WEEKLY DISPATCHES FROM THE INTERNET FRONT
July 22 - 26 1996 Issue No 8
MICROSOFT AND 50 OTHERS SEEK WEB MANAGEMENT STANDARD
A Microsoft-led group of over 50 companies is trying to create an industry standard for systems, desktop and network management over the Internet. The group includes the like of Compaq, Intel, Netscape and Tivoli, but conspicuously missing from the list is Sun, which, while refraining from endorsing it, says its own Java Management API will complement it.
The proposed Web-based enterprise management standard (WBEM, for lack of a more concise name) standard includes features that surpass existing protocols like SNMP and the Desktop Management Interface and will manage devices via HTTP that use either protocol.
The planned standard rests on twin pillars: the HyperMedia Management Schema (HMMS), which is to be defined and developed by the Desktop Management Task Force and is designed to provide data modeling and manipulation capabilities and the HyperMedia Management Protocol (HMMP) - already under consideration within the Internet Engineering Task Force - which is designed to allow HMMS to run over HTTP. SunSoft's Solstice product manager Brian Biles says having the protocol "sold separately" may cause problems as the management standard is developed. A third component, a C++ implementation of a HyperMedia Object Manager, is also planned, although it's not clear whether the group of vendors will submit it to a standards body.
At first blush the management initiative seems to strike directly at Sun and its Java Management API and the Internet Management Specification (IMS) it's co-developing with Tivoli. But Sun claims that many companies will choose to implement both standards. Biles said it's "delighted" that Microsoft chose to go the standards route rather than building the management protocol on proprietary technology. It claims it will help shape the protocol through its membership in both the DMTF and IETF, although it's not likely to adopt it until it is both a known standard and a volume product. SunSoft is having a hard time, however, abandoning its skepticism of all things Redmond, saying "Our expectation is that Microsoft will be Microsoft" and somehow make the protocol proprietary. รค continued on page 7
NSI AND VERISIGN TEAM ON DOMAIN NAMES AND SECURITY IDS
Network Solutions Inc, which runs the InterNIC domain name registry, has cut a deal with Digital signature company VeriSign to offer customers simultaneous domain name signature registry for their servers. "It's not an exclusive deal" NSI said last week, "but we chose to partner with Mountain View, California-based VeriSign because they're currently ahead of the market, have a product that fits the X.509 standard, and have real customers." As other digital identification companies crop up, Network Solutions will forge other partnerships.
"Currently when users sign up their domain name, they undergo a rigorous application and then if they want to secure their site, they go through a strikingly similar, rigorous application. That won't be necessary now and they'll have one point of contact," VeriSign said. The joint service should be ready this Fall, but as yet there is no price set. Secure server digital IDs currently cost $290 for the first year and $95 per year thereafter. Registering a domain name with the InterNIC costs $50 per year.
VeriSign says it already has more than 10,000 Web sites secured, but now is also focusing its efforts on signing up users for its Personal Authentication Service. It signed deals with America Online Inc and Global Network Navigator (GNN) in May to assign its Digital IDs to their members and eliminate the need for multiple passwords and user names.
The deal with Network Solutions will certainly give Verisign an edge over its competitors, such as GTE's CyberTrust, which is just breaking into into the digital identification market.
SunSoft will finally make its Joe 1.0 beta generally available today. Joe is the company's Java Object Request Broker (ORB) and Interface Definition Language (IDL) compiler that connects applications on Sun's OpenStep-based NEO object-oriented server environment with Java applications, bypassing HTML and CGI.
Joe is downloaded automatically into Web browsers along with Java applets, and supports an early version of remote Java communication using Corba's Inter-ORB Protocol for connecting with Sun NEO servers. Eventually Joe will be able to communicate with objects on non-NEO platforms via the Corba 2.0 Internet Inter-ORB Protocol (IIOP).
STRONG CRYPTO: WEAK EXPORT BAN
After months of negotiation with the US State Department, Netscape got approval to make strong-encryption products available for download to US citizens and residents. Its are the only products with RC4 128-bit approved for Internet distribution, it says.
But does the development signal a softening in the US government's line on encryption? Probably not, according to Kurt Stammberger, RSA's technology marketing manager: "Unfortunately, nothing has changed...We expect to see other vendors attempt to follow in Netscape's footsteps, though the State Department's export control dept. is already understaffed and permissions are likely to be delayed many, many months - if they are granted at all."
Faced with an encryption export policy increasingly difficult to police, the Department appears to be turning a blind eye. Though Netscape has had to set up a system of checking to try and bar non-citizens from getting hold of the code, no-one is pretending that it would stop a really determined foreigner (a foreigner who could buy the software on disk in the US, anyway). A Netscape spokesperson said that a skilled IP-spoofer would be able to circumvent the controls, while Jeff Treuhaft, Netscape director of security told the New York Times: "We are not saying [the screening] is guaranteed or perfect. We are saying we have written approval."
AT&T SWAPS NETWARE FOR IP IN CONNECT SERVICES
AT&T announced last week a plan to "evolve" its NetWare Connect Services into a more generic Intranet Connect Services (ICS) package that supports both NetWare's IPX and the Internet's IP protocols.
AT&T, who has dumped more online plans than most companies have started, denies that it is backing away from NetWare the way it did with Lotus Notes over the ill-fated AT&T Network Notes initiative - although that would seem the obvious conclusion. It originally planned to offer NetWare Connect Services (NCS) as a pay-per-use network for companies that couldn't afford to set up a full scale private network. Although the charter remains the same, the technology backing the service looks to shift to the more open Internet.
The new ICS will offer two levels of service: an IP-only version and a combined IP/IPX service that adds support for native IPX routing, NetWare Directory Services and enhanced client support. Security will be provided by the Source Address Assurance capabilities of NetWare, which are designed to prevent address spoofing, and as with the NetWare Connect Services, ICS will be run over one of AT&T's secure subnetworks.
AT&T will start taking orders for ICS in August, and plans a controlled introduction from the end of September, with general availability expected around three months after that.
ATTACHMATE TO LIBERALLY APPLY ACTIVEX TO ITS PRODUCTS
Attachmate Corp - restyled 'the Intranet company' - says Microsoft Corp's Internet Explorer 3.0 is its preferred browser and that it intends to enhance many Attachmate host and Intranet products with Microsoft's ActiveX functionality.
Internet Explorer 3.0 will be integrated with Attachmate's Extra! Personal client range so users, according to the company, can access the Internet using the same software they use to access data held on mainframe and mid-range systems. Attachmate is already a fan of ActiveX, supporting it in its much-delayed launch of Emissary Host Publishing System which promises to let companies 'Web-deploy' any kind of IBM data to enable users to have 'simple' access to corporate information via any Web browser.
Attachmate is now planning to take its offerings in the areas of Telnet host systems, remote file access, Internet mail, Internet news and HTML editing and deliver them in the form of ActiveX Controls to a wider audience. Later this year, ActiveX controls will be announced for mainframe, AS/400, Digital Equipment Corp, Hewlett-Packard Co, Unisys Corp and Unix host access systems that can be run in Internet Explorer or other ActiveX-supported clients. No delivery dates or pricing details were available.
ADOBE READIES JAVA ACROBAT AND OTHER JAVA PLUG-INS
Adobe Systems Inc is planning a Java version of its Acrobat Reader, other Java plug-ins and embedded Java classes inside Portable Document Format files before the year-end. Version 3.0 of its Acrobat on-line document product ships in August or September.
Adobe said it is taking the product further down into the consumer market and is pinning the future success of Acrobat on its Web capabilities. It says 6 million users have downloaded its free Acrobat Reader software. Adobe is also slashing the price of the Acrobat authoring bundle to an expected street price of less than $200, from $600.
The bundle will include Exchange, Distiller, PDFWriter and the Capture plug-in and Catalogue, previously sold separately. The Java version of Reader is still mainly on the drawing board and is being made possible by Sun Microsystems Inc's recent licensing of Adobe's PostScript-based Bravo two-dimensional imaging model for Java.
The Java version will have a smaller system footprint and be a simpler product, Adobe says. Netscape has also licensed Bravo for use in Navigator. Adobe says the main Web enhancements in Acrobat 3.0 are the integrated viewing of Portable Document Format files directly within Web browsers that support Navigator Plug-in application programming interface or ActiveX controls; page-on-demand downloading so users can be reading files as they are being downloaded; and better compression technology and progressive rendering.
ZIMMERMANN RECKONS 56 BITS DIVIDED BY $100M = 2 MINS
How difficult is it to crack 56-bit key DES encryption? According to the US government, very tough. According to Philip Zimmermann, encryption expert and developer of the PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) encryption software, quite do-able.
Zimmermann's testimony before a Senate sub-committee late last month was reported in the comp.risks Usenet newsgroup by Edupage. Based on a 1993 presentation by Michael Wiener of Northern Telecom, Zimmermann's said it would be possible to build a special machine for $1 million able to crack a DES-encoded message in 3.5 hours. One costing $10 million, could do the job in 21 minutes, and a $100 million machine in just two minutes.
Microsoft has shipped Internet Explorer 3.0 beta 2 with the Java JIT embedded. Warning: the JIT defaults to off. Early tests indicate it is living up to its performance promises.
BT and MCI will use Open Market Inc's OM-Transact and OM-SecureLink software in their electronic commerce services. iSTAR Internet Inc and BBN Planet have also signed up. www.openmarket.com
Yes, it's another middleware alliance: Netscape has signed a joint marketing, sales, support and training agreement with NeXT Software which will allow both companies to peddle solutions using Netscape Navigator and SuiteSpot servers and NeXT WebObjects. WebObjects will allow users to link their corporate data to Netscape's servers. There are a couple of flies in the ointment: WebObjects doesn't know about JavaScript yet, but that should be added by September; neither does it know about Corba. NeXT says that the company is about to sign a deal with a major Corba house.
Netscape says that its Web site is now exceeding 80 million hits a day and has had over 10 billion hits in its two-year life.
Online advertising will shoot from $200 million this year to $2 billion in the year 2000, a Simba Information study says. Just to put that in perspective, that's still less than 1% of the $221 billion spent on all advertising.
Germany, long the Western country most eager to regulate Internet content, has asked the United Nations to set international Web content standards.
Germany's minister for family affairs said the government is most concerned about pornographers and neo-Nazis on the Internet.
