSoft will be announcing its first entry into the Web server market: a high-end server, formerly code named Vishnu (OR 17). Sun has kept quiet on this since we first reported it, but rumors are swirling that the Web Server will lead a new Internet product line.
MICROSOFT OFFERS $750M PREFERRED SHARES
Microsoft Corp realizes there are people out there that want a share in its success but would like a dividend too, so it has filed to offer $750m of convertible exchangeable principal-protected preferred shares, and most of the proceeds will be used to buy in common shares with the balance going to working capital.
The shares will convert into Microsoft common shares according to a formula to be determined at the time of pricing, or an equivalent amount of cash at Microsoft's option. The preferred shares will also be exchangeable at Microsoft's option for convertible subordinated notes due 1999.
INFORMIX INTRODUCES ITS UNIVERSAL SERVER
Informix Corp duly announced its Universal Server last week at DB Expo in New York, defying those that had predicted it would be late, and those that have questioned the validity of its technology. "The important thing is that we've fired the gun," the company says, though how it will capitalize on what it claims is a 12-to-18 month technology lead over rivals such as Oracle Corp in its bid to become the number one supplier of "open database solutions within two years" wasn't made quite as clear.
Based on the company's Dynamic Scalable Architecture, Universal Server marks Informix's entry into the so-called "Object-Relational" space, and includes the controversial DataBlades technology garnered from the acquisition of Illustra Information Technologies Inc last year.
All data types are managed by the core server, whether industry or company-specific or rich data such as Web pages, time series data, numbers, images, maps, sound and video. The DataBlade modules plug directly into the database, defining new types and functions, and will be produced both by Informix itself and by its third parties. Initially, 29 modules are available, with a total of 50 announced and "hundreds" in varying stages of development. One, from Informix itself, is the Video Foundation DataBlade module, which manages video content and associated metadata, and provides the core functionality needed by applications such as video servers, video streaming and video scene detection.
Another, from San Jose-based Telconar Inc, provides high-speed spatial access extensions needed to support geographic data. There are also a surrounding set of tools, including the NewEra graphical application development tool, Jworks drag and drop Java development environment, and tools from third parties such as Forte Software Inc, Powersoft Corp, Logic Works Inc, CSA Holdings Plc and Conquer Data Inc, who came out in support at the launch. Netscape Communications Corp - which has been paying rather more attention to Oracle Corp of late - also turned up in support, saying that its Netscape Enterprise Server and LiveWire development tool will support Universal Server.
Informix CEO Phil White doesn't expect Universal Server to contribute significantly to Informix coffers until well into the second half of next year. Windows NT and the majority of Unix ports will only become generally available around the middle of 1997. Until then there are only Solaris and SGI Irix implementations - Illustra's development platforms - which are due this month starting at $2,500 for single user licenses. There are no TPC performance numbers available. The street wasn't that impressed, marking Informix shares down $1.00 on the day at $25.37. Meantime Informix has lured Documentum Inc CFO Alan Henricks to replace its senior VP and CFO of five years, Howard Graham, who leaves for high-flying customer information software systems company Siebel Systems Inc at the end of the year.
IBM TRIES TO STEAL INFORMIX THUNDER, BUT SIX MONTHS OFF
As a spoiler for Informix Software Inc's announcement of its Universal Server last week, IBM rushed out news of the beta version of what it calls DB2 Universal Database, describing it as a multimedia and Web-enabled database - which runs under Windows NT and OS/2, and under the AIX, HP-UX, Solaris, Sinix and Santa Cruz Operation Inc Unixes. It also runs on everything from portables to the parallel RS/6000 SP2 machines, which are capable of delivering performance equivalent to the biggest mainframe if you are prepared to buy enough processors.
The product, however, is only in beta test and will not be available until the middle of next year. Storing video, audio, graphics and text as well as raw data, DB2 Universal Database includes a translator between DB2 SQL and HyperText Mark-up Language Common Gateway Interface so that it can be accessed over the Internet and on intranets - if you can afford the MIPS to handle the translation on the fly. It includes built-in JDBC support, and supports Java stored procedures. DB2 also includes replication support, distributed data warehousing, complex querying, Internet links, optimized transaction processing and database tools.
IBM says object-relational extenders support data types such as image, video, audio and text as part of the database, and that support for fingerprint applications, spatial and time series data will be delivered next year as part of DB2 Universal Database. On price, IBM says only that the new version will be "competitively priced."
HEWLETT PACKARD AIMS TO BE INTERNET MELTING POT
Hewlett-Packard Co, which in public studiously avoids showing any preference between Unix and Windows NT, is taking agnosticism to new heights in its Internet strategy, calling in companies such as Oracle Corp, Microsoft Corp and Netscape Communications Corp that are mutual mortal enemies and getting them to rally to its flag.
"Our strategy is to blur the lines," executive vice president Rick Belluzzo said, adding that the goal was to take advantage of new technologies as they emerge and not to restrict "where good ideas can come from." It aims to help customers getting onto the Internet or putting in intranets to move from the "creative chaos stage" of the Internet as it exists today, to an environment where companies can manage, measure and control their networks. Partners on Internet commerce and security also include Open Market Inc, VeriFone Inc, Visa International Inc and Broadvision Inc. http://www.hp.com
NETMANAGE HAS INTRACHANGE WEB MANAGEMENT
Cupertino, California-based NetManage is offering a Web site management tool called IntraChange. The company's hoping to capitalize on the burgeoning market for companies with increasingly complex and disparate sourced Web sites.
The tool comes with a clutch of management functions and a workflow system. IntraChange has been developed using technology from the acquisition of Maximum Information Inc of San Francisco, California, back in June. IntraChange provides its core capabilities through middleware which NetManage calls the IntraChange Desktop and Web Warehouse.
The Desktop is the front-end and gives users and intranet administrators varying levels of control and security, dependent on authorization. A slightly less functional version of the Desktop, designed for users rather than administrators, can be accessed anywhere on the local area network from any browser. The Web Warehouse stores all original documents and applications which are ultimately to be published to the live Web sites. It uses popular SQL database servers, such as Oracle, Sybase and Microsoft. IntraChange is expected to ship in February, with floating license pricing.
OZ HITS THE DANCEFLOOR AND SHOWFLOOR AT INTERNET WORLD
Six-year-old Reykjavik, Iceland company Oz Interactive has picked up a bunch of VC money and is morphing from its high-end 3D graphics roots - it created filters for SoftImage - into a Web development shop offering to create online VRML and 3D worlds for your Web site. It's also scooted across the water to set up in San Francisco, where 20 of its 60 staff are now based.
