The Online REPORTER
WEEKLY DISPATCHES FROM THE INTERNET FRONT
October 7 - October 11 1996 Issue No 19
ORACLE WEIGHS IN WITH YET ANOTHER NETWORK ARCHITECTURE
In the race to see whose ubiquitous network architecture can swallow whose, Oracle last week announced its Network Computing Architecture, which will incorporate HTTP, CORBA, IIOP, Java, Visual Basic, SQL and ActiveX, as well as providing interfaces to legacy systems.
IIOP and HTTP will be what Oracle calls the "plumbing" of the framework and CORBA will be the heart of the object system, which Oracle intends to eventually inject into its entire product line. The architecture has received the "endorsement" of 46 industry players including Sun, Novell and HP.
Oracle, never what one would call best of friends with Microsoft, also appears less than sincere in its pledge to embrace ActiveX. It claims that ActiveX "on the desktop" will be bridged, but when asked about DCOM or ActiveX on the server side, Oracle played down its importance rather than promising a full ActiveX-CORBA connection. Oracle Vice President of Internet Server Technologies Peter Relan says that Oracle's initiative is in no way in conflict with Microsoft's move to open up ActiveX or with Netscape One, but Microsoft is not on the list of supporters. Netscape is. When asked if Microsoft might be somehow forced to conform to this specification, Relan answered, "we certainly think that that is an interesting idea. That's very viable".
NASA TESTS SHOW SATELLITE INTERNET NETWORKS ARE SLOW
Plans to build a global, broadband "Internet-in-the-sky" by the satellite industry may be significantly held back by problems with TCP/IP - the core communications protocol of the Internet.
Scientists at NASA have been finding out that the vast distances covered by the data to reach the satellites involves enough delay - often as long as half a second - to cause the transmission control protocol to think there is an error on the network, and to begin its process of checking, duplicating and retransmitting lost segments. That results in a major loss of performance. In NASA trials, data that would have been reaching transmission rates up to 155 megabits per second over fibre optics slowed to just 10 megabits per second using a satellite network.
TCP was originally developed specifically for the reliable delivery of data. Downgrading the current performance of TCP/IP to improve its performance on satellites would not be an option, according to chairman of the Internet Engineer Taskforce Fred Baker, quoted in an article last week in the Los Angeles Times.
Huge sums are being invested in attempts to marry together the Internet and satellite communications systems, one of the most prominent efforts being Teledesic Corp, based in Kirkland, Washington, set up by telecommunications pioneer Craig McCaw and backed personally to the tune of $10m by Bill Gates. The company is planning to have a two-way, broadband connection using an 840-satellite Teledesic Network intended for voice, data, video conferencing and high-performance Internet access by the year 2002. The multi-satellite distributed architecture, with dynamic routing and robust scalability, was even modelled on the Internet, while supposedly providing the added benefits of real-time capability and location-insensitive access.
Teledesic has responded to the findings, spearheaded by Daniel Glover, a Cleveland-based project engineer with NASA, by issuing its own white paper, claiming it will be able to work around the problem. It also points out that its low-orbit satellites are less susceptible to delay than geostationary satellites.
JAVA SHOP MARIMBA LAUNCHES ITS FIRST PRODUCTS - CASTANET
After six months of secrecy, high-profile but tight-lipped Java start-up Marimba Inc, founded by JavaSoft team members Kim Polese, Arthur van Hoff and Sami Shao back in May (OR 1)- will finally say how it is going to make money this Monday.
Sticking to its musical percussion theme, Marimba's lead product is to be called Castanet, a suite of applications that will enable automatic repeated updating of code across the Internet. Castanet will be immediately made available at www.marimba.com.
Using Marimba's proprietary Application Distribution Protocol (ADP), Castanet users can connect with server side "Transmitters" using "Tuners". Tuners can receive and save applications to the client's hard drive in the form of "Channels". A Channel might be a customized newsfeed, or even an executable application. According to Marimba CEO, Kim Polese, the effect is not unlike that of a hybrid CD-ROM in which the bulk of the application resides on the client's hard drive - here in the form of a Channel - with continual updates being received from the Transmitter.
Polese says that the software will enable publishers to create and distribute Pointcast-like applications, but that Castanet goes "a step beyond this to enable software distribution". And if the enterprise is really where the money is, you can bet Marimba will try to be there, selling its products as computer-based training and software distribution and versioning solutions to the Fortune 1,000.
Though Sun is listed as a supporter of Castanet, it seems unlikely that the Network Computing profile it has endorsed along with Oracle would provide enough hard disk memory to support a respectable number of channels. Polese says "you need some kind of local storage on your local computer." The Network Computer assumes infinite bandwidth. Four megabytes are not sufficient for any sort of sophisticated application.
The Tuner is written entirely in Java to take advantage of its sandboxing capabilities. It will be distributed free of charge to non-commercial users. It will execute non-Java code in Castanet version 1.1, which is expected in Q1, 1997. The transmitter, written in C++, will cost between $995 and $10,000, depending on the number of users. Marimba will release a Java version as soon as Sun gets the language to compile as fast as C or C++.
Marimba will also announce the availability of a Repeater Kit for $495, a Proxy Server for $995 and a visual builder for Java, called Bongo. Repeaters work in tandem with Transmitters to balance the request load from Tuners. Proxy Servers work on the client side - inside a firewall for example, to transmit to multiple Tuners.
