The Online REPORTER
WEEKLY DISPATCHES FROM THE INTERNET FRONT
Sept 23 - Sept 27 1996 Issue No 17
MICROSOFT PROPOSES RADICAL CHANGES TO HTML- RUFFLES NETSCAPE
Microsoft Corp has devised a significant set of object extensions to HTML which it has submitted to the World Wide Web Consortium. The company also spent last Wednesday and Thursday showing the proposed 'HTML object model specification' to around 75 un-named software vendors. The announcement triggered an indignant response from Netscape Communications, which said it had submitted its own object-orientated proposals, a while back.
Netscape claimed that to publicize submissions ahead of a W3C decision breached the organizations rules. The W3C kept its head down, saying that pending a reorganization of its procedures, there were no hard and fast rules on the matter. You can bet your bottom dollar that Microsoft has got a test implementation running on Internet Explorer. If the W3C does ratify the approach, it will put Netscape's own browser development on the back-foot giving Microsoft a boost in the frantic browser race.
The Microsoft proposals would expose the HTML page to the browser as a set of programmable objects. It would be possible, for example to set up events so that a table would change color when the mouse passed over it. Similarly, document content could be manipulated without the page being re-loaded. Java and ActiveX elements can already manage this, but Microsoft argues that a lighter-weight option is also needed.
Jon Roskill, Microsoft group product manager in the Internet platform and tools division said he believed the proposal "is not very controversial" and that his best guess is that the W3C's HTML Editorial Review Board would pass it in "a few months". He added that the only alternative proposal for Object orientation he was aware of was Netscape's, which he described as "very much more scaled down proposal concerning style sheets". Jean-Francois Abramatic, the W3C's newly appointed chairman declined to comment on either timescales or how many proposals were before the review board.
Though radical in nature, Roskill says that Microsoft's proposals would leave the guts of an HTML page untouched. Object-enabled pages would contain a recognisable conventional HTML section, and a second section describing the page in object terms.
The proposal is language-neutral, says Roskill which means that script can be written in any language that the browser can interpret; JavaScript or VBScript look likely choices.
Despite the fact that Microsoft has placed the proposal before the 75 ISVs, the company isn't publishing a white paper or the proposal itself until after the W3C has deliberated.
IBM BEGINS TO RE-WRITE PARTS OF OS/2 IN JAVA AS IT TARGETS NCS
As IBM prepares to launch OS/2 Warp 4 on September 25th, the company is now working on re-writing chunks of the operating system itself in Java. The "vast majority" of OS/2 development resources are now being spent on trying to recast OS/2 as a Network Computer operating system says John Soyring, vice president of the Personal Software Products division. Soyring terms this second phase of OS/2 development the "transform phase", following the first phase which saw the Java virtual machine incorporated into version 4 of the base operating system.
Soyring is loath to talk about timescales for the work, saying only that it will be rapid, to illustrate, he invokes the well-worn 'Internet years' phrase. The Java reworking is not set to extend into the performance-sensitive heart of the operating system, he says; but many of the end-user utilities and widgets will re-appear as Java applications in their own right. Once complete, the third phase will kick in "We can actually reduce the size of the system and make some of the traditional [non-Java] components optionally loadable"., he explains. Soyring is currently touring Europe to convince OS/2's key, large-corporate customers that the operating system is alive and well and that the Network Computer approach based on OS/2 is the right way to
WHISTLE TARGETS MASSIVE SMALL BUSINESS MARKET
The vast majority of businesses have less than 100 employees and the vast majority of these lack permanent Internet connections. Setting up is too complicated for the small firms to deal with, and the ISPs aren't keen either, given the amount of support required. Into this potentially huge, but untapped market comes start-up Whistle Communications, with a sub-$2,000 bread-bin sized box called InterJet which promises all-in-one, near plug-and-play Internet connectivity. Whistle says it has signed up Netcom and PSINet as initial users/suppliers - the ISP will sell the 'InterJet' to its customers. Whistle Director of product marketing Karl Wong, claims 60% of Netcom 's 500,000 dial-up users are actually small businesses.
One side of the InterJet plugs into the customer's Ethernet LAN, the other connects to a phone or T1 line. 'InterJet Commander' software at the Internet Service Provider handles most of the configuration, leaving the user site with a task about as difficult "as setting up a laser printer", taking no longer than 15 minutes, according to the company. Currently, Whistle has to configure Commander individually for each ISP - a pretty labour-intensive affair since it has to hook into the ISP billing, router configuration and email systems. Once Commander's in place, however, the claims is that adding new InterJet-equipped customers becomes trivial.
The list of stuff that Whistle claims to have crammed into the box is impressive: an x86 PC board running an Embedded BSD Unix with a 1.2GB Hard Drive, hosts an Apache Web server, mail server DNS and firewall software. It also incorporates a 4-port Ethernet hub, routing software and an uninterruptable power supply. Such configuration as is required is managed through a Web interface.
With an eye to detail, the box also gives users a site licence for Winsocks, MacTCP/IP, Netscape Navigator, Eudora Lite and Adobe Pagemill. The client software is also supposed
THWARTING PANIX-TYPE ATTACKS
Since the denial-of-service attack that closed the Panix ISP last week, other sites have suffered similar fate as anonymous attackers have cottoned on to the fact that they can clog services easily and untraceably. However, advice on how the attackers can be thwarted has been thin on the ground. The most cogent description of the problem, and a solution comes courtesy of computer contractor David Buckley who posted his thoughts on the UK "CIX" conferencing system.
Buckley explains that the attacks have operated by sending TCP/IP SYN packets to the victim host. Normally SYN is the first packet sent to a remote machine when a new connection is set up. In response the host reserves a control block to handle the forthcoming session.
The attackers, however, have been sending huge numbers of SYN packets to their targets, forcing the attacked machines to run out of system resources and refuse any further connections. Eventually these hacked sessions will time-out, but, Buckley points out "an effective SYN attack against a whole site can be done using no more than a 28.8kbps modem. A load of packets to start with then just a packet a second or so to top up any available control blocks."
The hackers cannot be traced because they are spoofing their IP addresses and the routers nearest to the hacker's point of entry have not been set up to reject packets with invalid source addresses.
The cure? Not easy - everyone with a border router to the Internet needs to ensure that their routers are configured to only pass packets out that have source addresses from within their own address space.
Once this is done, the ISP cannot be the source of the malicious, untraceable attacks. As Buckley says: "If every ISP on the planet does this, then SYN attacks from dummy addresses can't occur." A project to be completed by the end of the next millenium, perhaps.
MICROSOFT TAKES WRAPS OF ITS WINDOWS CE: GARNERS SUPPORT
Microsoft has finally gone public with its Pegasus PDA operating system.
Resurrected from the debris of its failed WinPad initiative, CE is built from a subset of the Win32 API and will run scaled-down and interoperable versions of familiar Microsoft software like Word, Excel, and Internet Explorer. The operating system will be embedded in devices from a slew of partners, including HP, Casio, Phillips and NEC, none of whom will be using x86 chips because of power requirements. Most CE devices are expected to run about 2 weeks on a pair of AA batteries. NEC, the only company to release details on its processor, will be using its VR4101 MIPS chip, which requires about 3.3 volts. Third party application software is also being developed, though Microsoft has not yet made the CE software development kit generally available.
Microsoft did not release many details on the OS, like whether it uses a Win 95 or NT kernel, or whether it will support Java or ActiveX. It is saving that information for its next announcement at COMDEX.
CE products will sell for about $500 each and are expected to begin shipping before the end of the year. Just in case that price-point rings any bells, Microsoft has made it clear that CE devices will not be Redmond's version of the network computer. They are PDAs. They will come in traditional PDA clamshell form. They will perform PDA functions.
A Microsoft spokesman said. "We think that as you move down (into non-PC devices), you are going to want systems that operate, at times, independent from the network", which is pretty much the polar opposite of Netscape subsidiary Navio's vision, which predicts a world of Internet-enabled pizza boxes.
NETSCAPE CHOOSES ECMA AS JAVASCRIPT STANDARDS BODY
While the world wonders where Microsoft will end up sending ActiveX, Netscape is turning over JavaScript to the European Computer Manufacturers Association (ECMA) for standardization.
It admires ECMA's precise and unambiguous way with a spec. ECMA will automatically put it on the International Standards Organization (ISO) fast track. However, Netscape is still looking for a public forum to handle future JavaScript iterations. It's not particularly partial to either X3 or the IEEE and neither the World Wide Web Consortium nor the IETF has ever done a language before.
AT&T SHIPS CO-BRANDED
VERSION OF NAVIGATOR
AT&T Corp has begun shipping a co-branded version of the Netscape Communications Corp Navigator browser for Apple Computer Inc Macintosh users of its WorldNet Service. As with AT&T's Windows version of Netscape Navigator, the AT&T WorldNet Service Mac browser is to be bundled with the service's software at no extra charge.
In addition, says AT&T, the browser has been specially designed with automated configuration and modem identification processes. It is available on floppy disk or CD-ROM, and members will be able to download future versions free from the AT&T WorldNet Service Web site, according to the company.
Microsoft Corp reckons its Internet Explorer browser has doubled its market share in the month since the 3.0 version was launched: Brad Chase, vice-president of Microsoft's Internet platform and tools division, reckons that Explorer's market share is 10% to 20% on most sites and 30% on some as measured by the number of times the browser is used to visit popular World Wide Web sites; Chase did not say how often Internet Explorer was downloaded, saying it would be a hard number to track with precision.
The W3C 's latest draft of HTML 3.2, is at www.w3.org/pub/WWW/TR/WD-html32.html
Martin Burack, formerly a senior marketing manager for MCI has been named executive director of the Internet Society.
Netcarta Corp. is now shipping its WebMapper 1.1 for Unix content management software. WebMapper helps site managers keep track of what is going on with their Web sites by creating a topographical map and generating HTML reports on site properties like structure, size and links. A table of contents and site index are also provided. WebMapper sells for $999.
www.netcarta.com
AltaVista says that you too will be able to add the same award-winning search capabilities as it has to your Web site. AltaVista Intranet PX will index every word on your site and present hyperlinked search results in response to search queries - all this for $16,000 - 70,000, depending on your configuration. The product is also being targeted for corporate intranet users.