The company's doing its best to get noticed above the rabble that'll be at Internet world this week. Although it's not the only one putting on a rave for show goers - raves seem to be this year's theme - it is the only one that's cutting a techno CD for the occasion. Oz, also a sometime underground dance music collective, has even lined up Icelandic diva Bjork to sing on a couple of tracks on its next platter. Underworld's Darren Emerson will be on the decks at Oz's Thursday night bash at Irving Plaza in Manhattan. No doubt the highly-repectable press corp will be shouting "lager, lager, lager."
Tempers were starting to fray at the meeting of the United Nations' World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva, Switzerland as we went to press, as the forces of the Internet clashed with the suits who many doubt have ever seen, let alone used a browser.
The point of the meeting is copyright, and specifically the effect of the Internet on intellectual property. More than 150 countries are represented, as are interests including telecommunications, Internet service providers, as well as the various media and content companies.
The aim of the gathering is to update the 110-year old Berne convention to deal with the new set of problems Internet distribution poses. The Berne convention is the premium intellectual property convention in the world. There are three draft texts to achieve the minimum set of standards, if they can be agreed upon. But many doubt whether that will happen any time soon. The drafts that are causing such a stir deal with literary and artistic works, performers and record producers' rights and protection for any information held in an electronic database.
The main complaint from the Internet community - led by the Ad-Hoc Copyright Coalition, whose members include AT&T, Netscape, Netcom, MCI and AOL - is that those making the decision don't realize the power they are wielding and the effect abusing that power, whether intentional or not, could have. Peter Harter of Netscape Communications Corp said the draft treaty is too broad. "Its unintended consequences could be potentially catastrophic," he told Reuter. Barbara Dooley, head of the Commercial Internet Exchange Association said the delegates "don't understand the technology," and they "have no experience of [the] Internet at all."
It appears there are three factions present. On one side is the content providers: the software, recording and film industries, facing the academics on the other. The Ad-Hoc group is supposed to be in the middle, but they have a much narrower focus, and their main concern is to "limit vicarious liability for mere carriage", in other words, not get blamed for what's carried on their networks.
There are a few other issues particularly pertinent to the net that the delegates may have difficulty agreeing upon. The database issue is fundamental to the whole conference. The proposal is for an all-encompassing protection of any information held in almost any sort of electronic database. Many database are already copyrighted in this manner, but this will cover almost everything.
HATE THAT DATABASE
Those pro the database proposal say it will protect companies that have spent years compiling such collections, but would it extend say, to the telephone directory? A case a few years back called Feist vs Rural Telephone Services Co in the US Supreme Court set the precedent that phone directories were not copyrightable, as they show no "originality or authorship", as the legalese goes.
Ronald Palenski, a partner in the Washington, DC law firm Gordon & Glickson, which provides legal services to the IT industry, along with many other observers doesn't reckon the database situation will get cleared up at this session, which runs through December 20.
Palenksi reckons there will be a further meeting around next June, where the matter will be addressed once more. US Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks Bruce Lehman told the San Jose Mercury News last week that although he didn't think the proposal would be approved this session either, the European Union had already pledged to craft such a rule by 1998. Netcom On-Line Communication Services Inc's manager of public policy Glee Cady summed up many of the Internet community's feelings towards the database proposal: "we hate that database stuff," she said.
Another, slightly more arcane proposal says it will be an offense to make even a temporary copy of something without the owners' permission, which of course flies in the face of caching used in Web browsers, as well as routers and other net paraphernalia. This seems unworkable as far as the Internet goes, but proponents of it have reportedly said it would be used just to target genuine pirates, not criminalize each and every Internet user. But catching the pirates has also got the ISPs jumpy. Their concern is will they be answerable for the crimes committed by their users?
If so there are two options open to the ISPs; monitoring usage or taking out insurance. One is politically damaging and the other financially damaging in a market with wafer-thin margins. "We don't want to be judge, jury and prosecutor," said NetCom's Cady. She likened it to blaming car manufacturers if one of their vehicles was used in a bank robbery.
Cady will join a team of heavy hitters in Geneva this week - mostly lawyers - from the likes of Netscape, Bell Atlantic, MCI, and America Online who are either in Geneva already or on their way.
The fourth provision likely to cause controversy is one that would make it illegal to sell, buy or use any device that is capable of circumventing any technical copyright scheme. Some PC manufacturers say this makes PCs illegal, but it's thought that wording such as devices whose "sole purpose" is to break copyright locks will get around the problem.
Applix Software has introduced a 4.3 incarnation of its Applixware suite of tools and real-time spreadsheet applications. New features include an updated user interface; improved menu consistency across applications; additional color use; a hierarchical directory displayer, directory history and the ability to open files as read only. There's also URL Fetching, which allows organizations to use secure Web servers as a virtual file system for document distribution. File Locking is also included. No prices.http://www.applix.com
DOT Gossip
Corel Corp is taking a step back from its forthcoming barrage of product announcements by putting it's Personal Digital Assistant, due in the second quarter, on hold. The more recent Video NC device has now taken precedent, and is due next quarter. There's no word on when the PDA might appear, but appear it will, the company assures us. Its deadline had already slipped a quarter when we last heard (OR 25). http://www.corel.com
Microsoft has expanded its circle of head honchos, now called the Executive Committee, from 6 to 8 members. Senior VPs Jim Allchin and Brad Silverberg will join Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Bob Herbold, Pete Higgins, Paul Maritz, Nathan Myhrvold and Jeff Raikes in running the show. Silverberg launched both Windows 95 and Internet Explorer, will now be in charge of the applications and Internet client group. Allchin will run the personal and business systems group.
Sun Microsystems Inc and the Internet solutions business of Siemens Stromberg-Carlson are teaming to offer hardware and software packages to enable telecoimmunicationms companies to equip themselves to be Internet Service Providers. Sun will prpvide the Internet hardware and software and Siemens the way in to the telcos. They'll be based around Ultra Enterprise servers and the pair will target mid to large telcos in Europe, Asia, Latin and South America.
Prodigy, now in Medford, Massachusetts is now looking to Africa to win new users for its on-line services. Its Africa Online service is now available in Ghana, having opened in Kenya and Cote d'Ivoire. Africa Online was founded by three Kenyan graduates from MIT and Harvard University to provide accessible and affordable Internet communications to businesses and individuals in Africa.