Isocor Inc, based in Santa Monica, California, has announced the availability of its Internet directory application kit for Windows NT, which contains LDAP Lightweight Directory Access Protocol support. The company promises that the kit will enable OEM customers and developers to integrate Internet applications with leading databases such as Oracle, SQL Server, and Sybase. No pricing was available for the system.
News Corp Ltd is to acquire New World Communications Group Inc in a share exchange valued at $2,480m.
IN BRIEF
DEC'S DIX DABBLES IN HUBBING
Digital Equipment Corp is dipping its toe in the ISP interconnection business. The Palo Alto Digital Internet Exchange (which you just know is going to be dubbed DIX) is a combined switching and data centre and the brainchild of a study by Digital's Research and Advanced Development division. The centre will initially get 3Gbps-worth of connectivity, courtesy of the first two takers, MFS and Pacific Bell. On the face of it the 7,000 square foot facility sounds very similar to MFS' existing Metropolitan Area Exchanges (MAEs), a facility based around a very fast switch where telecos and various ISPs can install routers to interconnect. However, the site has Web-server space alongside the switch and it is the first site to be run independently of any particular telecoms supplier.
Exactly what Digital intends to do in this business is still something of a mystery. The centre at Palo Alto "was the result of an analysis done by R&D of what would be required in the evolving Internet" says Robert Supnik, VP of DEC Research and Advanced Development. He says the study showed a "significant opportunity" and worldwide need for several hundred such centres, but there is no commitment by DEC to build any others. Given the rapid rate at which the likes of BT/MCI and MFS want to roll out these hubs, Digital's approach looks very cautious. The site will partly be used as a show-case for DEC's switching, Internet and facilities management wares.
The Palo Alto operation itself is being run by the Systems Division, with a dedicated staff of seven. Construction was started in April and it is expected to be completed in September. Initially there is enough room for 100 racks of connectivity kit. The 150-member Commercial Internet Exchange (CIX) is going to co-locate at least one router at the site, and Web-hosting specialist Best Communications Inc will be connecting to it as well. Supnik says he expects the DIX will eventually get business from a large proportion of Northern California's ISPs.
ROASTER PRICES CUT
Natural Intelligence of Cambridge, Massachusetts, whose Roaster development environment played a key role in the the birth of the Macintosh Java market, has cut Roaster's prices to stay competitive with new arrivals on the scene. As new rivals, notably Metrowerks and Symantec, emerged with Java tools at dramatically lower prices, the company rethought the price tags. It maintains that it hasn't dropped because sales are hurting. Roaster is outwardly similar to the other tools, making customers less likely to pay a higher price for it. Natural Intelligence claims that its product fares the best in comparisons. A full subscription license has dropped from $299 to $199, with a new option for a $129 non-developer one-issue version. Educational pricing is $69.
SOFTWARE DOES ISP'S JOB
LinkStar Communications is coming to market with a software package that removes much of the manual work required by Internet service providers for hosting Web sites.
The privately-held Boca Raton, Florida company's SmartHost product handles such Web site set-up tasks as creating user accounts and collecting payment information. SmartHost is built on an HTTP-based technology called Simple Web Update Protocol (SWUP), which extends HTTP capabilities to handle Web page publishing, account creation and passing information to servers such as those for search engines and directories. Web sites can be uploaded to a SmartHost server using the company's Site Launcher Web publishing software.
SmartHost also creates and assigns URLs, submits the URL to search engines and uploads user files. While users could upload files via FTP, the LinkStar protocol records and verifies payment information and sets up a user account. SmartHost is available in beta in a Unix version, with NT and Macintosh versions due in the fourth quarter.
JAVASTATION AT THE OLYMPICS
Want to see a Sun JavaStation in action, but can't wait until the fall? Then go to the Olympics in Atlanta.
Sun is installing 100 JavaStations, along with a dozen Ultra Enterprise servers for visitors to access a specially-prepared Web site called JavaJoint Online. Sun says the Java boxes are just prototypes - with the emphasis on proto. "The resemblance to what we're going to announce [later this year] is minimal," the company said.
They will have a Netscape browser and a video screen. The site has been prepared by Sun and House of Blues NewMedia Inc. It will feature a menu of live music, chats with performers and athletes and a daily report of life at the Olympics "off the beaten track."
VISUAL J++ HITS BETA
Visual J++, the Java development piece of Microsoft's Jakarta environment, went to beta last week. Microsoft says the beta is a "professional edition" but there's not likely to be a light version of the tool.
It will of course have ActiveX support, enabling any Java applications developed using the tool to be extended using ActiveX controls. Visual J++ features aspects of the Microsoft Developer Studio technology used in Visual C++, including development wizards to speed the development process and a graphical debugger so applets can be debugged from the browser. It also supports multiple applets on the same Web page and debugging at the byte-code level.
The choice of the name also indicates Redmond's belief that this is just another one of its development environments. The product is due to ship in the fall when pricing will be finalized. Beta programmers should point their browsers at www.microsoft.com/visualj.
C/NET INHOUSE TOOLS FOR SALE
Following in the footsteps of Microsoft with Normandy, the C/Net media group is turning its in-house developed content-management into products. The company is selling its PRISM (Presentation of Real-time Interactive Service Material) software to Vignette Corporation which will develop it and built it into its own content management family. CNET has also made an undisclosed investment in Vignette. Halsey Minor, chairman and chief executive officer of CNET, becomes a Vignette director.
Prism was designed to cope with the needs of Web sites that contain a large number of constantly changing, and dynamically generated Web pages, such as www.cnet.com. At its heart is the ability to set up templates and systems to simplify the authoring management job. It also handles messy stuff such as displaying different versions of the pages depending on the capabilities of the user's browser.
The company has also applied for a patent over some innovative back end technology that speeds up page serving. C/Net's site is supposedly serving 1.5 million pages per day, from two Sparc 20 workstations.
Currently the back end runs on a Sparc station, but Vignette will have it up on NT and several Unixs by the product's projected year-end release. It is working with "one of the top three" database vendors to integrate its product with the Prism back-end. Vignette Corp, based in Austin, Texas, has recently completed $3.4 million in venture funding. It wins the minimal Web-site award with www.vignette.com.
Marlborough, Ma -based NetScheme Solutions dived into the middleware market last week with a NetScheme InterMart Toolkit. Designed to link databases to the Web, it has two main components. NetScheme Modeler interrogate's the database's schema to generate a navigation model that includes all the business objects and navigation links.
The second element, Navigation Server, uses the model to translate requests from a standard Web browser into SQL requests. It is this model-based apporoach that sets NetScheme apart from the others, says Carl Young, NetScheme's president.
The first release of the product is Windows NT-based and was written for Microsoft's SQL Server, though there is an ODBC driver and a native Oracle 7 adapter available.
Reuters Japan Ltd says it will provide news to Yahoo! Japan Corp from July 22. The new service, Reuters Web News Service, will cover seven subject categories including business, it will also include stories from the Japanese daily Mainichi Shimbun. Yahoo! Japan is owned by Yahoo! Inc and Japanese software publisher Softbank Corp.
Compulink Information Exchange Ltd, one of the UK's most venerable online conferencing systems has appointed Roland Perry as MD. Perry was previously in charge of business development at UKOnline, the first online service to be built bottom-up using Web technology. Privately owned CIX has been languishing somewhat, despite starting an Internet service last year. Perry is perceived as bringing a dash of marketing and business skills to the party.
Two reporters from CyberWire Dispatch, an e-mail-distributed newsletter, claim to have laid hold of lists of Internet sites filtered by software like CyberSitter and SurfWatch, causing some consternation among organizations allegedly blocked. The blocked Web sites include the National Organization of Women, reportedly because of its links to "sexual preferentation" sites focused on homosexuality. Other gay and lesbian sites, including newsgroups were among those blocked, as were those of some gun lobbying and animal rights groups. Solid Oak, the manufacturer of CyberSitter, confirmed that the sites were in fact on its list but said the choices only reflect what its users want, not political motives.
What do people use Web search engines to look for? Dave Stuart at the University of Alberta has set up a Web page at http://ugweb.cs.ualberta.ca/~stuart/
collect.html which contains search bait - everything from 'Star Trek' to 'Bill Clinton' to 'spank'. On a linked page, you can see what search terms people use to find it. Only kindness of his heart has prevented him from displaying the IP address of the caller along side the fact that they were searching for "Vibraphone+Madonna".
Despite Sun's attempt to stamp out unauthorized use of its Java trademark on the Internet, at last count there were 166 Web sites with Java in their domain names. Javac.com, one of the Web sites that received a warning letter, has posted all of the offending domain names - including such names as javaweb.com, planetjava.net, mochajava.com and snotjava.com - on its Web page.
In Brieff
NETMANAGE SPURNS CIFS, STICKS WITH WEBNFS
Network File System "is still the only file sharing protocol with universal access," says NetManage Inc spokesman Willie Tejada, who claims the company has not noticed a lack of demand for its Network File System and PC-NFS product lines. Network File System and its personal computer derivatives will continue to support the widest number of host systems, including mainframes, most Unix boxes and proprietary systems, he points out. NetManage says it is looking into some aspects of NFS/Server Message Block integration, but dismisses Common Internet File System as "Server Message Block renamed, just as ActiveX is still really Object Linking & Embedding." Instead NetManage is looking towards WebNFS as the basis for what it sees as an emerging new file sharing paradigm. Tejada views the future of Common Internet File System as an "Internet enabled" file system, whereas WebNFS is, in his view, more like "a native file system for the Internet/intranet, combining the global viewing model of the Web with the universal file system of Network File System."
NETWORK APPLIANCES READIES FIRST CIFS BOX
Network server manufacturer Network Appliance Inc, which came out in support of CIFS a few weeks back, has its first CIFS product ready for beta testing, with a final version due out by the Fall. (One source said "within 45 days"). NA's product thrust is one of native implementations of multiple protocols, and its CIFS product will include a native file system implementation, avoiding the usual emulation bottleneck (NA servers, of course, use a proprietary micro-kernel operating system rather than Unix).
It won't be giving up on NFS, and continues to track WebNFS, which it expects to follow the NFS standard and to be part of the next NFS release. NA needs a faster alternative to HTTP for large file transfers, though it admits that what's there in CIFS at the moment "is just the tip of the iceberg" and that to begin with it will be used, as SMB is, for connecting up PC desktops rather than for Internet/intranet applications.