MICROSOFT'S ACTIVEX GOES TO THE OPEN GROUP - BUT FURTHER DICKERING LIES AHEAD
A secret ballot of 63 to 19 counted by Deloitte & Touche cast ActiveX into the waiting arms of the Open Group last week, as expected (OR 19). Each of the 84 companies present at the ActiveX summit in New York were allowed one vote. There were two abstentions and no public resistance to speak of. Apparently Microsoft's enemies such as Sun, whose two representatives sat surprisingly mute, don't want to appear to be naysayers in public and figure their experience with standards processes will afford them an advantage down the road. If so, they may be kidding themselves about how much leverage they'll have even at the next Open Group meeting where they may think they can derail the train.
The opportunity for opposition may have come and gone as early as the Open Group board meeting on September 18 that unanimously sanctioned its involvement with ActiveX - a vote that included Sun's. Netscape, whose existence nominally necessitated Microsoft's Open Group maneuver in the first place and who abstained from voting, had thought to pitch the meeting on the merits of moving ActiveX to the Object Management Group. However, its representative Carl Cargill was dissuaded early Tuesday morning from making a full-tilt appeal by Microsoft who told him, he said, that no other proposals would be entertained.
Microsoft recommended that the assembly pick the Open Group proposal over the only other one available, a consortium that Microsoft would set up and run. Otherwise the two proposals were largely similar. Cargill did succeed in drawing the meeting's attention, however briefly, to the lack of any provision for creating interoperability between ActiveX objects and the OMG's rival Corba Internet InterORB Protocol (IIOP), which Netscape backs. The Open Group made noises about welcoming the opportunity to expand its relationship with OMG, but neither it nor Microsoft could offer anything more concrete than suggesting that if there is a "genuine desire" for Corba interoperability "then we will examine it."
INCOMPATIBLE OBJECT MODELS
That leaves the industry with two incompatible object models for the present and Netscape with the decision of whether it will have to support ActiveX as well as IIOP. It also casts a pall over the future of the OMG and its alternative Corba technology, which were Microsoft's real targets all along, since he who controls the infrastructure wins. Analysts were hard pressed to decide whether we're in for a new round of object skirmishes that fragment the industry or whether we will look back on last Tuesday as the end of the so-called object wars. David Smith of the Gartner Group, who attended the meeting, said "it may be the end of open systems as we know it."
From here on out any failures can be laid at the Open Group's door, but even that's doubtful since there's little left for it to do. Meanwhile, OMG chief Chris Stone, conscious of Microsoft's hand inside the puppet, blasted the Microsoft-Open Group alliance as "work for hire." He called it "a closed group that decides what to build and when and how much to spend on it. It has nothing to do with standardization," he said in his e-mail.
CORE TECHNOLOGIES
The ActiveX Core Technologies that Microsoft is currently willing to submit to the 300-man Open Group are now scheduled to become the subject of an Open Group Pre-Structured Technology (PST) collaborative development submission by October 31. By then the submission must also be blessed by the Open Group, a recent innovation created by the Unix establishment as a holding company for two of its consortia, X/Open and the Open Software Foundation. The proposal calls for the formation of an "Active Group" under Open Group's auspices and 15 companies were handpicked by Microsoft to man the Active Group's Steering Committee before and after the October 1 meeting.
Microsoft defined the ActiveX Core technologies it is willing to turn over to the Open Group as its Component Object Model (COM) and Distributed COM (DCOM); its DCE-derived remote procedure call (MS-RPC); its NTLM Standard Security Provider Interface (SSPI) for secure components invocation; its Structured Storage, a transactions-based hierarchical file format for applications to share files across applications and platforms; its Registry, a database for COM components and their configuration information; its Monikers for persistent intelligent names; and its Automation which allows objects to expose their functionality to high-level programming languages and scripting environments. All are technologies that ride above the operating system, which of course is excluded from anything touching on standards. Other components may ultimately be necessary. However, for the moment, Microsoft will provide the specifications, source and binary reference implementations and conformance test suite for these technologies. There will be reference implementations on Mac System 7.x and Unix as well as Win32. Software AG, which has been working at Microsoft's instigation on porting DCOM to non-Microsoft platforms last week put a preview of its Solaris 2.x work on the Web. It is determined to have beta versions of Solaris, AIX, Linux and Digital Unix ready by Christmas.
DCE IN THE DEAL
Meanwhile, as part of the deal, ActiveX will use OSF's Distributed Computing Environment (DCE) to enhance its interoperability. Microsoft described what it itself was throwing in as 750,000 lines of code, the results of a $100 million investment and 500 man-years of work. It would include ActiveX, COM and DCOM copyrights, trademarks, intellectual property and patents.
According to the proposal, the Active Group would govern future enhancements to the Core technologies. The Active Group in turn would be controlled by a Steering Committee composed of a mix of standing and rotating members. As well as putting its own name on the list, it recruited DEC, HP, SAP, Siemens Nixdorf, Software AG and Sybase's Powersoft Division as standing members, but Computer Associates, NCR, Adobe and Lotus were subsequently added, and there is also supposed to be an unnamed company from the Open Group Customer Council. The rotating members, who are supposed to serve for a one-year term, were Borland, VideoSoft, Wall Data, Visio and Sheridan Systems. General members are envisioned to be concerns that have taken or intend to take a license to the specs or reference implementations.
The Steering Committee, which appears to be all-powerful, is supposed to create and manage Technology Subgroups, direct the development of associated technologies and manage ports to non-Microsoft platforms. It also gets to vote on new rotating and standing members, new technologies to be included in the ActiveX Core Technologies and the process for licensing and testing each adopted technology.
Microsoft would grant the Open Group a non-exclusive license to ActiveX Core Technology including source and documentation redistribution rights. Open Group says it will sublicense the technology on "fair and equitable terms" that are otherwise unspecified. Sublicensees would have to agree to share intellectual property rights when what they have becomes an Approved Update but that would give them rights to modify the source code to create reference implementations and ship the new binaries, though not the source itself. Licenses would be granted only for a network component built on top of a specification or a ported reference implementation. The first Steering Committee meeting is set for the second week in November.