Yahoo! and Granite Broadcasting Corp have launched an integrated Internet and TV news service. Granite and Yahoo! will coordinate content on Granite's newscasts so interested viewers can log onto Yahoo! for more information. www.granitetv.com
Market researchers at Simba Information says online service revenues will reach $30.9 billion by the year 2000. They were $17.7 billion in 1995 and will probably be up 16.2% to $20.5 billion this year, they said. Business/professional online services as represented by brokerage, credit, financial news/research, legal, tax and public records, marketing, professional research and vertical market services generated 93.2% of the total in '95. Simba reckons business/professional will account for 88% of total sales in 2000 when the total number of online subscribers should be 36.4 million.
BRIEFLY
It looks like Netscape's complaints to the to the Justice Department have born fruit. As we were going to press Microsoft announced that the Department is seeking more information regarding competitive practices.
ACTIVEX GROUP MEETING SET
October 1st has been set as the day on which the "ActiveX stake-holders" will get together in New York to discuss the standardisation process. Microsoft is promising that "over 100" organisations will be represented, and as we went to press 76 were listed at the new Web site www.activex.org. Notable absentees are IBM and the Object Management Group, neither of which were invited. OMG chief Chris Stone has decided against the previously avowed tactic of taking legal action to get entry to the meeting. Sun Microsystems was invited, but elected not to show.
Though those present will be able to vote on the future of the technology, Microsoft will ensure its special place by tabling the proposals on which they will vote. "We have a number of smart people engaged in mapping out what are the most advantageous proposals that span the full spectrum of possibilities - from working with standard bodies to doing it completely independently" said Tom Button, Microsoft's Director of Marketing, Internet Platform and Tools division.
Nonetheless, Microsoft appears to be playing fair with the range of technologies which it is prepared to turn over to the independent standards body. When asked what is up for grabs, Cornelius Willis, Group product manager, Internet Tools reeled off a list of core ActiveX technologies including COM; DCOM; structured storage; the RPC mechanism; the NT LAN Manager Security Services API; Moniker (which lets you communicate with objects asynchronously); and Automation (which handles the invocation of objects).
For this lot, he says Microsoft will provide the specifications, the binaries, the source reference implementation and validation tests. All that remains to be seen is whether the meeting chooses a standards mechanism that the rest of the world perceives as suitably independent and whether Microsoft can cope long-term with taking a back seat.
NATSEMI CLAIMS 1ST JAVAOS EMBEDDED IMPLEMENTATION
National Semiconductor Corp is the first company to announce an embedded version of SunSoft Inc's JavaOS operating system.
Working with SunSoft, the Santa Clara chipmaker now has it running on its 25MHz NS486SXF x86-compatible processor board, offered as an evaluation board for manufacturers looking for a ready-made Java computer around which to build some sort of Internet device.
NatSemi claims it's the only 80486-class system on a single chip available, as it also includes memory, PCMCIA, display and Dynamic Memory Addressing controllers, real time clock, interrupt controllers, timers and other personal computer-type elements on the chip. NatSemi claims all the prospective manufacturers have to add to get a network computer of some sort is a VGA board, monitor and modem card to see what kind of performance it will get from NatSemi's embedded 80486.
The company priced the evaluation board at $486, but put the material costs at somewhere between $200 and $300, as it comes with third party software. It's the chips rather than the board NatSemi wants to sell, and the latter is simply for convenience of evaluation.
DTMF AGREES TO KEEP OF SUN'S PATCH - GETS GO-AHEAD
After putting Microsoft's HyperMedia Management Schema on hold (OR Issue 16), the Desktop Management Task Force (DMTF) last week announced the formation of a special subcommittee to handle the Web-based management effort. According to sources within the DMTF, the subcommittee got the green light once Sun Microsystems was finally convinced that the DMTF would handle the data model space and stay away from the execution model - an area where Sun's Java Management API competes with Microsoft's HyperMedia Object Model. Apparently some engineering work on the part of the DMTF and a very specifically worded proposal secured Sun's approval.
The DMTF also happens to have renamed HMMS, which it is now calling the common information model.
The goal now is to have implementations of the model beginning to appear by the end of 1997. Microsoft Product Manager for Systems Management, Victor Raisys, says that he now doesn't see any specific areas where the subcommittee could run into obstacles, but you can bet that if the committee's work begins to stray beyond simply defining the rules, relationships, and attributes encompassed in the HMMS data model, then Sun, who happens to be on the DMTF steering committee, will bring the process to a halt.
AOL MOVES TO SHIFT REVENUE EMPHASIS TO ADS & SERVICES
In a press conference following its move from Nasdaq to the New York Stock Exchange, America Online last week announced moves to expand its revenue base. CEO Steve Case said the online service provider will shift its revenue model from subscriber-based to what it calls a "blended" model that will include revenues from advertising, online transactions, and business-to-business online services.
Advertising has already become a significant source of AOL's revenue with $27 million in advertising deals inked in the last 45 days - most of them since AOL's system crashed on August 7th, incidentally. To further encourage online transactions, the company will rebuild its MarketPlace area and introduce two new services, AOL Guarantee and AOL Certified Merchants Program, which will provide guarantees of actual products and quality of service on AOL. Market Place will feature offerings from new merchants like Hickory Farms and the Body Shop and "mini-malls" will be built within all AOL channels. Also announced was AOL Enterprise, which will hawk AOL technology and services to businesses looking to outsource their private Intranets. Case says the move towards diversification is essential because without new advertising streams, "there is a strong likelihood that there will be a shake-out in the interactive world that will be significantly greater than the shake-out we saw in the past couple of years in multimedia CD-ROMs".
Case hinted that new products and services will be announced in October as AOL embarks on re-launch of its service it is dubbing a "march to the mainstream". The company will announce a major marketing and re-engineering campaign designed to make its service more appealing to the 90% of consumers who have not yet logged on to any online service.
Speaking about his own offering, Case admitted AOL " had not done such a good job in positioning the service, explaining to people why it was different and better".
SUN PREPARES HIGH-END SERVER
Sources within Sun Microsystems say that its SunSoft subsidiary will be releasing a high powered Web server software product by year's end. Code-named Vishnu, after the many-armed Hindu deity, the product is expected to be announced sometime in October.
Sun's Solaris business unit had hoped to release its Internet Server with Web server features back in April, but was forced to delay the project because of performance issues. Apparently Sun is thinking about featuring Vishnu in a new Internet software product line, but has not yet finalized such an initiative. When contacted officially, Sun first referred to the Web server as Ukiah (a Pomo Indian word meaning "deep Valley") and then called Online Reporter back to say that indeed Vishnu was the correct code name. This seemed appropriate since Vishnu is known in Hindu mythology as "the prevader".
MICROSOFT GOES AGAINST THE STREAM WITH NETSHOW
Intent on offering yet more technology within its core operating system - and maybe squeezing out the likes of Macromedia Inc in the process - Microsoft Corp has announced a new multimedia streaming technology for the Internet and intranets called NetShow. Described as "an open platform for the basic delivery of live and on-demand multimedia," NetShow is designed to enable business users to provide audio and video content in online training and communications materials without using excessive network bandwidth, by storing and streaming audio, video and illustrated audio content.
It uses IP multicasting for live transmissions between one sender and multiple simultaneous receivers in the network bandwidth normally used for a single client. For on-demand delivery, content authors can specify different bit rates. A simple graphics editor and conversion tools for graphics formats such as JPEG, WAV, and Apple Computer Inc's QuickTime are also included.
The software works with Microsoft's existing NetMeeting conferencing software which ships with the Explorer 3.0 browser. A host of third-party developers, including Progressive Networks Inc, whose RealAudio streaming technology looks on the face of it to be a competitor, have pledged support. Macromedia, however, was not on the list. A free beta version is now up on the Web at www.microsoft.com/netshow/ with a final version, to be part of Internet Explorer and Windows NT Server, due by the year-end.
FIRST TV CHANNEL ON THE WEB USES VIVO SOFTWARE
The idea of a full television channel on the Internet at a time when most people are still chugging along on 28.8Kbps modems may sound a little perverse, but using new software from Vivo Software Inc of Waltham, Massachusetts, that is what CMP Media Inc has launched.
Called the First-TV network, it will offer recorded programs about the Internet and original material from desktop videographers and digital animators, and you can take a look at it at www.first-tv.com. It uses Vivo's VivoActive 1.0, described as the first serverless low-bandwidth system for producing and playing video on demand using standard internet protocols over dial-up modems. VivoActive 1.0 comprises VivoActive Producer and VivoActive Player: the Producer enables Webmasters to produce and integrate streams-based video into their Web sites and VivoActive Player is a browser plug-in that enables users to view the video from any VivoActivated Web site.
Vivo says that by using HTTP the VivoActive software family makes video a natural component of the Web environment rather than treating video as an adjunct or add-on requiring additional hardware or modifications to Internet/intranet infrastructures. VivoActive Producer also eliminates the need for dedicated video server hardware and "conserves network bandwidth, enabling faster, more widely accessible on-demand video over the Web" - provided your machine is fast enough - a 66MHz 486 is the minimum, and it works adequately but jerkily on such a machine, although some text is hard to read.
The compression ratio is a crushing 200:1. The software works with Web video formats such as QuickTime/AVI files. VivoActive Player can be downloaded free to machines running Navigator 2.0 and up and Explorer 3.0 on all Windows and Power Mac machines, from www.vivo.com. The VivoActive Producer - you too can launch your own television station on the Web - costs $500 per copy. Windows 95 and NT versions are out now, and the version for the Apple Computer Inc Power Mac will be ready next month.
ORACLE EXTENDS VIDEO SERVER
Oracle will extend its Oracle Video Server to the Internet. To make the most of the low bandwidth and unpredictable Internet connections, Oracle will support new and unspecified video compression technology and work with Internet content providers to place what it calls "edge servers".
Edge servers will, essentially, cache high-bandwidth content closer to the end-user, thus speeding up the whole video streaming process. Beta testing is to begin in Q1 of 1997 and the product will be in production the following quarter.