The key to that will be CIFS support in mainstream browsers, which has yet to be declared. To support WebNFS within a browser requires source code changes which neither Microsoft nor Netscape has so far committed to make. Both CIFS and WebNFS will be able to receive HTML files. NA already does 20% of its business at Internet service providers, though for network storage rather than for serving.
SCO TURNS TO CIFS FOR PC UNIX COMMUNICATIONS
The Santa Cruz Operation has fired the next salvo in the emerging battle between Sunsoft's WebNFS and Microsoft's Common Internet File System, coming down firmly on the side of Microsoft. Last week the company began shipping VisionFS, a port of Microsoft's Server Message Block (SMB) protocol that provides file and print sharing capabilities from Unix servers to PCs.
It's a strategy that SCO believes will lead up to full Web support using CIFS when (and not if, in SCO's opinion) it becomes a standard. NFS, which has the virtue of simplicity, may be good for Unix to Unix connectivity, but a richer alternative is needed for Unix boxes serving PC clients, says Ray Anderson, senior VP of SCO's client integration product division. "People are beginning to realise that there is a far more elegant solution [than PC NFS]".
Internal SCO estimates suggest that the market for PC NFS clients is set to fall from $150m this year down to around $50m next year, mainly due to the increased use of NT Servers. SCO hopes to claw a significant part of that market back for Unix hosts with VisionFS. The product also includes a Profile Editor program that runs on a Windows machine for system admin configuration. It doesn't include the usual FTP, email, gopher and newsreader clients that often come with PC-NFS products, as SCO says its corporate customers regard these as "bloatware". Platforms supported include Sparc Solaris, HP/UX, SCO UnixWare and SCO OpenServer, with SunOS, IBM AIX, DEC Alpha and other Unix platforms expected by the end of the year. Evaluation copies are currently free from www.vision.sco.com, with prices set at under $100 per user, lower for more users.
FACET CORP FACES UP TO SCO
The Santa Cruz Operation won't have it all its own way with VisionFS - Facet Corp has launched something very similar called FacetWin, for Windows95/NT to Unix integration.
Like VisionFS, the product includes complete file and print services, and uses built-in SMB support on the clients. But it also includes terminal emulation (from the company's FacetTerm product), modem support, PC backup to Unix tape facilities, an email server that works with Microsoft Exchange and other mail clients, remote computing support and network licensing options dismissed by SCO as "bloatware". It's available at the end of this month for SCO Unix and OpenServer, IBM AIX and Intel Unix V.4 (Solaris and UnixWare), with HP/UX and Sun Solaris due in the second release. www.sssi.com.
TACOMA PUTS THE SQUEEZE ON INTERNET ACCESS PROVIDERS
Tacoma, Washington has joined a host of government bodies trying to squeeze dollars from the Internet with a new tax proposal. Tacoma, located on the Puget Sound, has imposed a 6% tax on Internet access providers - wherever they are based - if they have any subscribers in Tacoma. The tax differs from that of Fort Collins, Colorado, which only affects ISPs in the city itself.
In addition to the tax, which is levied on gross receipts generated within city limits, it wants all Internet access providers with Tacoma subscribers to obtain a $72-a-year city business license. According to Associated Press, an outcry has prompted a review of the tax by City Manager Ray Corpuz.
INTERNET MACHINES IN OZ
The pool tables and poker machines in Australia's pubs may soon be joined by an unlikely companion - a coin-operated Internet terminal. The terminals are the creation of Sydney-based Internet Public Access Terminals Pty Ltd and will cost about $3 (Australian) for 10 minutes. A partner, OzEmail, plans to install 3,500 of the terminals across the country in the coming year.
NCD BRINGS X TO THE WEB
Network Computing Devices' NCD Software unit plans to propose its Web-enabled X Window technology to the industry as a means of integrating X applications with the World Wide Web.
Its PC-XWare 4.0 is said to be the first X server to run X Window applications over the Web, giving PC users the capability to use X applications with a Web browser interface. NCD says its technology will become part of the Broadway X terminal implementation now owned by the Open Group.
BATTLE WITH BT PROVOKES WRIT FOR WEB PROTESTER
When formal protocol stops working, turn to the Internet. That seems to be the message as more people are using Web sites to get even and publicize their gripes with slow or inefficient administration procedures.
But Ivan Pope director of London-based Web developers, Webmedia Ltd, whose clients include the UK Department of Trade & Industry and Lloyds Bank Plc, now finds himself being sued by British Telecommunications Plc for defamation over his site, built after a series of clashes between himself and British Telecom, beginning with the alleged failure of the company to correct problems with Webmedia's ISDN lines.
According to Pope, the problems - and the consequent delays involved in solving them - cost Webmedia a week's lost business. So Pope got even. Brimming with spleen, the Web page includes slogans such as "It's good to stalk" and "Four things I hate about my BT account manager." Pope claims he was exercizing his rights as a consumer but British Telecom is more concerned that other customers searching the Web for their official site at www.bt.co.uk may stumble across Pope's invective and believe it.
That's because Pope snagged the domain name british-telecom.com before BT itself got around to claiming it. "There's nothing that says a domain name has anything to do with a trademark," he told The Observer. "By using a domain name that may have a trademark in it you're not necessarily infringing their trademark. It depends what you do with the domain name."
PLEXCOM'S NC CONCEPT "ALREADY TWO YEARS OLD"
Plexcom Inc of Simi Valley, California launched its QuantumNet network computer system a couple of weeks back claiming its flexible design is the result of ideas it has been working on for several years. The company says it has held a patent for its fundamental design for over a year.
Similar to other Network Computer vendors, Plexcom claims QuantumNet can reduce maintenance and administration costs by up to 50%. But where this system differs from others on offer is that all the computer's iAPX-86 processors, hard disks and memory are pulled together on to boards that fit into a central chassis. Each user then only has a standard monitor and keyboard on their desk along with a QuantumNet Universal Extender - a special transceiver unit. This has all the sockets for the keyboard, monitor and printer and links back to the main chassis via a choice of 10Base-T, 100Base-T, fibre or Token Ring and has a dedicated microprocessor and upgradable memory. Each processor has enough power to support about 10 users running low-level applications, such as World Wide Web access or a word processing package. And if any user needs to switch to a power-hungry graphics application, the system automatically re-routes to a processor with more available power.
Three optional floppy disks are available, but the choice ultimately rests with the employer as to whether it wants staff to take work out of the office with them each night. Sales director Mike D'Souza said the beauty of the system is its flexibility. QuantumNet modules slot into a case to transform it into a stand-alone PC, small enough to fit into a briefcase. Alternatively, a portable personal computer can be plugged into the network.
The entire network would probably cost about 10% less than a standard system, but because standard keyboards, mice and monitors can be used from existing office equipment, the company said that it's difficult to gauge the cost of a typical system.
INFORMIX JOINS HP AND NETSCAPE'S WORKFORCE
Informix Software Inc has made Hewlett-Packard Co and Netscape Communications Corp's company a crowd by joining the pair's so-called enterprise workforce collaboration initiative. It means Informix's OnLine product family will join the products and services sold by Hewlett-Packard and Netscape, and Informix will add support for HP's OpenView systems management software.
The agreement, forged in May, is based on HP OpenView and HP OpenMail messaging software and Netscape's SuiteSpot set of Web servers for intranets. HP already resold Informix products and Informix and Netscape combined the OnLine range with Netscape's LiveWire, FastTrack server and Navigator.
INTEL, MICROSOFT TRADE PROTOCOLS
Intel and Microsoft will cross-license their standards-based versions of telephony protocols in order to strengthen their respective Web conferencing plans and ensure product compatibility between the companies.
Microsoft will license the T.120 stack it uses in its NetMeeting telephony and conferencing program to Intel, whose H.323 stack has yet to show up in a product. T.120, an ITU standard, allows data conferencing, while H.323, also an ITU standard, supports Internet audio and video.
PARCPLACE BUYS JAVA VENDOR
Smalltalk vendor ParcPlace-Digitalk says it will use its acquisition of Objectshare Systems Inc this week to plunge into the "wide open sea" of Java components, promising the first of a new set of products by August.
Objectshare is putting the finishing touches on the August release, called jKit/Grid, a series of Java classes that acts as a set of grid and table user interfaces that provide scrolling grid controls and related cell editors.
Santa Clara-based Objectshare says it has a family of Java components in the pipeline for programmers who want short-cuts to build complex applets and applications.
ParcPlace-Digitalk says it hasn't decided whether the components will be branded with its name or Objectshare, to become an "independent business unit" of the firm when the deal becomes final. Objectshare has 15 employees and claims 10,000 users. Financial terms of the deal weren't disclosed.
l A hectic week - here are some of the winners and losers reporting results
Ameritech Corp has reported second quarter net profits that rose by 6.5% at $567.0m, which includes $160m exceptional settlement gain, on turnover that rose by 11.0% at $3,740m; mid-term net profits fell 3.4% to $1.0m on turnover up 12.2% at $7.3m. Net earnings per share rose by 12.1% to $1.02 in the quarter, and were down by 3.6% to $1.89 in the half.
Informix Corp has reported second quarter net profits up 7.1% at $21.6m on turnover up 37.9% at $226.3m; mid-term net fell 0.8% to $37.5m after a $5.9m charge arising from acquisition of Illustra Information Technologies Inc, on turnover up 37.9% at $430.3m. Net per share, flat at $0.14 in the quarter, fell 8% to $0.24 in the half. Comparisons are with figures restated to reflect the acquisitions of Stanford Technology Group and Illustra.
Intel Corp has reported second quarter net up 18.4% at $1,041m on turnover up 18.7% at $4,621m. Mid-term net profit rose 9.4% at $1,935m, on turnover up 24.3% at $9,265m. Net per share rose 18% to $1.17 in the quarter, 9% to $2.19 in the half.
MCI Communications Corp has reported second quarter net profits that rose by 15.4% at $300,000 on turnover up 23.2% at $4.6m; mid-term net profits rose 18.1% to $595,000 on turnover up 24.6% at $9.1m. Net earnings per share rose 13.2% to $0.43 in the quarter, up by 14.9% to $0.85 in the half.