Maureen O'Gara.
MICROSOFT'S FRONTPAGE 97 TO ARRIVE IN BETA THIS WEEK
This week Microsoft is expected to announce the availability of the beta version of its FrontPage 97 Web authoring tool. Boasting better integration with Microsoft Office and improved ease-of-use, FrontPage will come bundled with Microsoft's Personal Web Server for Windows 95, Microsoft Image Composer, which allows users to create and customize sprite images, and of course Internet Explorer 3.0. The package will also include WebPost Wizard, a feature that will allow FrontPage to copy Web files to servers without needing extensions.
The new product will also support HTML source code editing and OLE drag and drop for HTML, GIF and JPEG files from the Windows desktop straight onto the Web. Also expected is an improved visual interface: Folder View will let users see the directory structure of their Web site with a look and feel consistent with Windows 95 Explorer. JavaScript, VBScript and ActiveX will all be supported.
Microsoft would not comment on pricing or availability of the final product, but rumor has it that FrontPage 97 will be ready to ship by the end of the year.
SUN LAUNCHES THREE NEW NETRA INTERNET SERVERS
The next raft of Sun Microsystems Netra Internet servers were unveiled last week. There are three new NetServer 3.1 models: the Netra i 4000 and i 5000 are Ultra Enterprise 4000 and 5000 boxes with Internet bells and whistles, and the Netra i 2/120 is based on the two-way Ultra departmental server.
The servers come with Netscape SuiteSpot Internet software, with added Sun security stuff like virus scanning, firewall and intrusion detection software. Sun claims the two-way 2/1200 performs up to 626 operation per second based on SPECWeb96, compared to 305 for the 1/170E. Netscape has apparently had a 2/1200 handling up to 17m hits a day from its Web site.
Pricing comes later this month, with the machines themselves due out this quarter. As for when Sun's own Web server suite, code-named Vishnu, might be bundled with the Netras, Netra product manager Raj Sehgal claimed to not even have heard of Vishnu (OLR 17). Apparently it is being developed out of Sun's Solstice business unit.
IBM DOWNPLAYS TALK OF SUITE-SPOT PORT TO OS/2 WARP
IBM public relations last week was downplaying remarks made by Software Group Senior vice president John M. Thompson in a recent PCWeek interview. Thompson had suggested that IBM had been close to closing a deal with Netscape Communications to port Netscape's SuiteSpot Internet Servers to IBM's Warp Server and that some sort of announcement was hoped for before year's end - potentially pitting Warp Server with SuiteSpot in direct competition with IBM's own Lotus Domino server.
This week an IBM spokesperson told Online Reporter that Thompson's remarks had been taken out of context and that IBM was not in the final stages of any discussion at this point. The company did admit, however, that it would probably take only one major OS/2 customer to convince IBM to do the port.
NEW CYBERCASH CYBERCOINS AIMED AT SMALL PAYMENTS
CyberCash is piloting a micropayment service, called CyberCoin, that is targeting the kind of small value monetary transactions - between $0.25 and $10 - that have up until now been impractical and uneconomic to collect over the Internet.
If all goes well, CyberCash says, we'll be conducting secure electronic microtransactions by clicking an icon in our "electronic wallets" - which, presumably, will be filled with electronic cash transferred from bank or credit accounts, and which will reside on our PCs. Whenever a payment is made, the merchant collects from the bank.
Cybercash has announced partnerships with First Union, First USA Paymentech, First Data Corporation, and Michigan National Bank to set up the considerable back-end processing that would be required for such a scheme to work. www.cybercash.com
APPLE AND NETSCAPE WORK TOGETHER ON VIDEO STANDARDS
Apple Computer Inc and Netscape Communications Corporation are to jointly develop interoperable, standards-based applications and development tools to create real-time audio and video conferencing over the Internet. Netscape also plans to bundle Apple's QuickTime Conferencing (QTC) technology with its Navigator 3.0 Internet client software for the Mac, allowing Netscape to offer an audio conferencing solution, CoolTalk, enabling Mac users to call Mac, Windows and Unix users. An online whiteboard will be available soon after the initial release, adding cross-platform collaboration capabilities to CoolTalk. In its initial release, QTC-enabled CoolTalk will be based on Netscape's LiveMedia protocols, which should soon include the emerging H.323 standard. Netscape Navigator 3.0 with CoolTalk for the Mac is expected to cost $49. The online whiteboard should ship early next year.
MOTOROLA SOFTWARE MODEMS WILL EMERGE LATER THIS YEAR
Motorola Inc has announced more details of its plans for software-only modems, saying its first products will be host-based software running on Windows 95 PCs, and will be launched later this year.
According to Mike Tramontano, the company's product manager for information systems, they will be marketed through OEM deals; he said that the technology is currently being demonstrated to a number of PC manufacturers. In addition, said Tramontano, Motorola is expecting it to be incorporated in devices such as PDAs and set-top boxes.
Although there is a hardware component in the form of a transceiver to interface with the phone line, the company says its software modems will work out cheaper and lighter than current versions, as well as being more readily upgradable. Tramontano denied that the devices would be any less sophisticated than their hardware brethren, claiming: "We fully intend to have our software communications products keep pace with the features and function set of hardware-based modems." He claimed that in the long run, they would make traditional modems redundant.
But modem manufacturers remain sceptical, saying that the software will impose a big load on the host CPU. Many modems already use chips of near equivalent power to the Intel processors running the main system.