BBC GOES FOR MAJOR WEB PRESENCE; SIGNS UP ICL
Claiming that it marks a move from tri-media - television, radio and magazines - to multimedia, the British Broadcasting Corp's BBC Worldwide commercial division last week signed up ICL Plc to provide the technology and integration services for its new Internet venture.
BBC Online, to be launched next spring, will deliver BBC-branded Web services and programming built around BBC radio and television programmes, covering news, sport, information and entertainment. As well as the Web content, the BBC intends to offer an access service for those not already connected to the Internet, and will provide "chat" services, moderated for content. ICL, providing all the initial funding, will set up banks of replicated Web servers at its Kidsgrove and Bracknell bases with dual access points, and a network of virtual points-of-presence so that logging on to the BBC will be via local call throughout the UK ICL is currently gathering together the various Internet technologies that will enable the BBC service, including object-based software from parent Fujitsu Ltd that will make it possible for the BBC to keep track of exactly who is logged on. It's also been looking at Java and ShockWave, and has been admiring the broadcast-like model that PointCast has established.
BBC Online is to be a "substantial" department at BBC Television Centre, providing editorial content using tools provided by ICL. Initially it will be mostly text-based, with some audio but no video; video will emerge as the technology develops. Subscriptions will be charged for "premium" services, and advertising will be allowed. The pact runs until 1999.
MITSUBISHI GOES TO VIEWCALL FOR WEB TV CONNECTIVITG
ViewCall America will be the browser software and, indirectly, the Internet service provider for customers using Mitsubishi's DiamondWeb Internet TV (OR issue 14). Viewcall will run its thin, dumbed-down browser software with about 2 megs of caching on the television and will have some proprietary content and an Internet gateway on its servers. ViewCall will use Gridnet International's online infrastructure to connect with its customers. The company also announced alliances with Yahoo, USA Today and Spyglass, which will be bundling ViewCall's TV browser software.
ViewCall has three products to offer: its ON-TV online service, which will be the preferred service for DiamondWeb owners, the browser software, and a hardware reference design for Web-enabled television, using VLSI's ARM 7500 processor. The browser will use an extension of HTML, called TV-HTML, to present Web content in a more television-like manner - with fewer, bigger buttons and larger fonts. ViewCall expects deals with content providers like Yahoo! to result in TV-HTML enabled Websites where users will be able to search for things like "what kind of Western movies are on TV tonight". Using the browser interface, customers will be able to chat over the Internet about TV shows as they are watching them and surf the Web more dynamically than with traditional browsers.
Like almost everyone these days, ViewCall hopes to set an open industry standard. Vice President of On-TV Services, Carlos Silva, says the company hopes to hold a conference within the next sixty days to establish a larger consortium that would drive industry adoption of TV-HTML. ViewCall America expects to light up its network next summer..
INWORLD OFFERS JAVA CLASSES FOR AUDIO STREAMING
While Microsoft is trying to stitch up the media-streaming world, Sausalito, California-based InWorld VR Inc is harnessing the power of Java to create a facility for adding sound to Web pages. The company has created an Automatic Audio Java applet library that operates without the need for any additional end user software or complicated installations. Using "any existing or newly-created sound file, Automatic Audio adds background music or sound, sound bites, audio associated with graphics." It consists of 16 parameter-driven, fully documented Java applets that developers can integrate into their Web sites without the need for any Java programming. No additional software, downloads, or any installation is required by the end user - any Java-enabled browser does the trick. The Personal Package is $50 and includes a single site licence. The Commercial Package is $150 and includes five site licences, and the Web-Developer package is $500 for a fully-paid licence to use on an unlimited number of sites; details at www.inworldvr.com.
W3C SETS UP IN JAPAN
The Worldwide Web consortium is setting up shop in Japan. In October, W3C officials will be meeting at their new host site at Keio University to chart out the new location's mandate. According to W3C Chairman Jean Francois Abramatic, Keio will most likely focus on "internationalization", the development of technology to minimize language differences on the multi-lingual Web, and electronic commerce.
The idea is that there are issues of regional commerce and language that would be best addressed from a vendor-neutral site in Japan. Keio University has put up the space. The W3C foots the bills with dues collected from its Japanese members.
According to Abramatic, the consortium had considered Asia "under-represented" on the W3C and had been looking for a suitable location. Japan was chosen because it has the most members. He adds, "we have been approached by other areas of the world. If we feel like there is a critical mass of membership, then we can decide to launch another one". Abramatic did not say exactly what "critical mass" means, but Japan has 10 full members, including Fujitsu, Hitachi, Sony, and Canon. Other likely sites for the W3C are Hong Kong, China, and Australia.
Phillips has begun shipping its Magnavox Internet TV Terminal. Priced at $329.95, the terminal will allow anyone to surf the Net using a standard TV and telephone line.
SAMSUNG FOLLOWS ZENITH TO DIBA FOR TV CONNECTIVITY
Diba Inc, the company formed by Oracle Corp refugees who believe that $500 is much to much to pay to put the coffee machine or the toaster on the Internet, is putting together core software that can be used for building application-specific Internet access devices, and has won its second taker in the shape of Samsung Electronics Co Ltd.
The first for the Menlo Park company was Zenith Electronics Corp. Samsung wants to enlist Diba's skills in the devlopment of a line of Internet-enabled television sets. Samsung's Internet TV will use the Diba Application Foundation to support a wide range of Internet services, including browsing the Web and accessing electronic mail.
The first product offering, a 29" Internet TV, will enable users to access information from the Internet by just pushing a button on the remote control - and a built-in electronic keyboard can be displayed on the screen and manipulated with the remote control for inputting and transmitting data, including electronic mail.
There is an optional wireless keyboard and the modem runs at 33.6Kbps.
SING WHILE YOU SURF - KYOCERA DEBUTS KARAOKE INTERNET
Almost anything with a processor in it and support for a screen can be turned into an Internet access device, and Taito Corp and Kyocera Multimedia Corp plan to turn their $375 Mediabox karaoke machine into an Internet access terminal, and by Christmas will offer an Internet access service which will take users to a karaoke site as well as on-line shopping and electronic mail, with access charged at about $6.50 an hour.
SILICON GRAPHICS LOSES ANOTHER CHIEF - TO MACROMEDIA
Silicon Graphics Inc has lost another top dog, this time to San Francisco, California-based multimedia tools house Macromedia Inc, which has decided to go with a two-headed management approach. Rob Burgess, who formerly ran the Silicon Graphics Alias/Wavefront subsidiary, has been named president of Macromedia in charge of day-to-day operations, while Macromedia chief Bud Colligan will remain chairman and oversee the big picture, including strategy and acquisitions.
Macromedia will not have a chief executive. The firm says this illustrates Burgess's and Colligan's roles as joint chiefs. Burgess met Colligan when Macromedia was converting some of its software for Silicon Graphics's system. Meanwhile, the exodus at Silicon Graphics has included the defection of its chief operations officer Tom Jermoluk to the top job at @Home Corp, and the loss of its products and technologies vice-president, Wei Yen, who's now chief executive at Netscape Communications Corp subsidiary, Navio Communications Inc. Silicon Graphics is replacing all of the executives through internal promotions.
Asked why executives keep jumping ship, the 11,000-strong company said its managers yearned to be big fish in small ponds - and the departures do not seem to be doing the company too much harm on the world stage. It says that in the fiscal year to June 30, North American sales for the first time accounted for less than half of its $2,920m total - 49% compared with 52% in 1995. European turnover grew to 30% from 28%, while Asia-Pacific rose a point to 21% of overall business. Revenue from high-end products declined to 37% of turnover in 1996 from 41% in 1995; low-end products accounted for 63% compared with 59% in 1995.
Silicon Graphics says server sales are growing faster than the workstation business due to Internet-related purchases. Computer animation sales contributed around 20% of Silicon Graphics's overall turnover; it is expected to rise a couple of points in fiscal 1997. In March Silicon Graphics reorganised into five business units: Silicon Desktop is headed by Michael Ramsay; Silicon Interactive, by Robert Burgess; the Advanced Systems Division, by David Orton; Cray Research by Robert Ewald; and MIPS Technologies by Ron Bernal.
All now report to Ed McCracken. Silicon Graphics chief technology officer Forest Baskin reports all systems are go, now that it has its MIPS RISC R5000- and R10000-based workstations and servers in production. Integration of Cray and Silicon Graphics software environments with the goal of enabling Silicon Graphics applications to run on Cray systems and vice versa with a recompilation is moving on. Baskin says the 64-bit large file system from Silicon Graphics's Irix Unix is now testing on Cray's Unicos Unix variant. Cray's file system and queue management technologies are now testing on Silicon Graphics servers. Other compiler integration work is ongoing. Some application programming interfaces from each operating system will be transplanted by the year-end.
Two years out, the company plans to have a common Unix running across Silicon Graphics and Cray product lines. Baskin says Intel Corp's PA-RISC-enabled Merced part doesn't spell the beginning of the end for RISC: "we've been shipping RISC for years, Intel hasn't even delivered one RISC product," Baskin asserts.
THE GREAT ELLISON-GATES FIGHT
Ring-side report by Marsha Johnston
Apparently to avoid any heated public exchanges, Microsoft Corp chairman Bill Gates and Oracle Corp chief executive Larry Ellison were staged to enable them to snipe at each other's vision of the future's network appliance from a distance, at International Data Corp's European IT Forum in Paris, September 16 and 17.
Each chief executive gave a presentation and fielded questions from the audience and from John Gantz, International Data senior vice-president of personal systems and computing. While acknowledging the future will see "a range" of appliances that will break the ease-of-use barrier by being able to "see, hear, speak and learn," Gates ceded little territory to Ellison specifically. Rather, he defended the stalwart personal computer in responding to Gantz' question, "How many Internet access devices will be out there?" Said the chairman: "That's something of a trick question because the personal computer is already a network device that is out there connecting people to networks, processing information. But, yes, there will be a range of devices. The question about what kinds there will be is only a function of what people will be doing with them."