IBM CEO Louis Gerstner is gonna show Internet World attendees a video called OneVoice that suggests Big Blue culture of old like divisional politicking has gone and that Java is its new rallying cry.
AT&T Corp launched a low-cost Internet access service for individual users in Japan. AT&T Jens Corp, a joint venture between AT&T and 25 Japanese firms, said the service offers Japanese users unlimited Internet access for $17 per month.
Oh really? Zona Research VP Greg Blatnik reckons corporate and consumer NC devices should sell about neck and neck in 1997, at about 1.5m units each. After then, he says, consumer NC market will be far larger, as NC technology becomes integrated into televisions and telephones. A Zona report on the NC market is scheduled to be released in January. http://www.zonaresearch.com.
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and CommerceNet will this week put out a call for participation to companies interested in doing implementations of the W3C's JEPI electronic payment negotiation protocol. W3C expects actual trials to begin next quarter. http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Payments/
Bank of America's Concorde Solutions Credit Card Online (CCOL) System has tapped the TPBroker transaction processing object request broker jointly developed by Hitachi Ltd and Visigenic Software Inc. CCOL will enable users to check balances and transfer money via the net when it comes out in the first half of next year
Oracle says it hopes to have its Web-based Oracle Learning Architecture services up and running by today. http://www.oracle.com
America Online Inc is ploughing some $250m to upgrade its capacity between now and June, doubling its system hardware. The company was making a lot of noise about its share price performance last week, and it has indeed risen some 28% in the last four weeks. But that's forgetting that it's declined 35% in the last half-year and 12% in the past year.
And just as we went to press, AOL agreed to refund any member's bills that rose by $10 or more as a result of the price change that started on December 1. Under the deal with 19 Attorneys General the company will have to contact "as many members as possible" to get consent to roll them over to the new plan. It doesn't appear to clear up the issue once and for all though (OR 27).
Netscape is joining the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). Microsoft Corp and Sun Microsystems Inc are both already members and Netscape figures that ANSI's new boss, Sergio Mazza has what it takes to lighten ANSI's rather exhaustive procedures and make the standards body a bigger player in high tech.
NetCarta says it will ship version 2.0 of its WebMapper Web site management software in January. 2.0's "gee whiz" feature is something called a Cyberbolic view, which displays Web links and content as if charted on a transparent globe that rotates on a screen. The software will run on NT and Windows 95 and costs $500. A Unix version is planned next year. http://www.netcarta.com.
Could it be possible that the Internet Yellow Pages market is becoming a tad overcrowded? Pacific Telesis Interactive Media President Jeff Killeen says there are 146 Internet Yellow Pages services out there now.
WordPerfect Corp founder Alan Ashton resigned from the Novell Inc board, to pursue community and other interests in Utah.
Now Mastercard International Inc has control of Mondex Ltd, Chase Manhattan Corp will switch to the Mondex system its pilot stored value Smart Card trial in New York City, which has been put back to fourth quarter 1997. It's also taking a stake in the planned Mondex USA affiliate alongside AT&T, Wells Fargo & Co, First Chicago NBD Corp and Michigan National Bank.
Oracle subsidiary Network Computer Inc (NCI) has got itself its first VP marketing, Bonnie Crater, who worked with NCI boss Jerry Baker back at the Oracle salt mines.
Competitors are positive Compaq will be doing a Java-based NC as well as one of Microsoft's newfangled NetPCs.
Oracle Corp, Digital Equipment Corp and ISP Digex are getting together at Internet World, bundling Oracle's InterOffice collaboration suite, with DEC hardware and Digex's service for a 90-day free trial.
CyberCash CFO Gene Riechers has flown the coop to become managing director of Washington DC venture capital fund, Pegasus VenturePartners LP.
Spyglass Inc should really consider hiring a full-time downloader. The Napierville, Illinois company that licenses the core technology for Microsoft's Internet Explorer says it makes money on every copy that Microsoft gives away - currently that adds up to about $3m a year. Spyglass says its deal with Redmond ends in 1998.
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WEEKLY DISPATCHES FROM THE INTERNET FRONT
JAVASOFT EXPANDS JAVA OPTIONS, ENCRYPTION COMING
Sun Microsystems Inc's JavaSoft Inc division last week updated and expanded the Java platform, with a new version of the Java Developers Kit (JDK), which includes the Java virtual machine, class libraries and tools, and an electronic commerce platform based on the Java Commerce APIs and the recently-announced Java Card API (OR 23). The company is also preparing Java encryption APIs.
The JDK 1.1 includes APIs that support various international languages, and the abstract windowing toolkit (AWT) element has been tweaked to give two to three-times the performance than before, according to David Spenhoff, JavaSoft's director of product marketing, though he added that benchmarks and other numbers would be announced when it goes to beta this week.
One thing the JDK does not include just yet is any encryption capabilities. Spenhoff says JavaSoft supports strong encryption, presumably in the 128-bit range, but is waiting until the political dust settles.
There will be some encryption APIs available about the same time the JDK ships next quarter, he said. JavaSoft customers in Asia, Australasia and Europe are apparently really nervous about the key recovery proposal becoming the standard, whereby a portion of the key has to surrendered to the US government for any product to get an export license in the US (OR 26).
Spenhoff wanted to make it clear that no decision on JavaSoft's solution to the problem has been made yet; it's looking at everything. But the feeling right now is that JavaSoft's encryption "probably won't be exportable," according to Spenhoff.
The AWT enables applications to adopt the look and feel of whatever operating system is underneath. The company has added JDBC support to the JDK to link into relational databases, its Java-only Remote Method Invocation (RMI) object transport, which requires Java virtual machines at both ends to talk. Support for Java Beans components has also been added. Security has been enhanced
CULTURES CLASH AS INTERNET COPYRIGHT MEET GETS UNDERWAY
Tempers were starting to fray at the meeting of the United Nations' World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva, Switzerland as we went to press, as the forces of the Internet clashed with the suits who many doubt have ever seen, let alone used a browser.
The point of the meeting is copyright, and specifically the effect of the Internet on intellectual property. More than 150 countries are represented, as are interests including telecommunications, Internet service providers, as well as the various media and content companies.