WEB TV GETS CASH INJECTION FROM MICROSOFT, FOUR OTHERS
Microsoft Corp took a minority equity position in television-browser start-up WebTV Networks. Four other firms announced investments in the company at the same time: Citicorp, VeriFone Inc, Times Mirror Corp and Lauder Partners. No financial details were released.
Microsoft plans to co-develop future television/Internet browsing technologies with the San Jose, California-based firm and will integrate elements of Internet Explorer into a future release of the WebTV browser. Redmond may also be interested in the smart card slot in WebTV's hardware reference design for electronic commerce purposes; other software big boys such as IBM Corp have been making announcements in the area of electronic commerce left, right and center.
WebTV licensed its hardware reference design to television manufacturers Sony Electronics Inc and Philips Consumer Electronics Inc, which began shipping TV-Internet set-top boxes last month. WebTV provides the online service, thereby making money two ways. It expects to sign up more hardware licensees in the near future. "We're talking to everyone," the firm said.
The last time anyone felt like counting, there were 148 different tools claiming to support client/server development. Bloor Research, the software industry watcher which did the arithmetic, reckons that's about 125 too many.
Quite why there should be room for so many players in the market is a matter for debate, but the arrival of the Internet may well precipitate the shake-out that analysts like Bloor have long predicted, and that tools purchasers would dearly like to see.
In recent months, every one of the tools vendors has articulated some sort of Internet or intranet-focused strategy. Some have felt compelled to take immediate action - cobbling together Web extensions to add to their existing development environments. Other vendors have dug deeper and are re-architecting their offerings with the Internet in mind. Others still - principally those without a large user-base to worry about - are building completely new Internet-centric tools from scratch.
TWO CAMPS
The Internet has divided the client/server industry into two camps. While all agree that the Internet is hugely significant, enthusiasm for the new environment tends to vary in inverse proportion to the pre-Internet fortunes of the vendor. So tools companies that have struggled to show healthy growth and make money in recent years - and that means most - are hoping that the Internet will prove enough of a mould breaker to overturn the existing order. Naturally, these suppliers tend to paint the Internet as a revolutionary change which renders past preferences obsolete. By contrast, today's market leaders - Powersoft, FortŽ, Oracle, Microsoft and others - are more reserved. They describe the Internet impact in less apocalyptic terms, maintaining that the change can be accommodated without a loss of serenity - or profitability.
LIFEBOAT
Centura Software Corp is one company that fits firmly into the first camp. In its previous incarnation as Gupta Corp, its SQLWindows lost out to Powersoft Corp's fierce marketing of PowerBuilder. It is now basing its strategy on two planks - the move to the use of component software that has been inspired by the widespread adoption of object-oriented software techniques, and, needless to say, the Internet.
The company describes the shift to Internet computing in epochal terms: "The Internet is a major paradigm shift in the way organizations implement business solutions and provide access to information," states Centura in a recent white paper Bridging the Internet and Client/Server. It adds that the shift is "on the magnitude of the introduction of the personal computer."
Centura's Internet-as-lifeboat stance manifests itself further when it comes to Java. "Our eventual aim is to replace the existing Centura run-time with a wholly Java solution," enthuses Dhunji Bilimoria, Centura's product manager for Europe, Middle East and Africa. This is despite the fact that Java is still a relatively untried technology for large-scale applications, and that such a move would result in many of what Bilimoria admits are "non-trivial" problems.
Fort, a company in the other category - and one that Centura is chasing - has its own Internet strategy, of course, but it is much more understated. The company has already released a Web Software Development Kit, which is scheduled to gain Java capability before the end of the year, but otherwise, FortŽ is distinctly reserved in its assessment of all things Internet. It describes the arrival of the Web as a logical progression from client/server architectures, rather than a sweeping change, and has made little alteration to its underlying sales pitch.
"Fort is sold on the basis of application partitioning," says Rich Scheffer, vice president of marketing at the company. "That means breaking the application into pieces, with a middle tier between the client and the database to enforce the business policies so that the client doesn't have to deal with these issues. The Internet has simply taken this idea one stage further. It has made the client even less important."
SERVER CHALLENGE
Scheffer acknowledges that much of the excitement surrounding the Internet is a direct result of developments on the client side, but argues that the challenge for business developers is not the Web browser itself, but "how to plug browsers into existing business applications". And that, he argues, is a server challenge.
As these remarks highlight, the vendors with a server-side, or at least a distributed application focus, have had an easier time modifying their strategies to embrace the Internet. Browsers are thin clients (although they are getting fatter, particularly with the addition of Java) and client-focused vendors have needed to be much more creative in imagining how their tools might fit into a server-centric Internet-dominated world.
THE INTERNET CLIENT/SERVER SHAKE-OUT BEGINS
The arrival of the Internet looks set to disturb the delicate balance of competition in the client/server tools industry, as Lem Bingley reports
The Portable Network Graphics (PNG) file format specification took a step towards replacing GIF last week as it received the endorsement of the World Wide Web Consortium. PNG had been championed by CompuServe as an alternative to the GIF24 specification it had been working on to avoid paying royalties to Unisys for its patent on GIF's LZW compression technology.
Other than non-patented compression, PNG boasts automatic gamma correction across platforms (which means that colors look right no matter what OS you're using), smaller, faster-loading files, indexed-color, grayscale and truecolor image support. PNG files can also contain keywords and text strings so that a search engine could be used to find a PNG file with a specific keyword.
WorldPages Inc is spearheading a consortium of Internet companies, called Privacy Assured, that intends to certify Web sites that safeguard individuals' personal privacy.
MindSpring Enterprises has purchased the Internet access of Raleigh North Carolina's Nando.net. Nando.net will now focus exclusively on content development.