Beginning provocatively by asking, "Will the Microsoft PC be the last PC made? Does innovation stop there?" Ellison declared that personal computers are too complex to ever become as pervasive as the television or telephone. "The PC is fabulous, a true marvel, but I don't care how well it does something I don't need to do," he said. Every 15 years, he said, the computer industry has significantly innovated on the previous standard. This year marks 15 years since the personal computer was introduced in 1981. The two barriers to "everyone" getting a computer, he said, are cost and complexity, adding that in the 12 months since the Network Computer idea emerged, models have been introduced ranging from $200 to $800. "Why is it cheaper? Because we've moved the complexity from the device to the network," he said, adding that such an architecture corresponds more closely to the world's other "mature, essential networks" for telephony, electricity and water: "All of those networks have a simple appliance attached to a complex network, and the computer network should be no different."
Although Ellison was skeptical that personal computer penetration would ever reach the 90th percentile of the television and telephone, he admitted that the Network Computer will never replace the personal computer. "The PC did not replace the mainframe, but they are sold in higher volumes because they are easier to use and cheaper," he said.
Ellison said Oracle has trials of the Network Computer scheduled "with virtually every major European telecommunications operator." He also forecast that the x86 version of the device, due in December, would dominate the market. The killer application, he said, will be HyperText Mark-up Language-based multimedia electronic mail.
In answer to other Internet-related questions, Gates said Microsoft "is providing full support" for Java. "The fastest browser for running Java applications is Internet Explorer 3.0 and our J++ is the fastest compiler. Java is a great environment," he said. He demonstrated Internet Explorer 4.0, with its integrated HyperText Mark-up Language pages. Despite having backed off its WinPad Personal Digital Assistant project a couple of years ago, Gates says Microsoft's new Windows CE handheld personal computer is a more mature product. "We didn't even put WinPad on the market because we decided with our partners that we couldn't get below the $500 mark, we couldn't get the battery life up around 10 hours and the applications just weren't there," he said.
Microsoft's new partners - Compaq Computer Corp, Casio Computer Co, Hewlett-Packard Co, LG Electronics Co and Philips Electronics NV - are doing "some excellent hardware," he said. Nonetheless, he said, "if it's the right time, we'll just wait and keep improving it. We can wait 20 years if we have to." As for Microsoft's own on-line service, Gates said, "It is still in what we call investment mode, but we're acquiring lots of new subscribers. We've got 1.5m subscribers on Microsoft Network, but we need to get the scale up and the profitability there." He noted, however, that Microsoft is "home free, because the $16m we invested in Uunet stock is now worth $400m."
In conclusion, International Data's Gantz asked Gates to comment on a recent Time magazine cover that asked whether Gates will own the Web. He said, "We're just plumbers here. It's interesting to see how much attention those of us get who are making the tools to make access to the Internet easy." At his turn, Ellison took a shot at Gates's modesty. "Sure, he's just a plumber, but the only plumber in town. His job is to get Windows on every client and every server and our job is to prevent that from happening. I'm more than a little concerned that everything is based on Windows."
HOTWIRE TACKLES ISP E-VAULTING
Following the lead of Software Partners Inc (OR issue 3) HotWire Data Security Inc is making a foray into the backup-over-the-Internet market. The company is aiming the Windows NT server software at Internet Service Providers who want to differentiate their services and at existing disaster recovery firms. Unlike Software Partners, which is particularly interested in running its own 'data vaulting' operation, HotWire prefers to concentrate on selling the software. It will charge end-users 10 cents for each uncompressed megabyte of data backed up. ISPs who opt to buy the NT-based server software and run their own backup operation will have to pay HotWire 2 cents for each megabyte archived on their boxes.
The company has yet to fix a price for the server package, but executive VP Brian Dickman says it is likely to be $895. The privately held company's demo vault is being run by SierraNet. www.hotwire.com
CISCO AND INTEL RELEASE RSVP IP PRIORITIZING TECHNOLOGY
Cisco Systems Inc and Intel Corp are claiming a major advance in the delivery of high- quality multimedia over the Internet, with the release of technology for Internet infrastructure and personal computer clients that use IP Multicast, Resource Reservation Protocol, RSVP and Real-Time Transport Protocol, RTP specifications to address bandwidth and latency issues. Cisco is launching a new version of the Cisco Internetwork Operating System that offers IP Multicast, RSVP and RTP, while Intel is providing PC-RSVP, software that enables servers and personal computer clients to take advantage of Cisco's upgraded infrastructure to deliver high-quality networked multimedia.
mFactory is Internet-enabling its mTropolis product line. With a project named mPire, the multimedia development tool company aims to add Dynamic Network Adoptable Objects, which will allow mTropolis applications to dynamically adopt new objects at run-time, and object streaming, which is a method for downloading multimedia applications from a server one scene at a time. Beta versions of Web browser plug-ins for mTropolis applications and the Net Messenger modifier, which Internet-enables mTropolis multimedia objects were made available last week. mFactory did not say when the other components of mPire would be rolled out. www.mfactory.com
CompuServe Network Services announced a series of network upgrades at Networld + Interop including the completion of its European network upgrade and plans to offer IP Link Plus on the continent. The company also announced the expansion of Internet and intranet offerings through a reseller agreement with Security dynamics; a The thing that made it most proud, however, was the unveiling of its new logo. Its a circle with a crescent in it.
DOT Gossip
Corel Corp intends to fight the overwhelming dominance of Microsoft Corp's Office in the suites market by abandoning the idea of charging for each machine on which the suite is run, and instead offering a Windows NT server copy for a one-time $900 regardless of how many people may be attached to the server. Users would download elements as needed, and the company could use a similar approach on the Internet if it could work out an appropriate pricing model for it - it will shortly have a beta test version of a suite written in Java for use with the Personal Digital Assistant it plans for next year.
Microsoft Corp is not used to being discomfited by upstarts like Corel and it is not at all amused at Corel's plan. If the Corel product and pricing model catches on, it would knock a nasty hole in one of Microsoft's most important existing revenue streams.
Apple Computer Inc and Sun Microsystems Inc have snuggled up in a series of announcements one of which sees Apple's QuickTime built into the JavaMedia APIs. The duo have also pledged to integrate JavaBeans and OpenDoc tightly, a move which IBM welcomed. The two are to build "a seamless bridge" between Macintosh desktop computers and Sun servers. They will also work to establish mediaLib as a high-performance interface to multimedia-capable processors.
Xense Technology Inc of San Francisco used the DCI Data warehousing conference in Phoenix to debut DB publisher, a Java-based ad hoc query and reporting tool.
Westford, Massachusetts-based Cascade Communications Corp said it plans to enter the Internet access equipment business by offering two new high-capacity dial-up Internet switches for use by telephone service carriers: the company said it plans to begin offering by mid-October its AX 800 and AX 1600 High Capacity Access Switches, which it says will provide the industry's highest capacity modem density.
Citrix Systems, the multiuser NT people, surveyed 200 US corporate IT execs this summer and among its findings noticed that although Web deployment is high only 29% were satisfied with the return on investment they were getting.
IBM Corp says its OS/2 Java JIT is now running with a "600% speed improvement" (that's "7 times as fast" in English') compared with the original interpreter. The company reckons that Java execution speeds can "approach" those of C++.
Netscape Communicatios Corp says its Web site currently topping 100 million 'hits' a day.
Wind River Systems Inc has been signed up by Oracle's Network Computer Inc subsidiary to supply it with operating systems and development tools.
Sun has come up with a new way to make money from Java. It's announced two new Java Certificates: programmers sit exams to be dubbed either a 'Sun Certified Java Programmer' or a 'Sun Certified Java Developer'. Program details are available from www.sun.com/sunservice
Biggest giveaway in history more like - Netscape Communications Corp chief executive James Barksdale claims that Navigator has "outsold" all other computer applications in history, because Netscape has downloaded 40m copies of Navigator to customers, all within 19 months.
Integrated Computer Solutions has unveiled Builder Xcessory PRO, a visual development environment which supports both C++ and Java. www.ics.com/products/BXPRO/
Borland International Inc has licensed ObjectSpace Inc's new Java Generic Library; it plans on using the ObjectSpace code in its Latte RAD environment.
Singapore network systems integrator Datacraft Asia Pte Ltd reports its Datacraft RPG unit has a contract worth about $1.3m with Indian telecommunications company Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd to build an Indian network to facilitate Internet access in the major Indian cities.
France Telecom has signed with Apple Computer Inc for a co-marketing and co-development partnership to do products for Internet, videoconferencing and mobile telephones.
Things are a little... err, fluid at the World Wide Web Consortium these days as it strives to put a new set of standardisation procedures into place. The current "transitional" processes are loose enough to encourage the kind of finger waving that Netscape indulged in last week over Microsoft's HTML plans. The situation also seemingly making W3C officials ultra-nervous about treading on people's toes. Previously (OR issue 12) we reported that the W3C would complete a members vote on a PICS-based code signing project last week. But no - the vote was still on-going. When will the vote be complete? The W3C can't say, its a sensitive matter. Any comment on a rough date when voting might finish? Nope. Everything is very delicate at the moment. The Consortium hopes to have a new formalised working structure agreed for its Advisory Board meeting in January.
Vxtreme, the Internet video people, have named William "Pete" Mountanos president and chief executive. Most recently he was president of Fast Multimedia Inc, a PC-based non-linear video editing house. Before that he was president of Abekas Video Systems Inc, a supplier of digital video editing and disc recording equipment to TV. Robb Wilmot is Vxtreme's chairman.
Is nothing sacred? Hackers managed to break into the CIA's Web site; or the 'Central Stupidity Agency' as its pages were proclaiming after the miscreant's visit. www.odci.gov was taken down and an investigation has been set up as to how the break-up was managed.
Microsoft's www.activex.org site contains an illuminating Q&A where it answers some questions very openly and frankly. But you can almost hear the nervous coughing as the site ponders: "Q. What if the stakeholders choose to take the ActiveX standard in a direction that conflicts with Microsoft s interests?" and nervously answers "We think our interests are very closely, if not totally, aligned with those of our customers and the other ActiveX stakeholders." Makes you wonder why the company is inviting all those people to the stakeholders meeting.
Where will John Soyring, IBM VP at Personal Software Products be while the great and the good are debating ActiveX's future? "I'll be trout fishing that day".