Sprint Corp has reported second quarter net profits up 28.9% at $316.8m, which includes $44m exceptional charge associated with startup of Global One and Sprint Spectrum, on turnover up 11.6% at $3,506m; mid-term net rose 33.2% to $626.1m, which includes above $44m charge and an unspecified $6m charge a year ago, on turnover up 10.6% at $6,878.3m. Net earnings per share rose 4.3% to $0.73 in the quarter, 11.9% to $1.50 in the half.
Spyglass Inc has reported third quarter net profits up 142.1% at $862,000 on turnover up 90.3% at $6.0m; nine month net profits rose 145.6% to $2.6m on turnover that was up 99.9% at $15.8m. Net earnings per share rose 75% to $0.07 in the quarter, 72.7% to $0.19 in the three quarters.
COMPANY RESULTS
NETSCAPE EKES OUT PROFIT
Netscape sales hit $75 million in the second quarter on the strength of its intranet offerings, squeezing out a small profit after a $6.1 million merger charge.
Revenues rose 34% from $56.1 million in the previous quarter, which Netscape chalked up in particular to the success of its SuiteSpot server family and the release of low-end FastTrack Server. After taxes and the merger charge for InSoft, Paper Software and Netcode, Netscape made $906,000 for the quarter, compared to $3.6 million the previous quarter.
Netscape pulled in $131.1 million for the first six months of the year, compared to $20.5 million last year while revenue for the same period was $4.5 million compared to a loss of $7.5 million last year.
COMPUSERVE TAKES ITS LUMPS
CompuServe, suffering from a drop in users and high expenses, says it will lose 15 to 20 cents a share in its most recent quarter.
CompuServe's subscribers dropped by a little over 1% in May and June to number 3.4 million, and the company was hit by start-up expenses for its Wow consumer service.
Despite the bad news - or perhaps because of it - H&R Block, CompuServe's parent, will offer the remainder of the online service's shares to the public by November. H&R Block only let 20% of the shares go when CompuServe went public. The offering will bring in cash to cover the losses.
UUNET BUYS CANADIAN ISP
UUNet Technologies Inc, which gobbled up UK Internet service provider Unipalm Pipex last year, has been out shopping once again: last week it acquired the Canadian ISP Metrix Interlink Corp, based in Montreal.
UUNet issued 199.939 shares of Common Stock in the acquisition. UUNet Canada will combine with Metrix, taking advantage of its high bandwidth DS-3 infrastructure. Meanwhile, UUNet's proposed merger with telecoms company MFS Communications appears to be steaming ahead, and is expected to be finalised on August 12, if approved at stockholders meetings on the 9th and 10th.
SPYGLASS IN PROFIT FOR 10TH Q
While many Web hopefuls are seeing red with no black ink in sight, Spyglass just posted its tenth consecutive profitable quarter. The firm, best known for Spyglass Mosaic, attributes the growth to its switch from building data visualization tools to Web client server technology.
Spyglass sold off its data visualization tools at the end of 1995 and in April acquired Internet content filtering technology company SurfWatch Software as well as Web conferencing firm OS Technologies Corp. Spyglass reported third quarter net profits up 142.1% to $862,000 on turnover that rose 90% to $6million for the third quarter ended June 30.
CISCO TO UP WORKFORCE BY 9%
Emphasising that it intends to grow organically as well as through acquisition, Cisco Systems Inc has a staggering 600 job vacancies posted on its World Wide Web page - and will have even more now that the acquisition of StrataCom Inc has closed as expected. Cisco currently has around 7,000 employees, and is therefore hoping to expand its workforce by nearly 9%.
According to Cisco, the expansion is as a result of growth in its business - its third quarter results saw turnover leap 93.2% compared with the same period in last year. The overwhelming majority of openings are in or around the company's San Jose, California headquarters, with a fair smattering for its Europe, Middle East and Africa division.
A Microsoft-led group of over 50 companies is trying to create an industry standard for systems, desktop and network management over the Internet. The group includes the like of Compaq, Intel, Netscape and Tivoli, but conspicuously missing from the list is Sun, which, while refraining from endorsing it, says its own Java Management API will complement it.
The proposed Web-based enterprise management standard (WBEM, for lack of a more concise name) standard includes features that surpass existing protocols like SNMP and the Desktop Management Interface and will manage devices via HTTP that use either protocol.
The planned standard rests on twin pillars: the HyperMedia Management Schema (HMMS), which is to be defined and developed by the Desktop Management Task Force and is designed to provide data modeling and manipulation capabilities and the HyperMedia Management Protocol (HMMP) - already under consideration within the Internet Engineering Task Force - which is designed to allow HMMS to run over HTTP. SunSoft's Solstice product manager Brian Biles says having the protocol "sold separately" may cause problems as the management standard is developed. A third component, a C++ implementation of a HyperMedia Object Manager, is also planned, although it's not clear whether the group of vendors will submit it to a standards body.
At first blush the management initiative seems to strike directly at Sun and its Java Management API and the Internet
DOT Gossip
DEC's most recent round of forced layoffs, necessitated by its dismal fourth quarter, which they're still counting up, is cutting into its new Internet Business Unit under VP Ilene Lang which handles Alta Vista. Estimates put its losses as high as half its 300 employees, probably too high a guess, but DEC won't own up to how many are going because it's too embarrassed by the whole thing.
Standards watchers claim Microsoft, because of its size and baggage, is anxious to have single standards set whatever they might be just so long as they're standardized. Multiple Internet standards are reportedly difficult for it to deal with.
MIPS chip makers like NEC Electronics Inc are counting on selling "millions" of R4300s into NCs next year - maybe R5000s as well. Some of those expectations apparently derive from the MIPS-based Sony, Nintendo and Sega games consoles now coming to market turning into Internet surfing appliances.
One of the Object Management Group's problems - as it perceives it - is that neither Netscape nor JavaSoft is a member. Oh, yes, SunSoft is but OMG thinks that that doesn't involve JavaSoft personally, so to speak. Hence, its difficulties getting JavaSoft to toe the Corba line (OR No 7). Naturally OMG's in the midst of trying to draft both organizations into its fold. At this point it may have more luck with Netscape.
Hewlett-Packard has set up an Internet Solutions Operation to develop Internet and intranet software for its printers. The new unit's first product will be an intranet version of its JetAdmin printer management software, due this Fall, that lets intranet users monitor network printer and scanner activity from Web browsers. The new operation's headquartered in Boise, Idaho, home to its legendary printer division and will be headed by Bill Sharpe, formerly a director at HP Labs in Bristol, England.
America Online Inc last week formed a new company, Digital City Inc in conjunction with Tribune Co, to provide local and interactive content, as well as news and information, in 88 US cities to start with: Tribune Co of Chicago will hold a minority stake in Digital City, and will contribute content and run affiliates where it has a newspaper.
CompuServe Corp has joined forces with leading discount stockbroker Charles Schwab Corp to offer on-line broking services. Schwab will provide individual account information, a portfolio management system, and real-time share price quotes, and clients will also be able to place buy and sell orders, and bank and pay bills on-line. Initial services will be introduced this summer.
Corel Corp, Ottawa has licensed Java source code from JavaSoft and will soon include the Java Virtual Machine into Corel Ventura, CorelDraw7 and future versions of Corel WordPerfect, thus enabling users to run Java applets in any of these yet-to-be released products.
Sun Microsystems told Wall Street analysts last week when it reported its financial results that it would be looking to make acquisitions to bolster its Internet and intranet interests. It added that it expected them to make Sun stockholders a "reasonable return," suggesting that Sun had actually found some I-net ventures that are making money.
Sun king Scott McNealy said last week that he is now prepared to publicly retract his long-held oft-repeated opinion that there would be three surviving architectures after the smoke of the computer wars cleared: Wintel, Sparc and PowerPC. He is now prepared to consign PowerPC and all its baggage like Taligent and OS/2 to the dustbins of history and substitute the Web in its place. Naturally this gives McNealy a foot in both camps since the Web, where Sun already has a commanding position, involves Java chips, Hot Java and Java Beans among other things. Ironically McNealy had privately regarded PowerPC as a place to retreat to if Sparc and Unix bombed big time and supported it with Solaris.
Sun believes that Java trademark requirements and the way the Java licenses are written will save Java from the nastiness of compatibilities and the loss of control by Sun that that would entail. It also believes that 99% Java-compatible apps would be blown out of the water by their very nature and that the huge unit volumes of the Java marketplace would be a policing factor.
IT IS BELIEVED NETSCAPE WILL GO THE CORBA-
Wired Ventures Inc is unwired, Hambrecht is Quist off - Wired and Hambrecht & Quist Inc have put their flotations off until market conditions improve, and while Hambrecht will probably be back in the Fall or next spring, Wired could find it's missed the boat, and will likely end up being sold instead.
Geoffrey Gussis, a student who has just finished his first year at the Washington University School of Law, has undertaken the mammoth task of building a Web page documenting the domain name trademark policies of 50 countries. You can find the results at www.digidem.com/legal/domain.html
As we went to press, there was a move afoot to standardize Java, JavaScript and Visual Basic at an IEEE meeting in Boston. Just how far it got remains unclear since it was impossible to pull anyone out of the meeting in time to comment. JavaSoft is known to think it's too soon to standardize Java.
Yahoo! and Granite Broadcasting Corporation have signed a deal to combine their Internet and television content. Under the terms of the deal, the two will work together to integrate relevant Web sites and information into the Granite newscasts and the stations' own Web sites. Yahoo is to feature local news feeds from Granite's nine network-affiliated stations, located in the mid-western US, New York and California. All nine Granite network-affiliated stations will be launching the service within the next month.
Big Bertha, the hurricane that swept the Eastern seaboard of the United States, also caused a 500% increase in hits on the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Web page. FEMA's Web site (www.fema.gov) averaged 230,000 accesses a week, to rise to 1.25 million hits the week of the hurricane.
Just how funny can that money get? Excite Inc, the Mountain View, California-based search site, filed a net loss for the quarter of $7 million. But $5 million of thatwas spent as a pre-tax payment to Netscape in order to be designated a "premium provider" on Netscape's Internet Search page. For those readers who couldn't believe their eyes, yes, that is five, (5) mill-y-un US dollars - for a tiny blue banner. Still, second quarter revenues were up 85% at $2.1 million, so that's OK.