After a two-month delay caused by a plunge in the stock market, Wired Ventures has re-filed with the SEC to make 4.75 million shares publicly available, priced at $12 to $14 per share. The IPO is being underwritten by Goldman Sachs and Robertson, Stephens & Co and should be completed within the month. http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/ Graphics/ PNG/Overview.html
RECOVERY ALLIANCE AGREES TO SHARE KEYS TO ENCRYPTION
Following last week's decision by the Clinton administration to bump the legal encryption key length from 40 to 56 bits and implement an encryption key recovery system for US exporters within two years, a group of 11 hardware and software vendors announced the formation of an alliance to facilitate key recovery. The alliance is expected to ensure that no one entity owns the entire key - a major stumbling block in previous administration proposals. Of course there is still nothing to prevent the unscrupulous from purchasing more complex encryption technology within US borders and sneaking it out to the rest of the world. The 11 alliance members are Apple, Atalla, DEC, Groupe Bull, HP, IBM, NCR, RSA, Sun Microsystems, Trusted Information Systems and UPS.
ORACLE TO ENTER SUITE WARS WITH NETWORK COMPUTER
Oracle Corp is developing its own suite of network-based personal productivity applications written in Java and designed to run on Network Computers.
The company is working on "a suite of network-aware applications" comparable with Microsoft Corp's Office suite, "that assume there's a dial tone, assume there's a server at the other end," Joseph Vassallo, vice-president of the Sun products division at the company told InfoWorld last week, adding that they will have the advantage of having been designed from the start to run on a network.
More information on when the applications will be released will be given in 30 to 45 days, he said, adding that information will likely be available at Oracle Open World in San Francisco next month.
IP MULTICAST INITIATIVE KICKS OFF WITH BIG NAME BACKING
Stressing that it will be a marketing and educational forum, the charter members of the newly created IP Multicast Initiative held their first meeting last Thursday in the Bay Area. Charter members, including the likes of Cisco, Microsoft, Netscape and Sun, have shelled out $25,000 apiece to fund the Initiative.
When compared to bandwidth-hungry "unicasting", which sets up a separate point-to-point data stream between the sender and each receiver, or "broadcasting", which sends the stream to everyone on the network, multicasting uses network bandwidth more efficiently for applications that distribute data to multiple recipients, sending a single stream of data that can be accessed by any recipient who wants the information.
Chairwoman Karen Milne says that the goal of the Initiative is to increase IP Multicast usage on the Internet by serving as, essentially, the marketing agent for the technology. Milne adds, "we are adamant from the outset that we will not be doing standards". That will be the province of the IETF - which participates on the Initiative's advisory council. Milne is also the president of Stardust Technologies, the company best known for providing WinSock certification and one of the driving force behind the IP Multicast Initiative, along with Judy Estrin's Precept Software Inc.
Following Thursday's meeting, the group is chartered to expand its membership, commission studies into IP Multicast usage on the Internet, and begin a number of educational initiatives. It will commission white papers, host a seminar series and develop a home page. A general membership meeting open to all interested parties will be held on December 13th to coincide with the IETF's meeting in San Jose. An exact location has not yet been chosen, but you can bet that it won't be too far from the San Jose Fairmont.
General membership runs between $5,000 and $25,000, depending on the size of the company. The charter members are: 3COM, Bay Networks, Cabletron, Cascade Communications, Cisco, FTP Software, HP, IBM, Intel, INTELSAT, Microsoft, Netscape, Precept Software, Silicon Graphics, StarBurst Communications, Stardust, Sun Microsystems, TIBCO, Vivo Software, White Pine, and Xerox PARC. Information on the IP Multicast Initiative can be found on Stardust's Website at: www.stardust.com/multi
WEB USERS TO TIGHTEN NOOSE ON INTERNET "SPAMMERS"
A grassroots campaign to put an end to Internet spamming plans to go public with one of the Internet's first anti-spamming Websites this week.
Campaign organizer Scott Hazen Mueller has been running an anti-spam mailing list (spam@zorch.sf-bay.org) for a year and a half now. He says that recent developments like the AOL's legal battles and the Panix SYN flooding attack have all contributed to a growing sentiment on the Internet that unwanted mail needs to be blocked out. "Towards the beginning of last month", Mueller adds, " things started to hit critical mass with people wanting to block spam".
Mueller's site, which is can currently be accessed in beta form at www.sf-bay.org/spam/, will provide a variety of information on spamming issues, like information on blocking spam, a blacklist of Internet advertisers. Mueller says that for spamming to be eradicated either service providers must blockade spamming sites or consumers must stop buying products from people who spam. He hopes that the anti-spam site is a first step in making that happen.
Any mention of anti-spamming sites must also acknowledge the magnificent "Make Money Fast" Hall of Humiliation site, where hapless perpetrators of Internet chain letters, and those who respond to them, are put to public shame. The page invites direct mail companies and telemarketers to add the names on the list to their databases, as "the people on these lists have proven to be gullible and stupid - just the sort you're looking for!" www.clark.net/pub/rolf/mmf
Microsoft is beta testing a point upgrade to the Index Server for Internet Information Server 2.0 that adds hit highlighting, a helpful feature that lets users see their search terms in boldface amongst the documents Index Server 1.1 digs up.
Following the launch of UB Networks Inc's new Web-based network management system (OR 15), Bay Networks Inc has followed suit with the announcement that version 7.1 of its Optivity system will provide World Wide Web-based monitoring and viewing capabilities when it ships in November. The Web capabilities will be made available through the company's object-oriented Enterprise Command Centre.
The high-end version of DeltaPoint Inc's QuickSite Web development software is now shipping. QuickSite Developers' edition now includes JavaScript support, a full-screen HTML editor and the "Dueling Browser" technology that lets developers test their sites on Navigator and Internet Explorer simultaneously. QuickSite Developer runs on Windows 3.1, 95, and NT. It costs $295.