(c) 1996 May not be copied
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WEEKLY DISPATCHES FROM THE INTERNET FRONT
Sept 23 - Sept 27 1996 Issue No 17
MICROSOFT PROPOSES RADICAL CHANGES TO HTML- RUFFLES NETSCAPE
Microsoft Corp has devised a significant set of object extensions to HTML which it has submitted to the World Wide Web Consortium. The company also spent last Wednesday and Thursday showing the proposed 'HTML object model specification' to around 75 un-named software vendors. The announcement triggered an indignant response from Netscape Communications, which said it had submitted its own object-orientated proposals, a while back.
Netscape claimed that to publicize submissions ahead of a W3C decision breached the organizations rules. The W3C kept its head down, saying that pending a reorganization of its procedures, there were no hard and fast rules on the matter. You can bet your bottom dollar that Microsoft has got a test implementation running on Internet Explorer. If the W3C does ratify the approach, it will put Netscape's own browser development on the back-foot giving Microsoft a boost in the frantic browser race.
The Microsoft proposals would expose the HTML page to the browser as a set of programmable objects. It would be possible, for example to set up events so that a table would change color when the mouse passed over it. Similarly, document content could be manipulated without the page being re-loaded. Java and ActiveX elements can already manage this, but Microsoft argues that a lighter-weight option is also needed.
Jon Roskill, Microsoft group product manager in the Internet platform and tools division said he believed the proposal "is not very controversial" and that his best guess is that the W3C's HTML Editorial Review Board would pass it in "a few months". He added that the only alternative proposal for Object orientation he was aware of was Netscape's, which he described as "very much more scaled down proposal concerning style sheets". Jean-Francois Abramatic, the W3C's newly appointed chairman declined to comment on either timescales or how many proposals were before the review board.
Though radical in nature, Roskill says that Microsoft's proposals would leave the guts of an HTML page untouched. Object-enabled pages would contain a recognisable conventional HTML section, and a second section describing the page in object terms.
The proposal is language-neutral, says Roskill which means that script can be written in any language that the browser can interpret; JavaScript or VBScript look likely choices.
Despite the fact that Microsoft has placed the proposal before the 75 ISVs, the company isn't publishing a white paper or the proposal itself until after the W3C has deliberated.
IBM BEGINS TO RE-WRITE PARTS OF OS/2 IN JAVA AS IT TARGETS NCS
As IBM prepares to launch OS/2 Warp 4 on September 25th, the company is now working on re-writing chunks of the operating system itself in Java. The "vast majority" of OS/2 development resources are now being spent on trying to recast OS/2 as a Network Computer operating system says John Soyring, vice president of the Personal Software Products division. Soyring terms this second phase of OS/2 development the "transform phase", following the first phase which saw the Java virtual machine incorporated into version 4 of the base operating system.
Soyring is loath to talk about timescales for the work, saying only that it will be rapid, to illustrate, he invokes the well-worn 'Internet years' phrase. The Java reworking is not set to extend into the performance-sensitive heart of the operating system, he says; but many of the end-user utilities and widgets will re-appear as Java applications in their own right. Once complete, the third phase will kick in "We can actually reduce the size of the system and make some of the traditional [non-Java] components optionally loadable"., he explains. Soyring is currently touring Europe to convince OS/2's key, large-corporate customers that the operating system is alive and well and that the Network Computer approach based on OS/2 is the right way to
WHISTLE TARGETS MASSIVE SMALL BUSINESS MARKET
The vast majority of businesses have less than 100 employees and the vast majority of these lack permanent Internet connections. Setting up is too complicated for the small firms to deal with, and the ISPs aren't keen either, given the amount of support required. Into this potentially huge, but untapped market comes start-up Whistle Communications, with a sub-$2,000 bread-bin sized box called InterJet which promises all-in-one, near plug-and-play Internet connectivity. Whistle says it has signed up Netcom and PSINet as initial users/suppliers - the ISP will sell the 'InterJet' to its customers. Whistle Director of product marketing Karl Wong, claims 60% of Netcom 's 500,000 dial-up users are actually small businesses.
One side of the InterJet plugs into the customer's Ethernet LAN, the other connects to a phone or T1 line. 'InterJet Commander' software at the Internet Service Provider handles most of the configuration, leaving the user site with a task about as difficult "as setting up a laser printer", taking no longer than 15 minutes, according to the company. Currently, Whistle has to configure Commander individually for each ISP - a pretty labour-intensive affair since it has to hook into the ISP billing, router configuration and email systems. Once Commander's in place, however, the claims is that adding new InterJet-equipped customers becomes trivial.
The list of stuff that Whistle claims to have crammed into the box is impressive: an x86 PC board running an Embedded BSD Unix with a 1.2GB Hard Drive, hosts an Apache Web server, mail server DNS and firewall software. It also incorporates a 4-port Ethernet hub, routing software and an uninterruptable power supply. Such configuration as is required is managed through a Web interface.
With an eye to detail, the box also gives users a site licence for Winsocks, MacTCP/IP, Netscape Navigator, Eudora Lite and Adobe Pagemill. The client software is also supposed
THWARTING PANIX-TYPE ATTACKS
Since the denial-of-service attack that closed the Panix ISP last week, other sites have suffered similar fate as anonymous attackers have cottoned on to the fact that they can clog services easily and untraceably. However, advice on how the attackers can be thwarted has been thin on the ground. The most cogent description of the problem, and a solution comes courtesy of computer contractor David Buckley who posted his thoughts on the UK "CIX" conferencing system.
Buckley explains that the attacks have operated by sending TCP/IP SYN packets to the victim host. Normally SYN is the first packet sent to a remote machine when a new connection is set up. In response the host reserves a control block to handle the forthcoming session.
The attackers, however, have been sending huge numbers of SYN packets to their targets, forcing the attacked machines to run out of system resources and refuse any further connections. Eventually these hacked sessions will time-out, but, Buckley points out "an effective SYN attack against a whole site can be done using no more than a 28.8kbps modem. A load of packets to start with then just a packet a second or so to top up any available control blocks."
The hackers cannot be traced because they are spoofing their IP addresses and the routers nearest to the hacker's point of entry have not been set up to reject packets with invalid source addresses.
The cure? Not easy - everyone with a border router to the Internet needs to ensure that their routers are configured to only pass packets out that have source addresses from within their own address space.
Once this is done, the ISP cannot be the source of the malicious, untraceable attacks. As Buckley says: "If every ISP on the planet does this, then SYN attacks from dummy addresses can't occur." A project to be completed by the end of the next millenium, perhaps.
MICROSOFT TAKES WRAPS OF ITS WINDOWS CE: GARNERS SUPPORT
Microsoft has finally gone public with its Pegasus PDA operating system.
Resurrected from the debris of its failed WinPad initiative, CE is built from a subset of the Win32 API and will run scaled-down and interoperable versions of familiar Microsoft software like Word, Excel, and Internet Explorer. The operating system will be embedded in devices from a slew of partners, including HP, Casio, Phillips and NEC, none of whom will be using x86 chips because of power requirements. Most CE devices are expected to run about 2 weeks on a pair of AA batteries. NEC, the only company to release details on its processor, will be using its VR4101 MIPS chip, which requires about 3.3 volts. Third party application software is also being developed, though Microsoft has not yet made the CE software development kit generally available.
Microsoft did not release many details on the OS, like whether it uses a Win 95 or NT kernel, or whether it will support Java or ActiveX. It is saving that information for its next announcement at COMDEX.
CE products will sell for about $500 each and are expected to begin shipping before the end of the year. Just in case that price-point rings any bells, Microsoft has made it clear that CE devices will not be Redmond's version of the network computer. They are PDAs. They will come in traditional PDA clamshell form. They will perform PDA functions.
A Microsoft spokesman said. "We think that as you move down (into non-PC devices), you are going to want systems that operate, at times, independent from the network", which is pretty much the polar opposite of Netscape subsidiary Navio's vision, which predicts a world of Internet-enabled pizza boxes.
NETSCAPE CHOOSES ECMA AS JAVASCRIPT STANDARDS BODY
While the world wonders where Microsoft will end up sending ActiveX, Netscape is turning over JavaScript to the European Computer Manufacturers Association (ECMA) for standardization.
It admires ECMA's precise and unambiguous way with a spec. ECMA will automatically put it on the International Standards Organization (ISO) fast track. However, Netscape is still looking for a public forum to handle future JavaScript iterations. It's not particularly partial to either X3 or the IEEE and neither the World Wide Web Consortium nor the IETF has ever done a language before.
AT&T SHIPS CO-BRANDED
VERSION OF NAVIGATOR
AT&T Corp has begun shipping a co-branded version of the Netscape Communications Corp Navigator browser for Apple Computer Inc Macintosh users of its WorldNet Service. As with AT&T's Windows version of Netscape Navigator, the AT&T WorldNet Service Mac browser is to be bundled with the service's software at no extra charge.
In addition, says AT&T, the browser has been specially designed with automated configuration and modem identification processes. It is available on floppy disk or CD-ROM, and members will be able to download future versions free from the AT&T WorldNet Service Web site, according to the company.
Microsoft Corp reckons its Internet Explorer browser has doubled its market share in the month since the 3.0 version was launched: Brad Chase, vice-president of Microsoft's Internet platform and tools division, reckons that Explorer's market share is 10% to 20% on most sites and 30% on some as measured by the number of times the browser is used to visit popular World Wide Web sites; Chase did not say how often Internet Explorer was downloaded, saying it would be a hard number to track with precision.
The W3C 's latest draft of HTML 3.2, is at www.w3.org/pub/WWW/TR/WD-html32.html
Martin Burack, formerly a senior marketing manager for MCI has been named executive director of the Internet Society.
Netcarta Corp. is now shipping its WebMapper 1.1 for Unix content management software. WebMapper helps site managers keep track of what is going on with their Web sites by creating a topographical map and generating HTML reports on site properties like structure, size and links. A table of contents and site index are also provided. WebMapper sells for $999.
www.netcarta.com
AltaVista says that you too will be able to add the same award-winning search capabilities as it has to your Web site. AltaVista Intranet PX will index every word on your site and present hyperlinked search results in response to search queries - all this for $16,000 - 70,000, depending on your configuration. The product is also being targeted for corporate intranet users.