The aim of the gathering is to update the 110-year old Berne convention to deal with the new set of problems Internet distribution poses. The Berne convention is the premium intellectual property convention in the world. There are three draft texts to achieve the minimum set of standards, if they can be agreed upon. But many doubt whether that will happen any time soon. The drafts that are causing such a stir deal with literary and artistic works, performers and record producers' rights and protection for any information held in an electronic database.
The main complaint from the Internet community - led by the Ad-Hoc Copyright Coalition, whose members include AT&T, Netscape, Netcom, MCI and AOL - is that those making the decision don't realize the power they are wielding and the effect abusing that power, whether intentional or not, could have. Peter Harter of Netscape Communications Corp said the draft treaty is too broad. "Its unintended consequences could be potentially catastrophic," he told
COREL TAPS SANGA TO ADD GROUPWARE TO OFFICE FOR JAVA
Corel Corp is paying a "huge amount of money", to integrate Sanga Corp's Java-written Sanga Pages (OR 23) groupware software into its Corel Office for Java suite, which is due next quarter.
Sanga CEO Shane Maine wouldn't specify just how big the wad is, but it's a one-off payment, rather than a royalty scheme. Corel naturally down-played the amount handed over.
It will give Corel groupware and workflow capabilities to add to the word processor, spreadsheet and other elements of the suite. It will also enable users of Corel Office to customize their applications, and Sanga said Office-type suites could then be created for separate vertical markets, such as accountants, utilities and so on. This seems like a good idea to us, but Corel said it has no plans to do anything like that just now.
However, Sanga is planning something similar with its Sanga Pages suite. It's a suite of components written entirely in Java with which to write applications to link to and use legacy data. The company's going to play up the product's customization capabilities for various vertical markets when it's launched in
January. Sanga's going to concentrate on enterprise customers, leaving the desktop mass market to the likes of Corel and any other licensees it can snag for its stuff.
Names including Novell and Computer Associates International Inc have been mooted as planning similar deals to Corel, and it would not come as a major surprise if one or both of them had something to say about that this week at Internet World in New York City.
Sanga will also announce Java Beans and ActiveX support for Sanga Pages at the show. This means, for instance that a Java Beans spreadsheet component can be dropped into a word processor and the component will retain its functionality.
Sanga will aim for deals valued between $2m and $10m when it launches Pages next month, according to Maine. The company will work with systems integrators to get in its foot in the door of large corporates in vertical markets.
Sanga plans an announcement on Wednesday at Internet World regarding financing options for its customers, but further details were not available.
http://www.sangacorp.com
GOODBYE RFCS: IETF TO TRADEMARK STANDARDS NAME
In an effort to clarify just what an Internet standard is, The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) will finalize plans to trademark the term 'Global Internet Standard' (GIS) at its meeting next week in San Jose.
It seems that the mad rush by companies to adopt open standards has led to the creation of documents with what IETF Chair Fred Baker calls "very misleading names". Baker declined to point the finger at anyone (now we couldn't be thinking of Redmond, could we Fred?), but he says that registering 'Global Internet Standard' as a trademark would clarify the situation.
Trademarking would also give the IETF the ability to sue anyone misusing the GIS name. Presently, IETF Request for Comments (RFCs) can include proposed or accepted standards, but informational documents like white papers or even poems can also be published as RFCs. And anyone who wants to can call a document an RFC if they choose to publish it themselves.
The GIS mark would be associated with only those documents that had become IETF-accepted standards. In order to make this happen, Baker says the IETF needs to complete a trademark name search and finalize the details with the RFC Editor and the Internet Architecture Board next week. The proposal calling for GIS has been posted at http://www.ietf. org/ids.by.wg/poisson.html. In addition to the trademark, it calls for the axing of the RFC business altogether.
Once selected for the standards process, documents would go through two draft stages before becoming Global Internet Standards. Informational documents would be called 'Internet Notes'. Documents not yet selected for the standards track, now called Internet Drafts, would be called Working Papers. http://www.ietf.org
SAN JOSE INTERNET TASK FORCE MEETING THE LARGEST EVER
With 1,625 pre-registered attendees, this week's IETF meeting in San Jose will be, by far, the largest ever, with IETF members wondering whether the event has become too popular to achieve the running code and rough consensus on which it prides itself.
Suggestions have been flying about IETF discussion groups about quarantining mere observers (IETF tourists in Internet parlance) so they don't get in the way of the real work, which, by the way, is scheduled to go from 8am to 10pm. With the greater attention and increased media focus on the workings of the IETF, the San Jose meeting will be far removed from the first IETF meeting back in 1986: it drew a crowd of 21. And whether the IETF wants to admit it or not, its little get-together is beginning to resemble a good old-fashioned convention. And why not involve the IETF with a trade show? MecklerMedia's Internet World happens to be occurring simultaneously on the other side of the continent. Netscape's standards guru Carl Cargill thinks it's silly that the two events occur so far apart. He says that from Netscape's point of view it would make sense to send engineers and marketing people to the same place so there can be some sort of "co-mingling". IETF Chair Fred Baker bristles at the suggestion, saying, "it really doesn't make sense... [an IETF meeting] needs to be a place where people can literally walk in and drop their pants," as it were. A marketing presence would, presumably, deter such an open and frank exchange of ideas. Hot topics at this year's meeting include Top Level Domains (TLDs),which will come up in a Birds of a Feather session and again in a report from the International Ad-Hoc Committee (OR 22) set up to address the issue of creating more TLDs. www.ietf.org/meetings/SanJose.html
WORLD WIDE WEB CONSORTIUM PICKS PICS CONTENT RATING
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has endorsed the Platform for Internet Content Selection (PICS) as a W3C recommendation, clearing the way for what it calls "values-neutral" censorship on the Internet. Designed to help parents and teachers control children's access to the Internet, PICS provides a standard place and format for Website's to rate their content.
The W3C says it is analogous to specifying where on a package a label should appear and what font it should use. PICS does come with a set of ratings like X, R or PG-13, but simply designates a standard way for a browser to find a Web page's rating, which is then interpreted by the browser. Determining what goes in the label is up to companies like the Receational Software Advisory Council or SafeSurf, which have systems for issuing PICS-compatible labels to any Website that might want a rating.
SurfWatch and CyberPatrol have PICS-compatible software that works with most browsers. W3C Technology and Society Domain Leader Jim Miller says that PICS could be used for more than simply keeping children out of trouble. Because a PICS rating does not necessarily have anything to do with how raunchy or obscene a Website is, Miller suggests that PICS information could be used to enhance Web searches or even protect intellectual property rights by blacklisting material that has been illegally copied. This, presumably, after users choose a browser or plug-in that would deny them access to such material.