Hoping to turn it into a stand-alone business unit, Cabletron Systems has acquired Framingham-based Netlink Inc for about $150 million in Cabletron stock. The 80 person operation sells frame relay access and management products.
Four firewall vendors have signed up to provide customized support for Sybase's SQL Server, web.sql, NetImpact, and Open Server applications through Sybase's Firewall Partnership Program. CheckPoint Software, Livermore Software, Network-1, and Trusted Information Systems will all develop firewall proxies based on Sybase's proprietary Tabular Data Stream protocol.
Microtec Research Inc has followed Wind River Systems (OR 18) as the next real-time software vendor to license Sun's JavaOS operating system for the embedded market. Microtec will integrate JavaOS into its XRAY debugger, Spectra development system, and VRTX real-time operating system. XRAY for Java will be out in the first half of 1997, with VRTX and Spectra to follow.
And Microware Systems, which licensed Java last February, says that its OS-9 real-time operating system will be used in the forthcoming line of Internet products from Unidem America Corp, of Fort Worth, Texas. The first product will be an Email phone, due out in January 1997.
Effective November 1, 1996, Gabe Battista will be the new chief executive officer of Network Solutions, the Domain Name Registrar for the InterNIC.
BRIEFLY
DIMENSION X INC ACQUIRES GRAPHICS FIRM ANYWHERE FAST
Dimension X Inc, the year-old San Francisco-based Java development tools house has bought a small San Jose-based graphics development tools company called Anyware Fast Inc, which has just four employees.
The four have been around for some time though, and specialise in two- and three-dimensional graphics applications, Java development and virtual reality software. The partners of Anyware Fast are Alan Walkendowski, Alan Greenblatt and Chet Haase. The two Alans formed the company in 1989 after working at Computervision Corp's graphics group together. Haase left Sun Microsystems Inc's XGL graphics group two years ago to join the company. Dimension X had about 15 employees six months ago and now has 40. Its main product is its Liquid Motion Java development tool for end-users.
INTEL, NOKIA TEAM ON SPEC FOR NARROWBAND SOCKETS
Intel Corp and Nokia Oy have created a Narrowband Sockets specification which they hope will become an industry standard. The aim is to help software developers to create wireless messaging applications for mobile personal computer and SmartPhone users using familiar Internet programming interfaces.
Narrowband Sockets defines an implementation of UDP and TCP services over wireless messaging networks. The specification is compatible with a number of wireless messaging networks and protocols, including SMS in GSM, TDMA and CDMA, pACT, Reflex, Mobilex, Ardis, and TDP. Implementations for GSM/PCS1900 are expected to be available for Windows 95 and NT next quarter. Support for pACT, Mobitex, and Ardis is promised shortly. The spec is out for comment and can be found at http://www.intel.com/ial/nbs/ or ://www.club.nokia.com/
USOFT TO APPLY BUSINESS RULES TO THE WEB WITH DEVELOPER 4
Unisys Corp's Brisbane, California-based Usoft subsidiary has launched the latest version of its fourth generation development environment, Usoft Developer 4.0. Usoft, which nowadays pitches itself at what it calls the "business rules automation market", claims the tool delivers direct support of business rules, technology Usoft says is essential for the building of logical three-tier architectures. Usually, it says, these rules are defined only in analytical and design documents, and then buried deep in procedural code, which results in inconsistent enforcement of the rules and an inability to make rapid changes. Three-tiers allows a business policy layer to sit between database and presentation, providing a central place for change and extension to occur with more flexibility. Usoft 4.0 uses data modeling and standard SQL, rather than procedural language, to define and store business rules at a single point, from where they can be processed with no further programming by the Business Rules Engine. An SQL Definer provides a graphical drag and drop front-end to SQL. Rules can be made available to non-Usoft applications through ODBC. The Rules Engine replicates a local, compact copy of the central repository for each client workstation and tasks are dynamically distributed between client and server using a partitioning algorithm. The new version adds a Windows 95 look and feel and TeamWork version control and update facilities for business objects, along with multilingual support. Supporting the major relational databases, including DB2, Usoft Developer 4.0 runs on Windows 95 and WindowsNT, but can also be deployed on Windows 3.1 and Unix/Motif target systems. Pricing is $10,000 per developer, with no runtime fees. Future plans include a Web version that automatically generates Java and ActiveX applets. These will be co-ordinated with the Business Rules Engine on Usoft's web server, code-named "WebRuler", which was demonstrated for the first time at the Client/Server Expo in Paris last month. Beta testing is set to begin some time this quarter.
HDS HAS "SECOND GENERATION" NETWORK COMPUTERS
King of Prussia, Pennsylvania-based HDS Network Systems Inc reckons it's way ahead of the field in Network Computers with its @workStation, claiming that it is still the only shipping Network Computer with local Web browser and Java - and it is determined to stay that way. Last week it became the first Network Computer vendor to get into its second generation of the things, launching the new @workStation Supra-66 models, based on the Intel Corp's 66MHz 80960-HD superscalar RISC processor, which offers performance "equivalent to or faster than" today's typical desktop personal computers. The Network Computers run Java, Windows, Unix and mainframe applications "at very fast speeds over a network." Later this quarter, HDS will also move into the second generation of its netOS operating system, release 2.0 - and once again, you can license it if you want to build your own network-centric devices. But the talk of $500 machines remains ambitious: the cheapest HDS @workStation is $700, and prices for the @workStation Supra-66 models begin at $1,300, which buys a system with 8Mb of memory, and a keyboard and mouse.