(c) 1996 May not be copied
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July 22 - 26 1996 Issue No 8
MICROSOFT AND 50 OTHERS SEEK WEB MANAGEMENT STANDARD
A Microsoft-led group of over 50 companies is trying to create an industry standard for systems, desktop and network management over the Internet. The group includes the like of Compaq, Intel, Netscape and Tivoli, but conspicuously missing from the list is Sun, which, while refraining from endorsing it, says its own Java Management API will complement it.
The proposed Web-based enterprise management standard (WBEM, for lack of a more concise name) standard includes features that surpass existing protocols like SNMP and the Desktop Management Interface and will manage devices via HTTP that use either protocol.
The planned standard rests on twin pillars: the HyperMedia Management Schema (HMMS), which is to be defined and developed by the Desktop Management Task Force and is designed to provide data modeling and manipulation capabilities and the HyperMedia Management Protocol (HMMP) - already under consideration within the Internet Engineering Task Force - which is designed to allow HMMS to run over HTTP. SunSoft's Solstice product manager Brian Biles says having the protocol "sold separately" may cause problems as the management standard is developed. A third component, a C++ implementation of a HyperMedia Object Manager, is also planned, although it's not clear whether the group of vendors will submit it to a standards body.
At first blush the management initiative seems to strike directly at Sun and its Java Management API and the Internet Management Specification (IMS) it's co-developing with Tivoli. But Sun claims that many companies will choose to implement both standards. Biles said it's "delighted" that Microsoft chose to go the standards route rather than building the management protocol on proprietary technology. It claims it will help shape the protocol through its membership in both the DMTF and IETF, although it's not likely to adopt it until it is both a known standard and a volume product. SunSoft is having a hard time, however, abandoning its skepticism of all things Redmond, saying "Our expectation is that Microsoft will be Microsoft" and somehow make the protocol proprietary. รค continued on page 7
NSI AND VERISIGN TEAM ON DOMAIN NAMES AND SECURITY IDS
Network Solutions Inc, which runs the InterNIC domain name registry, has cut a deal with Digital signature company VeriSign to offer customers simultaneous domain name signature registry for their servers. "It's not an exclusive deal" NSI said last week, "but we chose to partner with Mountain View, California-based VeriSign because they're currently ahead of the market, have a product that fits the X.509 standard, and have real customers." As other digital identification companies crop up, Network Solutions will forge other partnerships.
"Currently when users sign up their domain name, they undergo a rigorous application and then if they want to secure their site, they go through a strikingly similar, rigorous application. That won't be necessary now and they'll have one point of contact," VeriSign said. The joint service should be ready this Fall, but as yet there is no price set. Secure server digital IDs currently cost $290 for the first year and $95 per year thereafter. Registering a domain name with the InterNIC costs $50 per year.
VeriSign says it already has more than 10,000 Web sites secured, but now is also focusing its efforts on signing up users for its Personal Authentication Service. It signed deals with America Online Inc and Global Network Navigator (GNN) in May to assign its Digital IDs to their members and eliminate the need for multiple passwords and user names.
The deal with Network Solutions will certainly give Verisign an edge over its competitors, such as GTE's CyberTrust, which is just breaking into into the digital identification market.
SunSoft will finally make its Joe 1.0 beta generally available today. Joe is the company's Java Object Request Broker (ORB) and Interface Definition Language (IDL) compiler that connects applications on Sun's OpenStep-based NEO object-oriented server environment with Java applications, bypassing HTML and CGI.
Joe is downloaded automatically into Web browsers along with Java applets, and supports an early version of remote Java communication using Corba's Inter-ORB Protocol for connecting with Sun NEO servers. Eventually Joe will be able to communicate with objects on non-NEO platforms via the Corba 2.0 Internet Inter-ORB Protocol (IIOP).
STRONG CRYPTO: WEAK EXPORT BAN
After months of negotiation with the US State Department, Netscape got approval to make strong-encryption products available for download to US citizens and residents. Its are the only products with RC4 128-bit approved for Internet distribution, it says.
But does the development signal a softening in the US government's line on encryption? Probably not, according to Kurt Stammberger, RSA's technology marketing manager: "Unfortunately, nothing has changed...We expect to see other vendors attempt to follow in Netscape's footsteps, though the State Department's export control dept. is already understaffed and permissions are likely to be delayed many, many months - if they are granted at all."
Faced with an encryption export policy increasingly difficult to police, the Department appears to be turning a blind eye. Though Netscape has had to set up a system of checking to try and bar non-citizens from getting hold of the code, no-one is pretending that it would stop a really determined foreigner (a foreigner who could buy the software on disk in the US, anyway). A Netscape spokesperson said that a skilled IP-spoofer would be able to circumvent the controls, while Jeff Treuhaft, Netscape director of security told the New York Times: "We are not saying [the screening] is guaranteed or perfect. We are saying we have written approval."
AT&T SWAPS NETWARE FOR IP IN CONNECT SERVICES
AT&T announced last week a plan to "evolve" its NetWare Connect Services into a more generic Intranet Connect Services (ICS) package that supports both NetWare's IPX and the Internet's IP protocols.
AT&T, who has dumped more online plans than most companies have started, denies that it is backing away from NetWare the way it did with Lotus Notes over the ill-fated AT&T Network Notes initiative - although that would seem the obvious conclusion. It originally planned to offer NetWare Connect Services (NCS) as a pay-per-use network for companies that couldn't afford to set up a full scale private network. Although the charter remains the same, the technology backing the service looks to shift to the more open Internet.
The new ICS will offer two levels of service: an IP-only version and a combined IP/IPX service that adds support for native IPX routing, NetWare Directory Services and enhanced client support. Security will be provided by the Source Address Assurance capabilities of NetWare, which are designed to prevent address spoofing, and as with the NetWare Connect Services, ICS will be run over one of AT&T's secure subnetworks.
AT&T will start taking orders for ICS in August, and plans a controlled introduction from the end of September, with general availability expected around three months after that.
ATTACHMATE TO LIBERALLY APPLY ACTIVEX TO ITS PRODUCTS
Attachmate Corp - restyled 'the Intranet company' - says Microsoft Corp's Internet Explorer 3.0 is its preferred browser and that it intends to enhance many Attachmate host and Intranet products with Microsoft's ActiveX functionality.
Internet Explorer 3.0 will be integrated with Attachmate's Extra! Personal client range so users, according to the company, can access the Internet using the same software they use to access data held on mainframe and mid-range systems. Attachmate is already a fan of ActiveX, supporting it in its much-delayed launch of Emissary Host Publishing System which promises to let companies 'Web-deploy' any kind of IBM data to enable users to have 'simple' access to corporate information via any Web browser.
Attachmate is now planning to take its offerings in the areas of Telnet host systems, remote file access, Internet mail, Internet news and HTML editing and deliver them in the form of ActiveX Controls to a wider audience. Later this year, ActiveX controls will be announced for mainframe, AS/400, Digital Equipment Corp, Hewlett-Packard Co, Unisys Corp and Unix host access systems that can be run in Internet Explorer or other ActiveX-supported clients. No delivery dates or pricing details were available.
ADOBE READIES JAVA ACROBAT AND OTHER JAVA PLUG-INS
Adobe Systems Inc is planning a Java version of its Acrobat Reader, other Java plug-ins and embedded Java classes inside Portable Document Format files before the year-end. Version 3.0 of its Acrobat on-line document product ships in August or September.
Adobe said it is taking the product further down into the consumer market and is pinning the future success of Acrobat on its Web capabilities. It says 6 million users have downloaded its free Acrobat Reader software. Adobe is also slashing the price of the Acrobat authoring bundle to an expected street price of less than $200, from $600.
The bundle will include Exchange, Distiller, PDFWriter and the Capture plug-in and Catalogue, previously sold separately. The Java version of Reader is still mainly on the drawing board and is being made possible by Sun Microsystems Inc's recent licensing of Adobe's PostScript-based Bravo two-dimensional imaging model for Java.
The Java version will have a smaller system footprint and be a simpler product, Adobe says. Netscape has also licensed Bravo for use in Navigator. Adobe says the main Web enhancements in Acrobat 3.0 are the integrated viewing of Portable Document Format files directly within Web browsers that support Navigator Plug-in application programming interface or ActiveX controls; page-on-demand downloading so users can be reading files as they are being downloaded; and better compression technology and progressive rendering.
ZIMMERMANN RECKONS 56 BITS DIVIDED BY $100M = 2 MINS
How difficult is it to crack 56-bit key DES encryption? According to the US government, very tough. According to Philip Zimmermann, encryption expert and developer of the PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) encryption software, quite do-able.
Zimmermann's testimony before a Senate sub-committee late last month was reported in the comp.risks Usenet newsgroup by Edupage. Based on a 1993 presentation by Michael Wiener of Northern Telecom, Zimmermann's said it would be possible to build a special machine for $1 million able to crack a DES-encoded message in 3.5 hours. One costing $10 million, could do the job in 21 minutes, and a $100 million machine in just two minutes.
Microsoft has shipped Internet Explorer 3.0 beta 2 with the Java JIT embedded. Warning: the JIT defaults to off. Early tests indicate it is living up to its performance promises.
BT and MCI will use Open Market Inc's OM-Transact and OM-SecureLink software in their electronic commerce services. iSTAR Internet Inc and BBN Planet have also signed up. www.openmarket.com
Yes, it's another middleware alliance: Netscape has signed a joint marketing, sales, support and training agreement with NeXT Software which will allow both companies to peddle solutions using Netscape Navigator and SuiteSpot servers and NeXT WebObjects. WebObjects will allow users to link their corporate data to Netscape's servers. There are a couple of flies in the ointment: WebObjects doesn't know about JavaScript yet, but that should be added by September; neither does it know about Corba. NeXT says that the company is about to sign a deal with a major Corba house.
Netscape says that its Web site is now exceeding 80 million hits a day and has had over 10 billion hits in its two-year life.
Online advertising will shoot from $200 million this year to $2 billion in the year 2000, a Simba Information study says. Just to put that in perspective, that's still less than 1% of the $221 billion spent on all advertising.
Germany, long the Western country most eager to regulate Internet content, has asked the United Nations to set international Web content standards.
Germany's minister for family affairs said the government is most concerned about pornographers and neo-Nazis on the Internet.