Yahoo! and Granite Broadcasting Corp have launched an integrated Internet and TV news service. Granite and Yahoo! will coordinate content on Granite's newscasts so interested viewers can log onto Yahoo! for more information. www.granitetv.com
Market researchers at Simba Information says online service revenues will reach $30.9 billion by the year 2000. They were $17.7 billion in 1995 and will probably be up 16.2% to $20.5 billion this year, they said. Business/professional online services as represented by brokerage, credit, financial news/research, legal, tax and public records, marketing, professional research and vertical market services generated 93.2% of the total in '95. Simba reckons business/professional will account for 88% of total sales in 2000 when the total number of online subscribers should be 36.4 million.
BRIEFLY
It looks like Netscape's complaints to the to the Justice Department have born fruit. As we were going to press Microsoft announced that the Department is seeking more information regarding competitive practices.
ACTIVEX GROUP MEETING SET
October 1st has been set as the day on which the "ActiveX stake-holders" will get together in New York to discuss the standardisation process. Microsoft is promising that "over 100" organisations will be represented, and as we went to press 76 were listed at the new Web site www.activex.org. Notable absentees are IBM and the Object Management Group, neither of which were invited. OMG chief Chris Stone has decided against the previously avowed tactic of taking legal action to get entry to the meeting. Sun Microsystems was invited, but elected not to show.
Though those present will be able to vote on the future of the technology, Microsoft will ensure its special place by tabling the proposals on which they will vote. "We have a number of smart people engaged in mapping out what are the most advantageous proposals that span the full spectrum of possibilities - from working with standard bodies to doing it completely independently" said Tom Button, Microsoft's Director of Marketing, Internet Platform and Tools division.
Nonetheless, Microsoft appears to be playing fair with the range of technologies which it is prepared to turn over to the independent standards body. When asked what is up for grabs, Cornelius Willis, Group product manager, Internet Tools reeled off a list of core ActiveX technologies including COM; DCOM; structured storage; the RPC mechanism; the NT LAN Manager Security Services API; Moniker (which lets you communicate with objects asynchronously); and Automation (which handles the invocation of objects).
For this lot, he says Microsoft will provide the specifications, the binaries, the source reference implementation and validation tests. All that remains to be seen is whether the meeting chooses a standards mechanism that the rest of the world perceives as suitably independent and whether Microsoft can cope long-term with taking a back seat.
NATSEMI CLAIMS 1ST JAVAOS EMBEDDED IMPLEMENTATION
National Semiconductor Corp is the first company to announce an embedded version of SunSoft Inc's JavaOS operating system.
Working with SunSoft, the Santa Clara chipmaker now has it running on its 25MHz NS486SXF x86-compatible processor board, offered as an evaluation board for manufacturers looking for a ready-made Java computer around which to build some sort of Internet device.
NatSemi claims it's the only 80486-class system on a single chip available, as it also includes memory, PCMCIA, display and Dynamic Memory Addressing controllers, real time clock, interrupt controllers, timers and other personal computer-type elements on the chip. NatSemi claims all the prospective manufacturers have to add to get a network computer of some sort is a VGA board, monitor and modem card to see what kind of performance it will get from NatSemi's embedded 80486.
The company priced the evaluation board at $486, but put the material costs at somewhere between $200 and $300, as it comes with third party software. It's the chips rather than the board NatSemi wants to sell, and the latter is simply for convenience of evaluation.
DTMF AGREES TO KEEP OF SUN'S PATCH - GETS GO-AHEAD
After putting Microsoft's HyperMedia Management Schema on hold (OR Issue 16), the Desktop Management Task Force (DMTF) last week announced the formation of a special subcommittee to handle the Web-based management effort. According to sources within the DMTF, the subcommittee got the green light once Sun Microsystems was finally convinced that the DMTF would handle the data model space and stay away from the execution model - an area where Sun's Java Management API competes with Microsoft's HyperMedia Object Model. Apparently some engineering work on the part of the DMTF and a very specifically worded proposal secured Sun's approval.
The DMTF also happens to have renamed HMMS, which it is now calling the common information model.
The goal now is to have implementations of the model beginning to appear by the end of 1997. Microsoft Product Manager for Systems Management, Victor Raisys, says that he now doesn't see any specific areas where the subcommittee could run into obstacles, but you can bet that if the committee's work begins to stray beyond simply defining the rules, relationships, and attributes encompassed in the HMMS data model, then Sun, who happens to be on the DMTF steering committee, will bring the process to a halt.
AOL MOVES TO SHIFT REVENUE EMPHASIS TO ADS & SERVICES
In a press conference following its move from Nasdaq to the New York Stock Exchange, America Online last week announced moves to expand its revenue base. CEO Steve Case said the online service provider will shift its revenue model from subscriber-based to what it calls a "blended" model that will include revenues from advertising, online transactions, and business-to-business online services.
Advertising has already become a significant source of AOL's revenue with $27 million in advertising deals inked in the last 45 days - most of them since AOL's system crashed on August 7th, incidentally. To further encourage online transactions, the company will rebuild its MarketPlace area and introduce two new services, AOL Guarantee and AOL Certified Merchants Program, which will provide guarantees of actual products and quality of service on AOL. Market Place will feature offerings from new merchants like Hickory Farms and the Body Shop and "mini-malls" will be built within all AOL channels. Also announced was AOL Enterprise, which will hawk AOL technology and services to businesses looking to outsource their private Intranets. Case says the move towards diversification is essential because without new advertising streams, "there is a strong likelihood that there will be a shake-out in the interactive world that will be significantly greater than the shake-out we saw in the past couple of years in multimedia CD-ROMs".
Case hinted that new products and services will be announced in October as AOL embarks on re-launch of its service it is dubbing a "march to the mainstream". The company will announce a major marketing and re-engineering campaign designed to make its service more appealing to the 90% of consumers who have not yet logged on to any online service.
Speaking about his own offering, Case admitted AOL " had not done such a good job in positioning the service, explaining to people why it was different and better".
SUN PREPARES HIGH-END SERVER
Sources within Sun Microsystems say that its SunSoft subsidiary will be releasing a high powered Web server software product by year's end. Code-named Vishnu, after the many-armed Hindu deity, the product is expected to be announced sometime in October.
Sun's Solaris business unit had hoped to release its Internet Server with Web server features back in April, but was forced to delay the project because of performance issues. Apparently Sun is thinking about featuring Vishnu in a new Internet software product line, but has not yet finalized such an initiative. When contacted officially, Sun first referred to the Web server as Ukiah (a Pomo Indian word meaning "deep Valley") and then called Online Reporter back to say that indeed Vishnu was the correct code name. This seemed appropriate since Vishnu is known in Hindu mythology as "the prevader".
MICROSOFT GOES AGAINST THE STREAM WITH NETSHOW
Intent on offering yet more technology within its core operating system - and maybe squeezing out the likes of Macromedia Inc in the process - Microsoft Corp has announced a new multimedia streaming technology for the Internet and intranets called NetShow. Described as "an open platform for the basic delivery of live and on-demand multimedia," NetShow is designed to enable business users to provide audio and video content in online training and communications materials without using excessive network bandwidth, by storing and streaming audio, video and illustrated audio content.
It uses IP multicasting for live transmissions between one sender and multiple simultaneous receivers in the network bandwidth normally used for a single client. For on-demand delivery, content authors can specify different bit rates. A simple graphics editor and conversion tools for graphics formats such as JPEG, WAV, and Apple Computer Inc's QuickTime are also included.
The software works with Microsoft's existing NetMeeting conferencing software which ships with the Explorer 3.0 browser. A host of third-party developers, including Progressive Networks Inc, whose RealAudio streaming technology looks on the face of it to be a competitor, have pledged support. Macromedia, however, was not on the list. A free beta version is now up on the Web at www.microsoft.com/netshow/ with a final version, to be part of Internet Explorer and Windows NT Server, due by the year-end.
FIRST TV CHANNEL ON THE WEB USES VIVO SOFTWARE
The idea of a full television channel on the Internet at a time when most people are still chugging along on 28.8Kbps modems may sound a little perverse, but using new software from Vivo Software Inc of Waltham, Massachusetts, that is what CMP Media Inc has launched.
Called the First-TV network, it will offer recorded programs about the Internet and original material from desktop videographers and digital animators, and you can take a look at it at www.first-tv.com. It uses Vivo's VivoActive 1.0, described as the first serverless low-bandwidth system for producing and playing video on demand using standard internet protocols over dial-up modems. VivoActive 1.0 comprises VivoActive Producer and VivoActive Player: the Producer enables Webmasters to produce and integrate streams-based video into their Web sites and VivoActive Player is a browser plug-in that enables users to view the video from any VivoActivated Web site.
Vivo says that by using HTTP the VivoActive software family makes video a natural component of the Web environment rather than treating video as an adjunct or add-on requiring additional hardware or modifications to Internet/intranet infrastructures. VivoActive Producer also eliminates the need for dedicated video server hardware and "conserves network bandwidth, enabling faster, more widely accessible on-demand video over the Web" - provided your machine is fast enough - a 66MHz 486 is the minimum, and it works adequately but jerkily on such a machine, although some text is hard to read.
The compression ratio is a crushing 200:1. The software works with Web video formats such as QuickTime/AVI files. VivoActive Player can be downloaded free to machines running Navigator 2.0 and up and Explorer 3.0 on all Windows and Power Mac machines, from www.vivo.com. The VivoActive Producer - you too can launch your own television station on the Web - costs $500 per copy. Windows 95 and NT versions are out now, and the version for the Apple Computer Inc Power Mac will be ready next month.
ORACLE EXTENDS VIDEO SERVER
Oracle will extend its Oracle Video Server to the Internet. To make the most of the low bandwidth and unpredictable Internet connections, Oracle will support new and unspecified video compression technology and work with Internet content providers to place what it calls "edge servers".
Edge servers will, essentially, cache high-bandwidth content closer to the end-user, thus speeding up the whole video streaming process. Beta testing is to begin in Q1 of 1997 and the product will be in production the following quarter.