FREE SOFTWARE DEFENDS AGAINST SYN FLOODING ATTACKS
In response to recent high profile denial-of-service attacks (OR 17), Berkeley Software Design and CheckPoint Software have both released free software designed to thwart hackers who flood sites with synchronising packets. Checkpoint's SYNDefender software module works with its FireWall-1 product. It can either intercept SYN packets and relay them to the server only if it determines them to be valid, or it can accept all connection attempts and move them from the backlog queue to the open connections queue, which CheckPoint says, is more easily handled by the server.
Berkeley's solution is to provide a set of patches that reduce the resources an attacker can consume as well as a kernel-level packet filter so that ISPs can filter out spoofed addresses at the source. Berkeley admits that even with their patches, a hacker could conceivably swamp the victim with bogus SYNs if they came from a T1 or faster connection - an attack strategy that would be likely to create a bottleneck with Checkpoint's product as well.
www.bsdi.com/press/19961002.html
www.checkpoint.com
Hitachi ships AppGallery, supports Java and ActiveX
Hitachi Europe has finally started to ship its much-hyped AppGallery Visual Basic-like development environment, after many months of hints and pre-briefings. The product, firmly targeted at the Windows and Windows NT world, is designed to build applications using Object Linking & Embedding and ActiveX components. Java applets are supported, but native Java component creation is not.
These components, according to Hitachi, can either be standard such as Microsoft Corp's Word or Excel or generated using AppGallery's scripting language for specific business tasks. AppGallery is shipping now, and it is supplied with pre-packaged components.
CONNECT PROMISES FASTER COMPRESSION FOR JAVA APPS
Connect! Corp, Scottsdale, Arizona has released for download its Quick Client, which it claims compresses Java applets for two to three times faster download.
Adding a Quick Server to the configuration increases performance even more. The client runs under Navigator under Windows95 and NT and is being implemented for Mac, Unix and other browsers like Explorer as Java support becomes firmer. Their web site is: www.connectcorp.com/
NOW MERCURY LAUNCHES INTO THE INTERNET SERVICES MARKET
Cable & Wireless Plc's Mercury Communications Ltd has entered the Internet services market with the launch of two Internet access offerings, Mercury Corporate Internet Direct and Mercury Internet Dial. Mercury also said it will host Netscape Communications Corp's European Web site. Mercury, which announced a £100m investment in its DataLink 2000 services in June, will invest a further £35m over the next three years in a bid to become the preferred Internet service provider in the business sector by 1998.
VOCALTEC SHIPS VOICE SOFTWARE AS ELECTRONIC MAIL ADD-ON
Israeli company VocalTec Ltd is now shipping Internet Voice Mail 3.0, voice messaging software designed as an add-on to e-mail. According to the company, the package integrates voice and text for multimedia messaging. Voice messages can be sent with a voice mail player, so that recipients without the software can hear them.
Features include the ability to save, forward, track and reply to messages, and to make voice, text and file attachments. Drag-and-drop file transfer is included. The company claims full compatibility with most major e-mail packages. A microphone and copy of Microsoft Internet Explorer are included. The street price of Internet Voice Mail 3.0 is expected to be around $30.
ARTISOFT SHIPS I.SHARE MULTIPLE SIMULTANEOUS ACCESS KIT
Artisoft Inc, headquartered in Tucson, Arizona, has announced the release of its i.Share v1.0 software for Internet and intranet access. The package is claimed to allow up to five users on a Microsoft network to share one Internet provider address simultaneously, eliminating the need for multiple Internet accounts, IP addresses, phone connections and TCP/IP stacks. It includes firewall security. The package is available free for down- load at http://www.artisoft.com/ishare; a more advanced version will be available by the end of the year.
Artisoft is also now shipping Dialogic Fax Support v2.0 for Windows NT and Windows 95, as well as Aculab E-1/ISDN support v2.0 for Windows NT. The 32-bit ActiveX controls are designed to enhance the company's Visual Voice computer telephony development tools by making it easier to build complex multi-line fax solutions and computer telephony systems for digital E-1 and ISDN phone lines.
JSB RE-INVENTS ITSELF AS WEB ACCESS CONTROL COMPANY
Having re-styled itself "the intranet company" at the end of last year, JSB Computer Systems Ltd has created a separate product and division, surfControl, to deal with the thorny issue of Internet-intranet access control. The personal computer-to-Unix terminal emulation company saw the stagnation of its core business coming, and is looking to the emerging Internet technologies for its future success.
Last year, it launched a multimedia kiosk-style front end with its own suite of back office operations for corporate intranets, which it called Intranet Jazz. However, the company is now referring to this offering as a "technology showcase," which it has apparently been touting around to potential customers. It would seem the access control options were what most impressed the customers, so, buoyed up by some independent research on the subject, JSB has launched surfControl.
Some 84% of companies interviewed in the research said connection to the Internet was a fundamental business requirement, but most of those were concerned about time-wasting by surfers. While employees were cagey about giving precise timings, 100% of those questioned admitted to surfing the Internet for personal use, averaging 15 to 30 minutes per day.
SurfControl currently runs under Novell Inc's NetWare. It consists of an access control engine, in which organisations define their access rules. The system uses Novell Directory Services to implement the access rights. In this way, users and workgroups are already defined. The administrator simply drags a user or group onto company-defined access rules. The company can create a blacklist or a whitelist, either listing all sites that a user is not permitted to visit, or alternatively listing only those sites that the user is allowed to visit. The system is equally applicable to internal intranet access or external access to the Internet.
SurfControl also includes a monitor of all sites visited by each user, so that companies can build up the blacklist as they go. JSB will also bring out versions of surfControl under Windows NT and Unix, it said.