Isocor Inc, based in Santa Monica, California, has announced the availability of its Internet directory application kit for Windows NT, which contains LDAP Lightweight Directory Access Protocol support. The company promises that the kit will enable OEM customers and developers to integrate Internet applications with leading databases such as Oracle, SQL Server, and Sybase. No pricing was available for the system.
News Corp Ltd is to acquire New World Communications Group Inc in a share exchange valued at $2,480m.
IN BRIEF
DEC'S DIX DABBLES IN HUBBING
Digital Equipment Corp is dipping its toe in the ISP interconnection business. The Palo Alto Digital Internet Exchange (which you just know is going to be dubbed DIX) is a combined switching and data centre and the brainchild of a study by Digital's Research and Advanced Development division. The centre will initially get 3Gbps-worth of connectivity, courtesy of the first two takers, MFS and Pacific Bell. On the face of it the 7,000 square foot facility sounds very similar to MFS' existing Metropolitan Area Exchanges (MAEs), a facility based around a very fast switch where telecos and various ISPs can install routers to interconnect. However, the site has Web-server space alongside the switch and it is the first site to be run independently of any particular telecoms supplier.
Exactly what Digital intends to do in this business is still something of a mystery. The centre at Palo Alto "was the result of an analysis done by R&D of what would be required in the evolving Internet" says Robert Supnik, VP of DEC Research and Advanced Development. He says the study showed a "significant opportunity" and worldwide need for several hundred such centres, but there is no commitment by DEC to build any others. Given the rapid rate at which the likes of BT/MCI and MFS want to roll out these hubs, Digital's approach looks very cautious. The site will partly be used as a show-case for DEC's switching, Internet and facilities management wares.
The Palo Alto operation itself is being run by the Systems Division, with a dedicated staff of seven. Construction was started in April and it is expected to be completed in September. Initially there is enough room for 100 racks of connectivity kit. The 150-member Commercial Internet Exchange (CIX) is going to co-locate at least one router at the site, and Web-hosting specialist Best Communications Inc will be connecting to it as well. Supnik says he expects the DIX will eventually get business from a large proportion of Northern California's ISPs.
ROASTER PRICES CUT
Natural Intelligence of Cambridge, Massachusetts, whose Roaster development environment played a key role in the the birth of the Macintosh Java market, has cut Roaster's prices to stay competitive with new arrivals on the scene. As new rivals, notably Metrowerks and Symantec, emerged with Java tools at dramatically lower prices, the company rethought the price tags. It maintains that it hasn't dropped because sales are hurting. Roaster is outwardly similar to the other tools, making customers less likely to pay a higher price for it. Natural Intelligence claims that its product fares the best in comparisons. A full subscription license has dropped from $299 to $199, with a new option for a $129 non-developer one-issue version. Educational pricing is $69.
SOFTWARE DOES ISP'S JOB
LinkStar Communications is coming to market with a software package that removes much of the manual work required by Internet service providers for hosting Web sites.
The privately-held Boca Raton, Florida company's SmartHost product handles such Web site set-up tasks as creating user accounts and collecting payment information. SmartHost is built on an HTTP-based technology called Simple Web Update Protocol (SWUP), which extends HTTP capabilities to handle Web page publishing, account creation and passing information to servers such as those for search engines and directories. Web sites can be uploaded to a SmartHost server using the company's Site Launcher Web publishing software.
SmartHost also creates and assigns URLs, submits the URL to search engines and uploads user files. While users could upload files via FTP, the LinkStar protocol records and verifies payment information and sets up a user account. SmartHost is available in beta in a Unix version, with NT and Macintosh versions due in the fourth quarter.
JAVASTATION AT THE OLYMPICS
Want to see a Sun JavaStation in action, but can't wait until the fall? Then go to the Olympics in Atlanta.
Sun is installing 100 JavaStations, along with a dozen Ultra Enterprise servers for visitors to access a specially-prepared Web site called JavaJoint Online. Sun says the Java boxes are just prototypes - with the emphasis on proto. "The resemblance to what we're going to announce [later this year] is minimal," the company said.
They will have a Netscape browser and a video screen. The site has been prepared by Sun and House of Blues NewMedia Inc. It will feature a menu of live music, chats with performers and athletes and a daily report of life at the Olympics "off the beaten track."
VISUAL J++ HITS BETA
Visual J++, the Java development piece of Microsoft's Jakarta environment, went to beta last week. Microsoft says the beta is a "professional edition" but there's not likely to be a light version of the tool.
It will of course have ActiveX support, enabling any Java applications developed using the tool to be extended using ActiveX controls. Visual J++ features aspects of the Microsoft Developer Studio technology used in Visual C++, including development wizards to speed the development process and a graphical debugger so applets can be debugged from the browser. It also supports multiple applets on the same Web page and debugging at the byte-code level.
The choice of the name also indicates Redmond's belief that this is just another one of its development environments. The product is due to ship in the fall when pricing will be finalized. Beta programmers should point their browsers at www.microsoft.com/visualj.
C/NET INHOUSE TOOLS FOR SALE
Following in the footsteps of Microsoft with Normandy, the C/Net media group is turning its in-house developed content-management into products. The company is selling its PRISM (Presentation of Real-time Interactive Service Material) software to Vignette Corporation which will develop it and built it into its own content management family. CNET has also made an undisclosed investment in Vignette. Halsey Minor, chairman and chief executive officer of CNET, becomes a Vignette director.
Prism was designed to cope with the needs of Web sites that contain a large number of constantly changing, and dynamically generated Web pages, such as www.cnet.com. At its heart is the ability to set up templates and systems to simplify the authoring management job. It also handles messy stuff such as displaying different versions of the pages depending on the capabilities of the user's browser.
The company has also applied for a patent over some innovative back end technology that speeds up page serving. C/Net's site is supposedly serving 1.5 million pages per day, from two Sparc 20 workstations.
Currently the back end runs on a Sparc station, but Vignette will have it up on NT and several Unixs by the product's projected year-end release. It is working with "one of the top three" database vendors to integrate its product with the Prism back-end. Vignette Corp, based in Austin, Texas, has recently completed $3.4 million in venture funding. It wins the minimal Web-site award with www.vignette.com.
Marlborough, Ma -based NetScheme Solutions dived into the middleware market last week with a NetScheme InterMart Toolkit. Designed to link databases to the Web, it has two main components. NetScheme Modeler interrogate's the database's schema to generate a navigation model that includes all the business objects and navigation links.
The second element, Navigation Server, uses the model to translate requests from a standard Web browser into SQL requests. It is this model-based apporoach that sets NetScheme apart from the others, says Carl Young, NetScheme's president.
The first release of the product is Windows NT-based and was written for Microsoft's SQL Server, though there is an ODBC driver and a native Oracle 7 adapter available.
Reuters Japan Ltd says it will provide news to Yahoo! Japan Corp from July 22. The new service, Reuters Web News Service, will cover seven subject categories including business, it will also include stories from the Japanese daily Mainichi Shimbun. Yahoo! Japan is owned by Yahoo! Inc and Japanese software publisher Softbank Corp.
Compulink Information Exchange Ltd, one of the UK's most venerable online conferencing systems has appointed Roland Perry as MD. Perry was previously in charge of business development at UKOnline, the first online service to be built bottom-up using Web technology. Privately owned CIX has been languishing somewhat, despite starting an Internet service last year. Perry is perceived as bringing a dash of marketing and business skills to the party.
Two reporters from CyberWire Dispatch, an e-mail-distributed newsletter, claim to have laid hold of lists of Internet sites filtered by software like CyberSitter and SurfWatch, causing some consternation among organizations allegedly blocked. The blocked Web sites include the National Organization of Women, reportedly because of its links to "sexual preferentation" sites focused on homosexuality. Other gay and lesbian sites, including newsgroups were among those blocked, as were those of some gun lobbying and animal rights groups. Solid Oak, the manufacturer of CyberSitter, confirmed that the sites were in fact on its list but said the choices only reflect what its users want, not political motives.
What do people use Web search engines to look for? Dave Stuart at the University of Alberta has set up a Web page at http://ugweb.cs.ualberta.ca/~stuart/
collect.html which contains search bait - everything from 'Star Trek' to 'Bill Clinton' to 'spank'. On a linked page, you can see what search terms people use to find it. Only kindness of his heart has prevented him from displaying the IP address of the caller along side the fact that they were searching for "Vibraphone+Madonna".
Despite Sun's attempt to stamp out unauthorized use of its Java trademark on the Internet, at last count there were 166 Web sites with Java in their domain names. Javac.com, one of the Web sites that received a warning letter, has posted all of the offending domain names - including such names as javaweb.com, planetjava.net, mochajava.com and snotjava.com - on its Web page.
In Brieff
NETMANAGE SPURNS CIFS, STICKS WITH WEBNFS
Network File System "is still the only file sharing protocol with universal access," says NetManage Inc spokesman Willie Tejada, who claims the company has not noticed a lack of demand for its Network File System and PC-NFS product lines. Network File System and its personal computer derivatives will continue to support the widest number of host systems, including mainframes, most Unix boxes and proprietary systems, he points out. NetManage says it is looking into some aspects of NFS/Server Message Block integration, but dismisses Common Internet File System as "Server Message Block renamed, just as ActiveX is still really Object Linking & Embedding." Instead NetManage is looking towards WebNFS as the basis for what it sees as an emerging new file sharing paradigm. Tejada views the future of Common Internet File System as an "Internet enabled" file system, whereas WebNFS is, in his view, more like "a native file system for the Internet/intranet, combining the global viewing model of the Web with the universal file system of Network File System."
NETWORK APPLIANCES READIES FIRST CIFS BOX
Network server manufacturer Network Appliance Inc, which came out in support of CIFS a few weeks back, has its first CIFS product ready for beta testing, with a final version due out by the Fall. (One source said "within 45 days"). NA's product thrust is one of native implementations of multiple protocols, and its CIFS product will include a native file system implementation, avoiding the usual emulation bottleneck (NA servers, of course, use a proprietary micro-kernel operating system rather than Unix).
It won't be giving up on NFS, and continues to track WebNFS, which it expects to follow the NFS standard and to be part of the next NFS release. NA needs a faster alternative to HTTP for large file transfers, though it admits that what's there in CIFS at the moment "is just the tip of the iceberg" and that to begin with it will be used, as SMB is, for connecting up PC desktops rather than for Internet/intranet applications.