In January, Miller says, work will begin to extend the feature set of PICS into what will become PICS 1.2. http://www.w3.org/
UNISYS TAPS HARBINGER FOR NET-BASED E-COMMERCE PRODUCTS
Unisys Corp and Harbinger Corp have inked a deal whereby Unisys' Information Services Group (ISG) systems integration unit will sell Harbinger's TrustedLink Instant Net Presence (INP) electronic commerce package, which includes a Website builder and Netscape Navigator, as well as TrustedLink Guardian secure EDI product, and a line of translators and gateways (OR 21).
Unisys will also plug Harbingers' Value Added Network (VAN) offerings and trading community rollout services, which get trading partners together for e-commerce. It's the first time Unisys has offered an Internet-enabled e-commerce package, having concentrated on EDI previously. Unisys will be going after vertical markets such as finance, transport and retail with this stuff, which is increasingly being based on Windows NT, rather than Unix boxes, according to Gus Wing, Unisys's electronic commerce manager within the ISG. However, Unisys doesn't do any of its business over the net just yet. It prefers to stick to EDI over a couple of VANs, said Wing.
REUTERS' TIBCO SET TO GIVE AWAY ITS TIB MIDDLEWARE
Reuters Holdings Plc's Tibco Inc is expected to begin offering its core Tib middleware technology free over the net from next week aiming to establish the stuff as the de facto middleware standard.
It aims to knock spots off the likes of Marimba and PointCast Inc, licensing its technology to software and content creators who want to use it commercially to distribute their wares on the Internet. It's expected to name a bunch of partners including Microsoft Corp.
Microsoft is expected to take the stuff for use in its Viper server for handling Web transactions. Palo Alto, California based Tibco's Tib technology enables subject-based, rather than address-based, interchange of information between apps and is used in publish-subscribe communications middleware including both real-time messaging and message queuing for secure delivery.
It comes integrated with Tibco's own Corba 2.0 compliant Object Request Broker (ORB). Tibco develops a host of end-to-end solutions on top of Tib. Further details were not forthcoming as the company insisted it was all top secret. http://www.tibco.com
Starnine Technologies Inc has updated the Microsoft Mail for AppleTalk Networks product - which it now owns - for the first time in four years, including "everything people expect in an electronic mail package" - now called Quarterdeck Mail 4.0, it is priced from $260 per server and $300 for 10 clients.
IBM TO DEBUT TWO AIX SERVERS AT INTERNET WORLD
IBM Corp had a few things up its sleeve at Internet World this week, mostly derived from the RS/6000 division.
First up is Network Dispatcher, an extension to AIX that receives incoming packets and spreads them out among Web servers, balancing the load, using a four-year-old IBM algorithm. It's been road-tested at Wimbledon, the US Open and Atlanta Olympics, and will cost $1,500 per server when it arrives December 27. Windows NT and Solaris versions are next up.
VideoCharger for AIX is a client-server that delivers real-time video and audio at rates between 20Kbps and 1.5Mbps. It differs from IBM's earlier Multimedia server as it's a push rather than pull technology, according to Teresa Golden, RS/6000 program director. It'll be general available in February for AIX 4.2 at $1,200. It was jointly developed with the Internet division.
NOW IN THE SWIM, NEXT RE-WRITES WEBOBJECTS IN JAVA
It was only a couple of years ago that a Steve Jobs' keynote would still pack a conference hall with punters keen to see what amounted to little more than a product pitch. But a product pitch for Jobs' widely-acclaimed object-oriented NextStep user interface and Mach microkernel-based operating system was still something to see back then, which of course is eons in Internet time.
The rise of Windows and Web desktops put paid to both, but Jobs was quick and clever enough to refocus the company's resources to the Internet and Next became one of the first companies to offer software allowing companies to Web-enable their existing applications and data stores and create new HTML-based applications and Web sites to boot. It won some prestigious accounts along the way. Next might not have got this far had Scott McNealy's Sun Microsystems Inc not thrown Jobs a lifeline at a critical time, licensing the NextStep application development environment and interface for use with its Distributed Objects Everywhere (DOE) environment in November 1993, sealing the deal by acquiring a 1.5% equity position in the company for a reported $10m. Ironically if Sun had waited another year or 18 months until Java was more fully formed it would probably have been able to pass-up the Next deal. When do we ever hear about Neo these days anyway? Now Next's swimming with the rest of the Internet tide, much of which will flood to Internet World this week in New York. Last week the company began to offer a beta of version 2.0 of its Enterprise Objects Framework for integrating objects with relational databases on Solaris. Production versions are due next quarter at from $500 per seat. It's also going to extend all of its products to support Informix's Universal Server. French Roast, Next's promised Java language binding for its WebObjects HTML development environment is now available to download from its Web site. It'll do a VBScript version as customers ask. The real news such that it is, is the Java re-write of WebObjects that'll ship by the middle of next year. It hasn't figured out packaging yet, like whether it'll offer one product, or two. The Java configuration will be an end-to-end solution that could be used to develop applications outside of the conventional HTML browser environment. It'll employ JavaSoft's Java-only Remote Method Invocation distributed object system and a Java interface that's yet to be created. Users can add a slew of Windows interface elements and tools to WebObjects by licensing the OpenStep layer of services Next stripped from its NextStep environment and ported to Windows. It says 80% of code is common to both in any case. Next says it can pass objects to Corba-compliant systems via integration with the Iona Technologies Ltd Orbix object request broker. It hasn't added DCOM support yet.
SPYGLASS STEALS MARCH ON NAVIO WITH WEB DEVICE PLAN
Getting the jump on Netscape's silent Navio subsidiary, Spyglass Inc has released a product road map that it figures will give it a foothold in the soon-to-be-emerging Internet appliance market; a market Netscape co-founder and CTO Marc Andreessen thinks will be worth half a billion dollars in a couple of years.