BBC GOES FOR MAJOR WEB PRESENCE; SIGNS UP ICL
Claiming that it marks a move from tri-media - television, radio and magazines - to multimedia, the British Broadcasting Corp's BBC Worldwide commercial division last week signed up ICL Plc to provide the technology and integration services for its new Internet venture.
BBC Online, to be launched next spring, will deliver BBC-branded Web services and programming built around BBC radio and television programmes, covering news, sport, information and entertainment. As well as the Web content, the BBC intends to offer an access service for those not already connected to the Internet, and will provide "chat" services, moderated for content. ICL, providing all the initial funding, will set up banks of replicated Web servers at its Kidsgrove and Bracknell bases with dual access points, and a network of virtual points-of-presence so that logging on to the BBC will be via local call throughout the UK ICL is currently gathering together the various Internet technologies that will enable the BBC service, including object-based software from parent Fujitsu Ltd that will make it possible for the BBC to keep track of exactly who is logged on. It's also been looking at Java and ShockWave, and has been admiring the broadcast-like model that PointCast has established.
BBC Online is to be a "substantial" department at BBC Television Centre, providing editorial content using tools provided by ICL. Initially it will be mostly text-based, with some audio but no video; video will emerge as the technology develops. Subscriptions will be charged for "premium" services, and advertising will be allowed. The pact runs until 1999.
MITSUBISHI GOES TO VIEWCALL FOR WEB TV CONNECTIVITG
ViewCall America will be the browser software and, indirectly, the Internet service provider for customers using Mitsubishi's DiamondWeb Internet TV (OR issue 14). Viewcall will run its thin, dumbed-down browser software with about 2 megs of caching on the television and will have some proprietary content and an Internet gateway on its servers. ViewCall will use Gridnet International's online infrastructure to connect with its customers. The company also announced alliances with Yahoo, USA Today and Spyglass, which will be bundling ViewCall's TV browser software.
ViewCall has three products to offer: its ON-TV online service, which will be the preferred service for DiamondWeb owners, the browser software, and a hardware reference design for Web-enabled television, using VLSI's ARM 7500 processor. The browser will use an extension of HTML, called TV-HTML, to present Web content in a more television-like manner - with fewer, bigger buttons and larger fonts. ViewCall expects deals with content providers like Yahoo! to result in TV-HTML enabled Websites where users will be able to search for things like "what kind of Western movies are on TV tonight". Using the browser interface, customers will be able to chat over the Internet about TV shows as they are watching them and surf the Web more dynamically than with traditional browsers.
Like almost everyone these days, ViewCall hopes to set an open industry standard. Vice President of On-TV Services, Carlos Silva, says the company hopes to hold a conference within the next sixty days to establish a larger consortium that would drive industry adoption of TV-HTML. ViewCall America expects to light up its network next summer..
INWORLD OFFERS JAVA CLASSES FOR AUDIO STREAMING
While Microsoft is trying to stitch up the media-streaming world, Sausalito, California-based InWorld VR Inc is harnessing the power of Java to create a facility for adding sound to Web pages. The company has created an Automatic Audio Java applet library that operates without the need for any additional end user software or complicated installations. Using "any existing or newly-created sound file, Automatic Audio adds background music or sound, sound bites, audio associated with graphics." It consists of 16 parameter-driven, fully documented Java applets that developers can integrate into their Web sites without the need for any Java programming. No additional software, downloads, or any installation is required by the end user - any Java-enabled browser does the trick. The Personal Package is $50 and includes a single site licence. The Commercial Package is $150 and includes five site licences, and the Web-Developer package is $500 for a fully-paid licence to use on an unlimited number of sites; details at www.inworldvr.com.
W3C SETS UP IN JAPAN
The Worldwide Web consortium is setting up shop in Japan. In October, W3C officials will be meeting at their new host site at Keio University to chart out the new location's mandate. According to W3C Chairman Jean Francois Abramatic, Keio will most likely focus on "internationalization", the development of technology to minimize language differences on the multi-lingual Web, and electronic commerce.
The idea is that there are issues of regional commerce and language that would be best addressed from a vendor-neutral site in Japan. Keio University has put up the space. The W3C foots the bills with dues collected from its Japanese members.
According to Abramatic, the consortium had considered Asia "under-represented" on the W3C and had been looking for a suitable location. Japan was chosen because it has the most members. He adds, "we have been approached by other areas of the world. If we feel like there is a critical mass of membership, then we can decide to launch another one". Abramatic did not say exactly what "critical mass" means, but Japan has 10 full members, including Fujitsu, Hitachi, Sony, and Canon. Other likely sites for the W3C are Hong Kong, China, and Australia.
Phillips has begun shipping its Magnavox Internet TV Terminal. Priced at $329.95, the terminal will allow anyone to surf the Net using a standard TV and telephone line.
SAMSUNG FOLLOWS ZENITH TO DIBA FOR TV CONNECTIVITY
Diba Inc, the company formed by Oracle Corp refugees who believe that $500 is much to much to pay to put the coffee machine or the toaster on the Internet, is putting together core software that can be used for building application-specific Internet access devices, and has won its second taker in the shape of Samsung Electronics Co Ltd.
The first for the Menlo Park company was Zenith Electronics Corp. Samsung wants to enlist Diba's skills in the devlopment of a line of Internet-enabled television sets. Samsung's Internet TV will use the Diba Application Foundation to support a wide range of Internet services, including browsing the Web and accessing electronic mail.
The first product offering, a 29" Internet TV, will enable users to access information from the Internet by just pushing a button on the remote control - and a built-in electronic keyboard can be displayed on the screen and manipulated with the remote control for inputting and transmitting data, including electronic mail.
There is an optional wireless keyboard and the modem runs at 33.6Kbps.
SING WHILE YOU SURF - KYOCERA DEBUTS KARAOKE INTERNET
Almost anything with a processor in it and support for a screen can be turned into an Internet access device, and Taito Corp and Kyocera Multimedia Corp plan to turn their $375 Mediabox karaoke machine into an Internet access terminal, and by Christmas will offer an Internet access service which will take users to a karaoke site as well as on-line shopping and electronic mail, with access charged at about $6.50 an hour.
SILICON GRAPHICS LOSES ANOTHER CHIEF - TO MACROMEDIA
Silicon Graphics Inc has lost another top dog, this time to San Francisco, California-based multimedia tools house Macromedia Inc, which has decided to go with a two-headed management approach. Rob Burgess, who formerly ran the Silicon Graphics Alias/Wavefront subsidiary, has been named president of Macromedia in charge of day-to-day operations, while Macromedia chief Bud Colligan will remain chairman and oversee the big picture, including strategy and acquisitions.
Macromedia will not have a chief executive. The firm says this illustrates Burgess's and Colligan's roles as joint chiefs. Burgess met Colligan when Macromedia was converting some of its software for Silicon Graphics's system. Meanwhile, the exodus at Silicon Graphics has included the defection of its chief operations officer Tom Jermoluk to the top job at @Home Corp, and the loss of its products and technologies vice-president, Wei Yen, who's now chief executive at Netscape Communications Corp subsidiary, Navio Communications Inc. Silicon Graphics is replacing all of the executives through internal promotions.
Asked why executives keep jumping ship, the 11,000-strong company said its managers yearned to be big fish in small ponds - and the departures do not seem to be doing the company too much harm on the world stage. It says that in the fiscal year to June 30, North American sales for the first time accounted for less than half of its $2,920m total - 49% compared with 52% in 1995. European turnover grew to 30% from 28%, while Asia-Pacific rose a point to 21% of overall business. Revenue from high-end products declined to 37% of turnover in 1996 from 41% in 1995; low-end products accounted for 63% compared with 59% in 1995.
Silicon Graphics says server sales are growing faster than the workstation business due to Internet-related purchases. Computer animation sales contributed around 20% of Silicon Graphics's overall turnover; it is expected to rise a couple of points in fiscal 1997. In March Silicon Graphics reorganised into five business units: Silicon Desktop is headed by Michael Ramsay; Silicon Interactive, by Robert Burgess; the Advanced Systems Division, by David Orton; Cray Research by Robert Ewald; and MIPS Technologies by Ron Bernal.
All now report to Ed McCracken. Silicon Graphics chief technology officer Forest Baskin reports all systems are go, now that it has its MIPS RISC R5000- and R10000-based workstations and servers in production. Integration of Cray and Silicon Graphics software environments with the goal of enabling Silicon Graphics applications to run on Cray systems and vice versa with a recompilation is moving on. Baskin says the 64-bit large file system from Silicon Graphics's Irix Unix is now testing on Cray's Unicos Unix variant. Cray's file system and queue management technologies are now testing on Silicon Graphics servers. Other compiler integration work is ongoing. Some application programming interfaces from each operating system will be transplanted by the year-end.
Two years out, the company plans to have a common Unix running across Silicon Graphics and Cray product lines. Baskin says Intel Corp's PA-RISC-enabled Merced part doesn't spell the beginning of the end for RISC: "we've been shipping RISC for years, Intel hasn't even delivered one RISC product," Baskin asserts.
THE GREAT ELLISON-GATES FIGHT
Ring-side report by Marsha Johnston
Apparently to avoid any heated public exchanges, Microsoft Corp chairman Bill Gates and Oracle Corp chief executive Larry Ellison were staged to enable them to snipe at each other's vision of the future's network appliance from a distance, at International Data Corp's European IT Forum in Paris, September 16 and 17.
Each chief executive gave a presentation and fielded questions from the audience and from John Gantz, International Data senior vice-president of personal systems and computing. While acknowledging the future will see "a range" of appliances that will break the ease-of-use barrier by being able to "see, hear, speak and learn," Gates ceded little territory to Ellison specifically. Rather, he defended the stalwart personal computer in responding to Gantz' question, "How many Internet access devices will be out there?" Said the chairman: "That's something of a trick question because the personal computer is already a network device that is out there connecting people to networks, processing information. But, yes, there will be a range of devices. The question about what kinds there will be is only a function of what people will be doing with them."