The key to that will be CIFS support in mainstream browsers, which has yet to be declared. To support WebNFS within a browser requires source code changes which neither Microsoft nor Netscape has so far committed to make. Both CIFS and WebNFS will be able to receive HTML files. NA already does 20% of its business at Internet service providers, though for network storage rather than for serving.
SCO TURNS TO CIFS FOR PC UNIX COMMUNICATIONS
The Santa Cruz Operation has fired the next salvo in the emerging battle between Sunsoft's WebNFS and Microsoft's Common Internet File System, coming down firmly on the side of Microsoft. Last week the company began shipping VisionFS, a port of Microsoft's Server Message Block (SMB) protocol that provides file and print sharing capabilities from Unix servers to PCs.
It's a strategy that SCO believes will lead up to full Web support using CIFS when (and not if, in SCO's opinion) it becomes a standard. NFS, which has the virtue of simplicity, may be good for Unix to Unix connectivity, but a richer alternative is needed for Unix boxes serving PC clients, says Ray Anderson, senior VP of SCO's client integration product division. "People are beginning to realise that there is a far more elegant solution [than PC NFS]".
Internal SCO estimates suggest that the market for PC NFS clients is set to fall from $150m this year down to around $50m next year, mainly due to the increased use of NT Servers. SCO hopes to claw a significant part of that market back for Unix hosts with VisionFS. The product also includes a Profile Editor program that runs on a Windows machine for system admin configuration. It doesn't include the usual FTP, email, gopher and newsreader clients that often come with PC-NFS products, as SCO says its corporate customers regard these as "bloatware". Platforms supported include Sparc Solaris, HP/UX, SCO UnixWare and SCO OpenServer, with SunOS, IBM AIX, DEC Alpha and other Unix platforms expected by the end of the year. Evaluation copies are currently free from www.vision.sco.com, with prices set at under $100 per user, lower for more users.
FACET CORP FACES UP TO SCO
The Santa Cruz Operation won't have it all its own way with VisionFS - Facet Corp has launched something very similar called FacetWin, for Windows95/NT to Unix integration.
Like VisionFS, the product includes complete file and print services, and uses built-in SMB support on the clients. But it also includes terminal emulation (from the company's FacetTerm product), modem support, PC backup to Unix tape facilities, an email server that works with Microsoft Exchange and other mail clients, remote computing support and network licensing options dismissed by SCO as "bloatware". It's available at the end of this month for SCO Unix and OpenServer, IBM AIX and Intel Unix V.4 (Solaris and UnixWare), with HP/UX and Sun Solaris due in the second release. www.sssi.com.
TACOMA PUTS THE SQUEEZE ON INTERNET ACCESS PROVIDERS
Tacoma, Washington has joined a host of government bodies trying to squeeze dollars from the Internet with a new tax proposal. Tacoma, located on the Puget Sound, has imposed a 6% tax on Internet access providers - wherever they are based - if they have any subscribers in Tacoma. The tax differs from that of Fort Collins, Colorado, which only affects ISPs in the city itself.
In addition to the tax, which is levied on gross receipts generated within city limits, it wants all Internet access providers with Tacoma subscribers to obtain a $72-a-year city business license. According to Associated Press, an outcry has prompted a review of the tax by City Manager Ray Corpuz.
INTERNET MACHINES IN OZ
The pool tables and poker machines in Australia's pubs may soon be joined by an unlikely companion - a coin-operated Internet terminal. The terminals are the creation of Sydney-based Internet Public Access Terminals Pty Ltd and will cost about $3 (Australian) for 10 minutes. A partner, OzEmail, plans to install 3,500 of the terminals across the country in the coming year.
NCD BRINGS X TO THE WEB
Network Computing Devices' NCD Software unit plans to propose its Web-enabled X Window technology to the industry as a means of integrating X applications with the World Wide Web.
Its PC-XWare 4.0 is said to be the first X server to run X Window applications over the Web, giving PC users the capability to use X applications with a Web browser interface. NCD says its technology will become part of the Broadway X terminal implementation now owned by the Open Group.
BATTLE WITH BT PROVOKES WRIT FOR WEB PROTESTER
When formal protocol stops working, turn to the Internet. That seems to be the message as more people are using Web sites to get even and publicize their gripes with slow or inefficient administration procedures.
But Ivan Pope director of London-based Web developers, Webmedia Ltd, whose clients include the UK Department of Trade & Industry and Lloyds Bank Plc, now finds himself being sued by British Telecommunications Plc for defamation over his site, built after a series of clashes between himself and British Telecom, beginning with the alleged failure of the company to correct problems with Webmedia's ISDN lines.
According to Pope, the problems - and the consequent delays involved in solving them - cost Webmedia a week's lost business. So Pope got even. Brimming with spleen, the Web page includes slogans such as "It's good to stalk" and "Four things I hate about my BT account manager." Pope claims he was exercizing his rights as a consumer but British Telecom is more concerned that other customers searching the Web for their official site at www.bt.co.uk may stumble across Pope's invective and believe it.
That's because Pope snagged the domain name british-telecom.com before BT itself got around to claiming it. "There's nothing that says a domain name has anything to do with a trademark," he told The Observer. "By using a domain name that may have a trademark in it you're not necessarily infringing their trademark. It depends what you do with the domain name."
PLEXCOM'S NC CONCEPT "ALREADY TWO YEARS OLD"
Plexcom Inc of Simi Valley, California launched its QuantumNet network computer system a couple of weeks back claiming its flexible design is the result of ideas it has been working on for several years. The company says it has held a patent for its fundamental design for over a year.
Similar to other Network Computer vendors, Plexcom claims QuantumNet can reduce maintenance and administration costs by up to 50%. But where this system differs from others on offer is that all the computer's iAPX-86 processors, hard disks and memory are pulled together on to boards that fit into a central chassis. Each user then only has a standard monitor and keyboard on their desk along with a QuantumNet Universal Extender - a special transceiver unit. This has all the sockets for the keyboard, monitor and printer and links back to the main chassis via a choice of 10Base-T, 100Base-T, fibre or Token Ring and has a dedicated microprocessor and upgradable memory. Each processor has enough power to support about 10 users running low-level applications, such as World Wide Web access or a word processing package. And if any user needs to switch to a power-hungry graphics application, the system automatically re-routes to a processor with more available power.
Three optional floppy disks are available, but the choice ultimately rests with the employer as to whether it wants staff to take work out of the office with them each night. Sales director Mike D'Souza said the beauty of the system is its flexibility. QuantumNet modules slot into a case to transform it into a stand-alone PC, small enough to fit into a briefcase. Alternatively, a portable personal computer can be plugged into the network.
The entire network would probably cost about 10% less than a standard system, but because standard keyboards, mice and monitors can be used from existing office equipment, the company said that it's difficult to gauge the cost of a typical system.
INFORMIX JOINS HP AND NETSCAPE'S WORKFORCE
Informix Software Inc has made Hewlett-Packard Co and Netscape Communications Corp's company a crowd by joining the pair's so-called enterprise workforce collaboration initiative. It means Informix's OnLine product family will join the products and services sold by Hewlett-Packard and Netscape, and Informix will add support for HP's OpenView systems management software.
The agreement, forged in May, is based on HP OpenView and HP OpenMail messaging software and Netscape's SuiteSpot set of Web servers for intranets. HP already resold Informix products and Informix and Netscape combined the OnLine range with Netscape's LiveWire, FastTrack server and Navigator.
INTEL, MICROSOFT TRADE PROTOCOLS
Intel and Microsoft will cross-license their standards-based versions of telephony protocols in order to strengthen their respective Web conferencing plans and ensure product compatibility between the companies.
Microsoft will license the T.120 stack it uses in its NetMeeting telephony and conferencing program to Intel, whose H.323 stack has yet to show up in a product. T.120, an ITU standard, allows data conferencing, while H.323, also an ITU standard, supports Internet audio and video.
PARCPLACE BUYS JAVA VENDOR
Smalltalk vendor ParcPlace-Digitalk says it will use its acquisition of Objectshare Systems Inc this week to plunge into the "wide open sea" of Java components, promising the first of a new set of products by August.
Objectshare is putting the finishing touches on the August release, called jKit/Grid, a series of Java classes that acts as a set of grid and table user interfaces that provide scrolling grid controls and related cell editors.
Santa Clara-based Objectshare says it has a family of Java components in the pipeline for programmers who want short-cuts to build complex applets and applications.
ParcPlace-Digitalk says it hasn't decided whether the components will be branded with its name or Objectshare, to become an "independent business unit" of the firm when the deal becomes final. Objectshare has 15 employees and claims 10,000 users. Financial terms of the deal weren't disclosed.
l A hectic week - here are some of the winners and losers reporting results
Ameritech Corp has reported second quarter net profits that rose by 6.5% at $567.0m, which includes $160m exceptional settlement gain, on turnover that rose by 11.0% at $3,740m; mid-term net profits fell 3.4% to $1.0m on turnover up 12.2% at $7.3m. Net earnings per share rose by 12.1% to $1.02 in the quarter, and were down by 3.6% to $1.89 in the half.
Informix Corp has reported second quarter net profits up 7.1% at $21.6m on turnover up 37.9% at $226.3m; mid-term net fell 0.8% to $37.5m after a $5.9m charge arising from acquisition of Illustra Information Technologies Inc, on turnover up 37.9% at $430.3m. Net per share, flat at $0.14 in the quarter, fell 8% to $0.24 in the half. Comparisons are with figures restated to reflect the acquisitions of Stanford Technology Group and Illustra.
Intel Corp has reported second quarter net up 18.4% at $1,041m on turnover up 18.7% at $4,621m. Mid-term net profit rose 9.4% at $1,935m, on turnover up 24.3% at $9,265m. Net per share rose 18% to $1.17 in the quarter, 9% to $2.19 in the half.
MCI Communications Corp has reported second quarter net profits that rose by 15.4% at $300,000 on turnover up 23.2% at $4.6m; mid-term net profits rose 18.1% to $595,000 on turnover up 24.6% at $9.1m. Net earnings per share rose 13.2% to $0.43 in the quarter, up by 14.9% to $0.85 in the half.