Spyglass hopes to market a complete line of client, server and even groupware applications by the end of 1997. The cornerstone of Spyglass's strategy is a product called Remote Mosaic, scheduled for release second quarter 1997, that would turn browsing on devices like phones or pagers into a client/server operation. Lightweight 'viewers' would be custom-integrated into devices, which would then connect to a 'proxy browser' on a Unix or NT server. The proxy browser would handle resource-demanding browser functions like caching, while connecting the device to other servers. Spyglass says that one proxy browser could support hundreds of clients at a time. The viewers would require about 20-75Kb of RAM. Spyglass also intends to deliver an embedded browser, called Device Mosaic in the first quarter of 1997. Device Mosaic will be targeted at machines, like network computers, with enough resources to handle browsing on their own. Spyglass says that at its smallest, Device Mosaic would require about 1 Mb RAM. A small footprint Web server, called MicroServer, will be delivered in SDK form in the first quarter of next year. Spyglass expects developers to embed the MicroServer into various real time operating systems, turning non-computer devices like office or manufacturing equipment into servers, capable of serving up diagnostic information via Internet protocols. Also in the works is Spyglass Prism, server software that converts Web content into whatever form an embedded browser may prefer; it'll ship in the second quarter. Spyglass will begin to sell Mail and Conferencing servers, acquired from OS Technologies, within the month. Other collaborative software will follow.http://www.spyglass.com
WEB SERVERS TO BE SPUN OUT OF INTERNET WORLD
Sun Microsystems, Oracle Corporation and SunSoft Inc are all expected to announce Web server software at Internet World this week. Oracle will make e-commerce the focus of its newest Web Server release.
The Oracle Web Server will now go by the name of Web Application Server 3.0 and will feature enhancements to Oracle's Web Request Broker. It'll be in beta next week, and due early in 1997. Oracle is also expected to announce more details on its merchant server, code-named Apollo, which is intended to run on the Web Application Server platform (OR 21).
Apollo has been in limited pre-beta up to now, but will go into general beta soon after the show. Oracle will also reveal plans to implement the Java virtual machine in Oracle8 and across its entire product line. Meantime, Microsoft will release its Internet Information Server 3.0, according to sources close to the company. Key to the new release will be Microsoft's 'Denali' ActiveX scripting environment, which lets Web developers use scripting languages like VBScript, JavaScript and Perl within HTML pages.
IIS 3.0 will also ship with a slightly archaic version 4.5 of Seagate Software's Crystal Reports database reporting tool. Crystal Reports, which is now in its 5.0 release, allows Webmasters to design their own Web Server reports based on NCSA or Microsoft-standard Web log files. Not to be left out of the act, SunSoft will be announcing its first entry into the Web server market: a high-end server, formerly code named Vishnu (OR 17). Sun has kept quiet on this since we first reported it, but rumors are swirling that the Web Server will lead a new Internet product line.
MICROSOFT OFFERS $750M PREFERRED SHARES
Microsoft Corp realizes there are people out there that want a share in its success but would like a dividend too, so it has filed to offer $750m of convertible exchangeable principal-protected preferred shares, and most of the proceeds will be used to buy in common shares with the balance going to working capital.
The shares will convert into Microsoft common shares according to a formula to be determined at the time of pricing, or an equivalent amount of cash at Microsoft's option. The preferred shares will also be exchangeable at Microsoft's option for convertible subordinated notes due 1999.
INFORMIX INTRODUCES ITS UNIVERSAL SERVER
Informix Corp duly announced its Universal Server last week at DB Expo in New York, defying those that had predicted it would be late, and those that have questioned the validity of its technology. "The important thing is that we've fired the gun," the company says, though how it will capitalize on what it claims is a 12-to-18 month technology lead over rivals such as Oracle Corp in its bid to become the number one supplier of "open database solutions within two years" wasn't made quite as clear.
Based on the company's Dynamic Scalable Architecture, Universal Server marks Informix's entry into the so-called "Object-Relational" space, and includes the controversial DataBlades technology garnered from the acquisition of Illustra Information Technologies Inc last year.
All data types are managed by the core server, whether industry or company-specific or rich data such as Web pages, time series data, numbers, images, maps, sound and video. The DataBlade modules plug directly into the database, defining new types and functions, and will be produced both by Informix itself and by its third parties. Initially, 29 modules are available, with a total of 50 announced and "hundreds" in varying stages of development. One, from Informix itself, is the Video Foundation DataBlade module, which manages video content and associated metadata, and provides the core functionality needed by applications such as video servers, video streaming and video scene detection.
Another, from San Jose-based Telconar Inc, provides high-speed spatial access extensions needed to support geographic data. There are also a surrounding set of tools, including the NewEra graphical application development tool, Jworks drag and drop Java development environment, and tools from third parties such as Forte Software Inc, Powersoft Corp, Logic Works Inc, CSA Holdings Plc and Conquer Data Inc, who came out in support at the launch. Netscape Communications Corp - which has been paying rather more attention to Oracle Corp of late - also turned up in support, saying that its Netscape Enterprise Server and LiveWire development tool will support Universal Server.
Informix CEO Phil White doesn't expect Universal Server to contribute significantly to Informix coffers until well into the second half of next year. Windows NT and the majority of Unix ports will only become generally available around the middle of 1997. Until then there are only Solaris and SGI Irix implementations - Illustra's development platforms - which are due this month starting at $2,500 for single user licenses. There are no TPC performance numbers available. The street wasn't that impressed, marking Informix shares down $1.00 on the day at $25.37. Meantime Informix has lured Documentum Inc CFO Alan Henricks to replace its senior VP and CFO of five years, Howard Graham, who leaves for high-flying customer information software systems company Siebel Systems Inc at the end of the year.
IBM TRIES TO STEAL INFORMIX THUNDER, BUT SIX MONTHS OFF
As a spoiler for Informix Software Inc's announcement of its Universal Server last week, IBM rushed out news of the beta version of what it calls DB2 Universal Database, describing it as a multimedia and Web-enabled database - which runs under Windows NT and OS/2, and under the AIX, HP-UX, Solaris, Sinix and Santa Cruz Operation Inc Unixes. It also runs on everything from portables to the parallel RS/6000 SP2 machines, which are capable of delivering performance equivalent to the biggest mainframe if you are prepared to buy enough processors.
The product, however, is only in beta test and will not be available until the middle of next year. Storing video, audio, graphics and text as well as raw data, DB2 Universal Database includes a translator between DB2 SQL and HyperText Mark-up Language Common Gateway Interface so that it can be accessed over the Internet and on intranets - if you can afford the MIPS to handle the translation on the fly. It includes built-in JDBC support, and supports Java stored procedures. DB2 also includes replication support, distributed data warehousing, complex querying, Internet links, optimized transaction processing and database tools.