Beginning provocatively by asking, "Will the Microsoft PC be the last PC made? Does innovation stop there?" Ellison declared that personal computers are too complex to ever become as pervasive as the television or telephone. "The PC is fabulous, a true marvel, but I don't care how well it does something I don't need to do," he said. Every 15 years, he said, the computer industry has significantly innovated on the previous standard. This year marks 15 years since the personal computer was introduced in 1981. The two barriers to "everyone" getting a computer, he said, are cost and complexity, adding that in the 12 months since the Network Computer idea emerged, models have been introduced ranging from $200 to $800. "Why is it cheaper? Because we've moved the complexity from the device to the network," he said, adding that such an architecture corresponds more closely to the world's other "mature, essential networks" for telephony, electricity and water: "All of those networks have a simple appliance attached to a complex network, and the computer network should be no different."
Although Ellison was skeptical that personal computer penetration would ever reach the 90th percentile of the television and telephone, he admitted that the Network Computer will never replace the personal computer. "The PC did not replace the mainframe, but they are sold in higher volumes because they are easier to use and cheaper," he said.
Ellison said Oracle has trials of the Network Computer scheduled "with virtually every major European telecommunications operator." He also forecast that the x86 version of the device, due in December, would dominate the market. The killer application, he said, will be HyperText Mark-up Language-based multimedia electronic mail.
In answer to other Internet-related questions, Gates said Microsoft "is providing full support" for Java. "The fastest browser for running Java applications is Internet Explorer 3.0 and our J++ is the fastest compiler. Java is a great environment," he said. He demonstrated Internet Explorer 4.0, with its integrated HyperText Mark-up Language pages. Despite having backed off its WinPad Personal Digital Assistant project a couple of years ago, Gates says Microsoft's new Windows CE handheld personal computer is a more mature product. "We didn't even put WinPad on the market because we decided with our partners that we couldn't get below the $500 mark, we couldn't get the battery life up around 10 hours and the applications just weren't there," he said.
Microsoft's new partners - Compaq Computer Corp, Casio Computer Co, Hewlett-Packard Co, LG Electronics Co and Philips Electronics NV - are doing "some excellent hardware," he said. Nonetheless, he said, "if it's the right time, we'll just wait and keep improving it. We can wait 20 years if we have to." As for Microsoft's own on-line service, Gates said, "It is still in what we call investment mode, but we're acquiring lots of new subscribers. We've got 1.5m subscribers on Microsoft Network, but we need to get the scale up and the profitability there." He noted, however, that Microsoft is "home free, because the $16m we invested in Uunet stock is now worth $400m."
In conclusion, International Data's Gantz asked Gates to comment on a recent Time magazine cover that asked whether Gates will own the Web. He said, "We're just plumbers here. It's interesting to see how much attention those of us get who are making the tools to make access to the Internet easy." At his turn, Ellison took a shot at Gates's modesty. "Sure, he's just a plumber, but the only plumber in town. His job is to get Windows on every client and every server and our job is to prevent that from happening. I'm more than a little concerned that everything is based on Windows."
HOTWIRE TACKLES ISP E-VAULTING
Following the lead of Software Partners Inc (OR issue 3) HotWire Data Security Inc is making a foray into the backup-over-the-Internet market. The company is aiming the Windows NT server software at Internet Service Providers who want to differentiate their services and at existing disaster recovery firms. Unlike Software Partners, which is particularly interested in running its own 'data vaulting' operation, HotWire prefers to concentrate on selling the software. It will charge end-users 10 cents for each uncompressed megabyte of data backed up. ISPs who opt to buy the NT-based server software and run their own backup operation will have to pay HotWire 2 cents for each megabyte archived on their boxes.
The company has yet to fix a price for the server package, but executive VP Brian Dickman says it is likely to be $895. The privately held company's demo vault is being run by SierraNet. www.hotwire.com
CISCO AND INTEL RELEASE RSVP IP PRIORITIZING TECHNOLOGY
Cisco Systems Inc and Intel Corp are claiming a major advance in the delivery of high- quality multimedia over the Internet, with the release of technology for Internet infrastructure and personal computer clients that use IP Multicast, Resource Reservation Protocol, RSVP and Real-Time Transport Protocol, RTP specifications to address bandwidth and latency issues. Cisco is launching a new version of the Cisco Internetwork Operating System that offers IP Multicast, RSVP and RTP, while Intel is providing PC-RSVP, software that enables servers and personal computer clients to take advantage of Cisco's upgraded infrastructure to deliver high-quality networked multimedia.
mFactory is Internet-enabling its mTropolis product line. With a project named mPire, the multimedia development tool company aims to add Dynamic Network Adoptable Objects, which will allow mTropolis applications to dynamically adopt new objects at run-time, and object streaming, which is a method for downloading multimedia applications from a server one scene at a time. Beta versions of Web browser plug-ins for mTropolis applications and the Net Messenger modifier, which Internet-enables mTropolis multimedia objects were made available last week. mFactory did not say when the other components of mPire would be rolled out. www.mfactory.com
CompuServe Network Services announced a series of network upgrades at Networld + Interop including the completion of its European network upgrade and plans to offer IP Link Plus on the continent. The company also announced the expansion of Internet and intranet offerings through a reseller agreement with Security dynamics; a The thing that made it most proud, however, was the unveiling of its new logo. Its a circle with a crescent in it.
DOT Gossip
Corel Corp intends to fight the overwhelming dominance of Microsoft Corp's Office in the suites market by abandoning the idea of charging for each machine on which the suite is run, and instead offering a Windows NT server copy for a one-time $900 regardless of how many people may be attached to the server. Users would download elements as needed, and the company could use a similar approach on the Internet if it could work out an appropriate pricing model for it - it will shortly have a beta test version of a suite written in Java for use with the Personal Digital Assistant it plans for next year.
Microsoft Corp is not used to being discomfited by upstarts like Corel and it is not at all amused at Corel's plan. If the Corel product and pricing model catches on, it would knock a nasty hole in one of Microsoft's most important existing revenue streams.
Apple Computer Inc and Sun Microsystems Inc have snuggled up in a series of announcements one of which sees Apple's QuickTime built into the JavaMedia APIs. The duo have also pledged to integrate JavaBeans and OpenDoc tightly, a move which IBM welcomed. The two are to build "a seamless bridge" between Macintosh desktop computers and Sun servers. They will also work to establish mediaLib as a high-performance interface to multimedia-capable processors.
Xense Technology Inc of San Francisco used the DCI Data warehousing conference in Phoenix to debut DB publisher, a Java-based ad hoc query and reporting tool.
Westford, Massachusetts-based Cascade Communications Corp said it plans to enter the Internet access equipment business by offering two new high-capacity dial-up Internet switches for use by telephone service carriers: the company said it plans to begin offering by mid-October its AX 800 and AX 1600 High Capacity Access Switches, which it says will provide the industry's highest capacity modem density.
Citrix Systems, the multiuser NT people, surveyed 200 US corporate IT execs this summer and among its findings noticed that although Web deployment is high only 29% were satisfied with the return on investment they were getting.
IBM Corp says its OS/2 Java JIT is now running with a "600% speed improvement" (that's "7 times as fast" in English') compared with the original interpreter. The company reckons that Java execution speeds can "approach" those of C++.
Netscape Communicatios Corp says its Web site currently topping 100 million 'hits' a day.
Wind River Systems Inc has been signed up by Oracle's Network Computer Inc subsidiary to supply it with operating systems and development tools.
Sun has come up with a new way to make money from Java. It's announced two new Java Certificates: programmers sit exams to be dubbed either a 'Sun Certified Java Programmer' or a 'Sun Certified Java Developer'. Program details are available from www.sun.com/sunservice
Biggest giveaway in history more like - Netscape Communications Corp chief executive James Barksdale claims that Navigator has "outsold" all other computer applications in history, because Netscape has downloaded 40m copies of Navigator to customers, all within 19 months.
Integrated Computer Solutions has unveiled Builder Xcessory PRO, a visual development environment which supports both C++ and Java. www.ics.com/products/BXPRO/
Borland International Inc has licensed ObjectSpace Inc's new Java Generic Library; it plans on using the ObjectSpace code in its Latte RAD environment.
Singapore network systems integrator Datacraft Asia Pte Ltd reports its Datacraft RPG unit has a contract worth about $1.3m with Indian telecommunications company Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd to build an Indian network to facilitate Internet access in the major Indian cities.
France Telecom has signed with Apple Computer Inc for a co-marketing and co-development partnership to do products for Internet, videoconferencing and mobile telephones.
Things are a little... err, fluid at the World Wide Web Consortium these days as it strives to put a new set of standardisation procedures into place. The current "transitional" processes are loose enough to encourage the kind of finger waving that Netscape indulged in last week over Microsoft's HTML plans. The situation also seemingly making W3C officials ultra-nervous about treading on people's toes. Previously (OR issue 12) we reported that the W3C would complete a members vote on a PICS-based code signing project last week. But no - the vote was still on-going. When will the vote be complete? The W3C can't say, its a sensitive matter. Any comment on a rough date when voting might finish? Nope. Everything is very delicate at the moment. The Consortium hopes to have a new formalised working structure agreed for its Advisory Board meeting in January.
Vxtreme, the Internet video people, have named William "Pete" Mountanos president and chief executive. Most recently he was president of Fast Multimedia Inc, a PC-based non-linear video editing house. Before that he was president of Abekas Video Systems Inc, a supplier of digital video editing and disc recording equipment to TV. Robb Wilmot is Vxtreme's chairman.
Is nothing sacred? Hackers managed to break into the CIA's Web site; or the 'Central Stupidity Agency' as its pages were proclaiming after the miscreant's visit. www.odci.gov was taken down and an investigation has been set up as to how the break-up was managed.
Microsoft's www.activex.org site contains an illuminating Q&A where it answers some questions very openly and frankly. But you can almost hear the nervous coughing as the site ponders: "Q. What if the stakeholders choose to take the ActiveX standard in a direction that conflicts with Microsoft s interests?" and nervously answers "We think our interests are very closely, if not totally, aligned with those of our customers and the other ActiveX stakeholders." Makes you wonder why the company is inviting all those people to the stakeholders meeting.
Where will John Soyring, IBM VP at Personal Software Products be while the great and the good are debating ActiveX's future? "I'll be trout fishing that day".
(c) 1996 May not be copied
online REPORTER, a sister publication of Unigram.X and ClieNT Server News, is published weekly in Europe by:
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