Sprint Corp has reported second quarter net profits up 28.9% at $316.8m, which includes $44m exceptional charge associated with startup of Global One and Sprint Spectrum, on turnover up 11.6% at $3,506m; mid-term net rose 33.2% to $626.1m, which includes above $44m charge and an unspecified $6m charge a year ago, on turnover up 10.6% at $6,878.3m. Net earnings per share rose 4.3% to $0.73 in the quarter, 11.9% to $1.50 in the half.
Spyglass Inc has reported third quarter net profits up 142.1% at $862,000 on turnover up 90.3% at $6.0m; nine month net profits rose 145.6% to $2.6m on turnover that was up 99.9% at $15.8m. Net earnings per share rose 75% to $0.07 in the quarter, 72.7% to $0.19 in the three quarters.
COMPANY RESULTS
NETSCAPE EKES OUT PROFIT
Netscape sales hit $75 million in the second quarter on the strength of its intranet offerings, squeezing out a small profit after a $6.1 million merger charge.
Revenues rose 34% from $56.1 million in the previous quarter, which Netscape chalked up in particular to the success of its SuiteSpot server family and the release of low-end FastTrack Server. After taxes and the merger charge for InSoft, Paper Software and Netcode, Netscape made $906,000 for the quarter, compared to $3.6 million the previous quarter.
Netscape pulled in $131.1 million for the first six months of the year, compared to $20.5 million last year while revenue for the same period was $4.5 million compared to a loss of $7.5 million last year.
COMPUSERVE TAKES ITS LUMPS
CompuServe, suffering from a drop in users and high expenses, says it will lose 15 to 20 cents a share in its most recent quarter.
CompuServe's subscribers dropped by a little over 1% in May and June to number 3.4 million, and the company was hit by start-up expenses for its Wow consumer service.
Despite the bad news - or perhaps because of it - H&R Block, CompuServe's parent, will offer the remainder of the online service's shares to the public by November. H&R Block only let 20% of the shares go when CompuServe went public. The offering will bring in cash to cover the losses.
UUNET BUYS CANADIAN ISP
UUNet Technologies Inc, which gobbled up UK Internet service provider Unipalm Pipex last year, has been out shopping once again: last week it acquired the Canadian ISP Metrix Interlink Corp, based in Montreal.
UUNet issued 199.939 shares of Common Stock in the acquisition. UUNet Canada will combine with Metrix, taking advantage of its high bandwidth DS-3 infrastructure. Meanwhile, UUNet's proposed merger with telecoms company MFS Communications appears to be steaming ahead, and is expected to be finalised on August 12, if approved at stockholders meetings on the 9th and 10th.
SPYGLASS IN PROFIT FOR 10TH Q
While many Web hopefuls are seeing red with no black ink in sight, Spyglass just posted its tenth consecutive profitable quarter. The firm, best known for Spyglass Mosaic, attributes the growth to its switch from building data visualization tools to Web client server technology.
Spyglass sold off its data visualization tools at the end of 1995 and in April acquired Internet content filtering technology company SurfWatch Software as well as Web conferencing firm OS Technologies Corp. Spyglass reported third quarter net profits up 142.1% to $862,000 on turnover that rose 90% to $6million for the third quarter ended June 30.
CISCO TO UP WORKFORCE BY 9%
Emphasising that it intends to grow organically as well as through acquisition, Cisco Systems Inc has a staggering 600 job vacancies posted on its World Wide Web page - and will have even more now that the acquisition of StrataCom Inc has closed as expected. Cisco currently has around 7,000 employees, and is therefore hoping to expand its workforce by nearly 9%.
According to Cisco, the expansion is as a result of growth in its business - its third quarter results saw turnover leap 93.2% compared with the same period in last year. The overwhelming majority of openings are in or around the company's San Jose, California headquarters, with a fair smattering for its Europe, Middle East and Africa division.
A Microsoft-led group of over 50 companies is trying to create an industry standard for systems, desktop and network management over the Internet. The group includes the like of Compaq, Intel, Netscape and Tivoli, but conspicuously missing from the list is Sun, which, while refraining from endorsing it, says its own Java Management API will complement it.
The proposed Web-based enterprise management standard (WBEM, for lack of a more concise name) standard includes features that surpass existing protocols like SNMP and the Desktop Management Interface and will manage devices via HTTP that use either protocol.
The planned standard rests on twin pillars: the HyperMedia Management Schema (HMMS), which is to be defined and developed by the Desktop Management Task Force and is designed to provide data modeling and manipulation capabilities and the HyperMedia Management Protocol (HMMP) - already under consideration within the Internet Engineering Task Force - which is designed to allow HMMS to run over HTTP. SunSoft's Solstice product manager Brian Biles says having the protocol "sold separately" may cause problems as the management standard is developed. A third component, a C++ implementation of a HyperMedia Object Manager, is also planned, although it's not clear whether the group of vendors will submit it to a standards body.
At first blush the management initiative seems to strike directly at Sun and its Java Management API and the Internet
DOT Gossip
DEC's most recent round of forced layoffs, necessitated by its dismal fourth quarter, which they're still counting up, is cutting into its new Internet Business Unit under VP Ilene Lang which handles Alta Vista. Estimates put its losses as high as half its 300 employees, probably too high a guess, but DEC won't own up to how many are going because it's too embarrassed by the whole thing.
Standards watchers claim Microsoft, because of its size and baggage, is anxious to have single standards set whatever they might be just so long as they're standardized. Multiple Internet standards are reportedly difficult for it to deal with.
MIPS chip makers like NEC Electronics Inc are counting on selling "millions" of R4300s into NCs next year - maybe R5000s as well. Some of those expectations apparently derive from the MIPS-based Sony, Nintendo and Sega games consoles now coming to market turning into Internet surfing appliances.
One of the Object Management Group's problems - as it perceives it - is that neither Netscape nor JavaSoft is a member. Oh, yes, SunSoft is but OMG thinks that that doesn't involve JavaSoft personally, so to speak. Hence, its difficulties getting JavaSoft to toe the Corba line (OR No 7). Naturally OMG's in the midst of trying to draft both organizations into its fold. At this point it may have more luck with Netscape.
Hewlett-Packard has set up an Internet Solutions Operation to develop Internet and intranet software for its printers. The new unit's first product will be an intranet version of its JetAdmin printer management software, due this Fall, that lets intranet users monitor network printer and scanner activity from Web browsers. The new operation's headquartered in Boise, Idaho, home to its legendary printer division and will be headed by Bill Sharpe, formerly a director at HP Labs in Bristol, England.
America Online Inc last week formed a new company, Digital City Inc in conjunction with Tribune Co, to provide local and interactive content, as well as news and information, in 88 US cities to start with: Tribune Co of Chicago will hold a minority stake in Digital City, and will contribute content and run affiliates where it has a newspaper.
CompuServe Corp has joined forces with leading discount stockbroker Charles Schwab Corp to offer on-line broking services. Schwab will provide individual account information, a portfolio management system, and real-time share price quotes, and clients will also be able to place buy and sell orders, and bank and pay bills on-line. Initial services will be introduced this summer.
Corel Corp, Ottawa has licensed Java source code from JavaSoft and will soon include the Java Virtual Machine into Corel Ventura, CorelDraw7 and future versions of Corel WordPerfect, thus enabling users to run Java applets in any of these yet-to-be released products.
Sun Microsystems told Wall Street analysts last week when it reported its financial results that it would be looking to make acquisitions to bolster its Internet and intranet interests. It added that it expected them to make Sun stockholders a "reasonable return," suggesting that Sun had actually found some I-net ventures that are making money.
Sun king Scott McNealy said last week that he is now prepared to publicly retract his long-held oft-repeated opinion that there would be three surviving architectures after the smoke of the computer wars cleared: Wintel, Sparc and PowerPC. He is now prepared to consign PowerPC and all its baggage like Taligent and OS/2 to the dustbins of history and substitute the Web in its place. Naturally this gives McNealy a foot in both camps since the Web, where Sun already has a commanding position, involves Java chips, Hot Java and Java Beans among other things. Ironically McNealy had privately regarded PowerPC as a place to retreat to if Sparc and Unix bombed big time and supported it with Solaris.
Sun believes that Java trademark requirements and the way the Java licenses are written will save Java from the nastiness of compatibilities and the loss of control by Sun that that would entail. It also believes that 99% Java-compatible apps would be blown out of the water by their very nature and that the huge unit volumes of the Java marketplace would be a policing factor.
IT IS BELIEVED NETSCAPE WILL GO THE CORBA-
Wired Ventures Inc is unwired, Hambrecht is Quist off - Wired and Hambrecht & Quist Inc have put their flotations off until market conditions improve, and while Hambrecht will probably be back in the Fall or next spring, Wired could find it's missed the boat, and will likely end up being sold instead.
Geoffrey Gussis, a student who has just finished his first year at the Washington University School of Law, has undertaken the mammoth task of building a Web page documenting the domain name trademark policies of 50 countries. You can find the results at www.digidem.com/legal/domain.html
As we went to press, there was a move afoot to standardize Java, JavaScript and Visual Basic at an IEEE meeting in Boston. Just how far it got remains unclear since it was impossible to pull anyone out of the meeting in time to comment. JavaSoft is known to think it's too soon to standardize Java.
Yahoo! and Granite Broadcasting Corporation have signed a deal to combine their Internet and television content. Under the terms of the deal, the two will work together to integrate relevant Web sites and information into the Granite newscasts and the stations' own Web sites. Yahoo is to feature local news feeds from Granite's nine network-affiliated stations, located in the mid-western US, New York and California. All nine Granite network-affiliated stations will be launching the service within the next month.
Big Bertha, the hurricane that swept the Eastern seaboard of the United States, also caused a 500% increase in hits on the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Web page. FEMA's Web site (www.fema.gov) averaged 230,000 accesses a week, to rise to 1.25 million hits the week of the hurricane.
Just how funny can that money get? Excite Inc, the Mountain View, California-based search site, filed a net loss for the quarter of $7 million. But $5 million of thatwas spent as a pre-tax payment to Netscape in order to be designated a "premium provider" on Netscape's Internet Search page. For those readers who couldn't believe their eyes, yes, that is five, (5) mill-y-un US dollars - for a tiny blue banner. Still, second quarter revenues were up 85% at $2.1 million, so that's OK.
(c) 1996 May not be copied
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