IBM says object-relational extenders support data types such as image, video, audio and text as part of the database, and that support for fingerprint applications, spatial and time series data will be delivered next year as part of DB2 Universal Database. On price, IBM says only that the new version will be "competitively priced."
HEWLETT PACKARD AIMS TO BE INTERNET MELTING POT
Hewlett-Packard Co, which in public studiously avoids showing any preference between Unix and Windows NT, is taking agnosticism to new heights in its Internet strategy, calling in companies such as Oracle Corp, Microsoft Corp and Netscape Communications Corp that are mutual mortal enemies and getting them to rally to its flag.
"Our strategy is to blur the lines," executive vice president Rick Belluzzo said, adding that the goal was to take advantage of new technologies as they emerge and not to restrict "where good ideas can come from." It aims to help customers getting onto the Internet or putting in intranets to move from the "creative chaos stage" of the Internet as it exists today, to an environment where companies can manage, measure and control their networks. Partners on Internet commerce and security also include Open Market Inc, VeriFone Inc, Visa International Inc and Broadvision Inc. http://www.hp.com
NETMANAGE HAS INTRACHANGE WEB MANAGEMENT
Cupertino, California-based NetManage is offering a Web site management tool called IntraChange. The company's hoping to capitalize on the burgeoning market for companies with increasingly complex and disparate sourced Web sites.
The tool comes with a clutch of management functions and a workflow system. IntraChange has been developed using technology from the acquisition of Maximum Information Inc of San Francisco, California, back in June. IntraChange provides its core capabilities through middleware which NetManage calls the IntraChange Desktop and Web Warehouse.
The Desktop is the front-end and gives users and intranet administrators varying levels of control and security, dependent on authorization. A slightly less functional version of the Desktop, designed for users rather than administrators, can be accessed anywhere on the local area network from any browser. The Web Warehouse stores all original documents and applications which are ultimately to be published to the live Web sites. It uses popular SQL database servers, such as Oracle, Sybase and Microsoft. IntraChange is expected to ship in February, with floating license pricing.
OZ HITS THE DANCEFLOOR AND SHOWFLOOR AT INTERNET WORLD
Six-year-old Reykjavik, Iceland company Oz Interactive has picked up a bunch of VC money and is morphing from its high-end 3D graphics roots - it created filters for SoftImage - into a Web development shop offering to create online VRML and 3D worlds for your Web site. It's also scooted across the water to set up in San Francisco, where 20 of its 60 staff are now based.
The company's doing its best to get noticed above the rabble that'll be at Internet world this week. Although it's not the only one putting on a rave for show goers - raves seem to be this year's theme - it is the only one that's cutting a techno CD for the occasion. Oz, also a sometime underground dance music collective, has even lined up Icelandic diva Bjork to sing on a couple of tracks on its next platter. Underworld's Darren Emerson will be on the decks at Oz's Thursday night bash at Irving Plaza in Manhattan. No doubt the highly-repectable press corp will be shouting "lager, lager, lager."
Tempers were starting to fray at the meeting of the United Nations' World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva, Switzerland as we went to press, as the forces of the Internet clashed with the suits who many doubt have ever seen, let alone used a browser.
The point of the meeting is copyright, and specifically the effect of the Internet on intellectual property. More than 150 countries are represented, as are interests including telecommunications, Internet service providers, as well as the various media and content companies.
The aim of the gathering is to update the 110-year old Berne convention to deal with the new set of problems Internet distribution poses. The Berne convention is the premium intellectual property convention in the world. There are three draft texts to achieve the minimum set of standards, if they can be agreed upon. But many doubt whether that will happen any time soon. The drafts that are causing such a stir deal with literary and artistic works, performers and record producers' rights and protection for any information held in an electronic database.
The main complaint from the Internet community - led by the Ad-Hoc Copyright Coalition, whose members include AT&T, Netscape, Netcom, MCI and AOL - is that those making the decision don't realize the power they are wielding and the effect abusing that power, whether intentional or not, could have. Peter Harter of Netscape Communications Corp said the draft treaty is too broad. "Its unintended consequences could be potentially catastrophic," he told Reuter. Barbara Dooley, head of the Commercial Internet Exchange Association said the delegates "don't understand the technology," and they "have no experience of [the] Internet at all."
It appears there are three factions present. On one side is the content providers: the software, recording and film industries, facing the academics on the other. The Ad-Hoc group is supposed to be in the middle, but they have a much narrower focus, and their main concern is to "limit vicarious liability for mere carriage", in other words, not get blamed for what's carried on their networks.
There are a few other issues particularly pertinent to the net that the delegates may have difficulty agreeing upon. The database issue is fundamental to the whole conference. The proposal is for an all-encompassing protection of any information held in almost any sort of electronic database. Many database are already copyrighted in this manner, but this will cover almost everything.
HATE THAT DATABASE
Those pro the database proposal say it will protect companies that have spent years compiling such collections, but would it extend say, to the telephone directory? A case a few years back called Feist vs Rural Telephone Services Co in the US Supreme Court set the precedent that phone directories were not copyrightable, as they show no "originality or authorship", as the legalese goes.
Ronald Palenski, a partner in the Washington, DC law firm Gordon & Glickson, which provides legal services to the IT industry, along with many other observers doesn't reckon the database situation will get cleared up at this session, which runs through December 20.
Palenksi reckons there will be a further meeting around next June, where the matter will be addressed once more. US Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks Bruce Lehman told the San Jose Mercury News last week that although he didn't think the proposal would be approved this session either, the European Union had already pledged to craft such a rule by 1998. Netcom On-Line Communication Services Inc's manager of public policy Glee Cady summed up many of the Internet community's feelings towards the database proposal: "we hate that database stuff," she said.
Another, slightly more arcane proposal says it will be an offense to make even a temporary copy of something without the owners' permission, which of course flies in the face of caching used in Web browsers, as well as routers and other net paraphernalia. This seems unworkable as far as the Internet goes, but proponents of it have reportedly said it would be used just to target genuine pirates, not criminalize each and every Internet user. But catching the pirates has also got the ISPs jumpy. Their concern is will they be answerable for the crimes committed by their users?
If so there are two options open to the ISPs; monitoring usage or taking out insurance. One is politically damaging and the other financially damaging in a market with wafer-thin margins. "We don't want to be judge, jury and prosecutor," said NetCom's Cady. She likened it to blaming car manufacturers if one of their vehicles was used in a bank robbery.
Cady will join a team of heavy hitters in Geneva this week - mostly lawyers - from the likes of Netscape, Bell Atlantic, MCI, and America Online who are either in Geneva already or on their way.
The fourth provision likely to cause controversy is one that would make it illegal to sell, buy or use any device that is capable of circumventing any technical copyright scheme. Some PC manufacturers say this makes PCs illegal, but it's thought that wording such as devices whose "sole purpose" is to break copyright locks will get around the problem.
Applix Software has introduced a 4.3 incarnation of its Applixware suite of tools and real-time spreadsheet applications. New features include an updated user interface; improved menu consistency across applications; additional color use; a hierarchical directory displayer, directory history and the ability to open files as read only. There's also URL Fetching, which allows organizations to use secure Web servers as a virtual file system for document distribution. File Locking is also included. No prices.http://www.applix.com
DOT Gossip
Corel Corp is taking a step back from its forthcoming barrage of product announcements by putting it's Personal Digital Assistant, due in the second quarter, on hold. The more recent Video NC device has now taken precedent, and is due next quarter. There's no word on when the PDA might appear, but appear it will, the company assures us. Its deadline had already slipped a quarter when we last heard (OR 25). http://www.corel.com
Microsoft has expanded its circle of head honchos, now called the Executive Committee, from 6 to 8 members. Senior VPs Jim Allchin and Brad Silverberg will join Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Bob Herbold, Pete Higgins, Paul Maritz, Nathan Myhrvold and Jeff Raikes in running the show. Silverberg launched both Windows 95 and Internet Explorer, will now be in charge of the applications and Internet client group. Allchin will run the personal and business systems group.
Sun Microsystems Inc and the Internet solutions business of Siemens Stromberg-Carlson are teaming to offer hardware and software packages to enable telecoimmunicationms companies to equip themselves to be Internet Service Providers. Sun will prpvide the Internet hardware and software and Siemens the way in to the telcos. They'll be based around Ultra Enterprise servers and the pair will target mid to large telcos in Europe, Asia, Latin and South America.
Prodigy, now in Medford, Massachusetts is now looking to Africa to win new users for its on-line services. Its Africa Online service is now available in Ghana, having opened in Kenya and Cote d'Ivoire. Africa Online was founded by three Kenyan graduates from MIT and Harvard University to provide accessible and affordable Internet communications to businesses and individuals in Africa.
IBM CEO Louis Gerstner is gonna show Internet World attendees a video called OneVoice that suggests Big Blue culture of old like divisional politicking has gone and that Java is its new rallying cry.
AT&T Corp launched a low-cost Internet access service for individual users in Japan. AT&T Jens Corp, a joint venture between AT&T and 25 Japanese firms, said the service offers Japanese users unlimited Internet access for $17 per month.
Oh really? Zona Research VP Greg Blatnik reckons corporate and consumer NC devices should sell about neck and neck in 1997, at about 1.5m units each. After then, he says, consumer NC market will be far larger, as NC technology becomes integrated into televisions and telephones. A Zona report on the NC market is scheduled to be released in January. http://www.zonaresearch.com.
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and CommerceNet will this week put out a call for participation to companies interested in doing implementations of the W3C's JEPI electronic payment negotiation protocol. W3C expects actual trials to begin next quarter. http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Payments/
Bank of America's Concorde Solutions Credit Card Online (CCOL) System has tapped the TPBroker transaction processing object request broker jointly developed by Hitachi Ltd and Visigenic Software Inc. CCOL will enable users to check balances and transfer money via the net when it comes out in the first half of next year
Oracle says it hopes to have its Web-based Oracle Learning Architecture services up and running by today. http://www.oracle.com
America Online Inc is ploughing some $250m to upgrade its capacity between now and June, doubling its system hardware. The company was making a lot of noise about its share price performance last week, and it has indeed risen some 28% in the last four weeks. But that's forgetting that it's declined 35% in the last half-year and 12% in the past year.
And just as we went to press, AOL agreed to refund any member's bills that rose by $10 or more as a result of the price change that started on December 1. Under the deal with 19 Attorneys General the company will have to contact "as many members as possible" to get consent to roll them over to the new plan. It doesn't appear to clear up the issue once and for all though (OR 27).
Netscape is joining the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). Microsoft Corp and Sun Microsystems Inc are both already members and Netscape figures that ANSI's new boss, Sergio Mazza has what it takes to lighten ANSI's rather exhaustive procedures and make the standards body a bigger player in high tech.
NetCarta says it will ship version 2.0 of its WebMapper Web site management software in January. 2.0's "gee whiz" feature is something called a Cyberbolic view, which displays Web links and content as if charted on a transparent globe that rotates on a screen. The software will run on NT and Windows 95 and costs $500. A Unix version is planned next year. http://www.netcarta.com.
Could it be possible that the Internet Yellow Pages market is becoming a tad overcrowded? Pacific Telesis Interactive Media President Jeff Killeen says there are 146 Internet Yellow Pages services out there now.
WordPerfect Corp founder Alan Ashton resigned from the Novell Inc board, to pursue community and other interests in Utah.
Now Mastercard International Inc has control of Mondex Ltd, Chase Manhattan Corp will switch to the Mondex system its pilot stored value Smart Card trial in New York City, which has been put back to fourth quarter 1997. It's also taking a stake in the planned Mondex USA affiliate alongside AT&T, Wells Fargo & Co, First Chicago NBD Corp and Michigan National Bank.
Oracle subsidiary Network Computer Inc (NCI) has got itself its first VP marketing, Bonnie Crater, who worked with NCI boss Jerry Baker back at the Oracle salt mines.
Competitors are positive Compaq will be doing a Java-based NC as well as one of Microsoft's newfangled NetPCs.
Oracle Corp, Digital Equipment Corp and ISP Digex are getting together at Internet World, bundling Oracle's InterOffice collaboration suite, with DEC hardware and Digex's service for a 90-day free trial.
CyberCash CFO Gene Riechers has flown the coop to become managing director of Washington DC venture capital fund, Pegasus VenturePartners LP.
Spyglass Inc should really consider hiring a full-time downloader. The Napierville, Illinois company that licenses the core technology for Microsoft's Internet Explorer says it makes money on every copy that Microsoft gives away - currently that adds up to about $3m a year. Spyglass says its deal with Redmond ends in 1998.
(c) 1996 May not be copied
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