JSB's European managing director Steve Purdham becomes president of surfControl. He said the company's traditional business will continue to be an important revenue stream, and he does not see it dwindling in the near future. In fact, 60% of the Intranet Jazz product has been incorporated in a new 32-bit intranet-enabled version of the company's Multiview terminal emulation product, soon to be released as Multiview 2000. However, Purdham says he expects surfControl to become JSB's main business in the next few years. The NetWare version of surfControl is available now, on CD-ROM or to download from JSB's Web site. In the UK, it costs an expensive sounding £5,000 for the first 50 concurrent users and £4,000 for each additional 50 users. http://www.surfco ntrol.com/ (but don't get into trouble for it).
FOLLOWING GRANITE, CISCO WILL CONTINUE ON TAKE-OVER TRAIL
Cisco Systems Inc dash for growth by acquisition has by no means run out of steam, and the company expects to acquire six to 10 new companies in the next 12 months, chief executive John Chambers told analysts last week, adding that most of the acquisitions will be to add new or next generation technology.
Granite Systems Inc - the acquisition of which was completed last week -is typical of what Cisco will pursue - a small company with cutting edge, next generation technology that no one else matched, he said. Chambers predicted Cisco's quarterly revenue growth would continue to vacillate quarter to quarter because of increasingly short lead times in product sales, which have shrunk to one-to-four weeks before they want them, down from eight to 12 weeks a year ago. Revenues grew 19% between its second and third quarter and then jumped 31% between its third and fourth quarters. Cisco will concentrate on the integration of speech, data and video, the dial-up market for Internet access, and on security - firewalls and encryption software.
In the race to see whose ubiquitous network architecture can swallow whose, Oracle last week announced its Network Computing Architecture, which will incorporate HTTP, CORBA, IIOP, Java, Visual Basic, SQL and ActiveX, as well as providing interfaces to legacy systems.
IIOP and HTTP will be what Oracle calls the "plumbing" of the framework and CORBA will be the heart of the object system, which Oracle intends to eventually inject into its entire product line. The architecture has received the "endorsement" of 46 industry players including Sun, Novell and HP.
Oracle, never what one would call best of friends with Microsoft, also appears less than sincere in its pledge to embrace ActiveX. It claims that ActiveX "on the desktop" will be bridged, but when asked about DCOM or ActiveX on the server side, Oracle played down its importance rather than promising a full ActiveX-CORBA connection. Oracle Vice President of Internet Server Technologies Peter Relan says that Oracle's initiative is in
DOT Gossip
Netscape Communications Corp says 80% of its turnover comes from companies, not individuals, and that most are using its software to set up intranets and distribute information inside the company, not to set up Internet sites says the Wall Street Journal, adding that Microsoft Corp says 80% of its Internet servers are used on intranets.
AT&T Corp is to make Microsoft Corp's Explorer its preferred browser on the AT&T WorldNet Service, which will get its own button - alongside all the now manifold other buttons, on the Windows 95 desktop: analysts told Reuter that while Microsoft is beginning to gain market share in the browser market, Netscape still has unrivalled dominance in the Internet server software market, where all the real revenues are coming from.
America Online and Netcom have already agreed to make Explorer their default browser, and, according to CNet, Prodigy and Sprint are also on the verge of signing deal this week. The Earthlink network also signed an agreement last week, and also claims an icon on the Windows desktop. Just how much room is left?
Microsoft Corp is used to having words - like "open" and "hand over" - mean just what it wants them to mean, no more and no less, so according to the Wall Street Journal, when at the ActiveX meeting in New York last Tuesday, a software developer questioned why Microsoft handpicked the Open Group committee that will oversee ActiveX instead of putting it to an industry vote, an Open Group staffer said the process of selecting committee members would "evolve" over time.
Microsoft Corp says the beta II version of its Normandy Internet server software has been shipped to preview customers on CD-ROM and is available for downloading from the World Wide Web. Normandy is designed to help users cultivate information on the Web, address difficulties in content publishing and site management, and conduct business on line. Microsoft Internet Chat Server and Content Replication Server, two other applications in the Normandy family, are scheduled to be available within two weeks.
Microsoft Corp's Visual J++ development tool is now "widely available", says Redmond.
America Online shares slumped this week after the company's latest warning that other on-line services and direct Internet access providers could spell tougher competition in future: the shares fell $3.75 to $31.75 in late trading on the New York Stock Exchange. The company reiterated comments it made to analysts warning of potentially high churn rates, the rate at which new customers join and leave the service. Some analysts were surprised at the stock's fall, saying there was nothing new in the filing to merit a sell-off; America Online will spend more than $100m marketing to personal computer owners who are not current America Online members.
Nippon Broadcasting System Inc and Recruit Group companies will start distributing music over the Internet on October 26, giving their site the yearningly wannabe name of the Digital Woodstock site. It will enable customers to download CD-quality music for about a dollar a song. The service will start with some 100 songs recorded by independent artists, increasing to 500 within a year. The site will use encryption technology to make sure only those that pay can listen. Customers will need to register and give a credit card number to download player software from the site - but it will take around 10 minutes to download an average-length song with a 28.8Kbps modem.
Seeking to confound those that say it is a company with no future, Novell Inc plans to invest all of $300m to build a new campus in San Jose which is planned to employ 3,000 people after six years. According to the San Jose Mercury News it chose a site in North San Jose it already owned rather than go downtown to cut construction time to a year from two; operations include the development of products used for network management, the Internet and corporate intranets.
The UUnet Technologies Inc Fairfax, Virginia arm of MFS Communications, Omaha has created a new business unit focused on Web server- hosting and related opportunities. The Web Services Business Unit, is comprised of sales, marketing and technical resources for the company to manage Web sites for corporate customers. UUnet is also trying to spread alarm and despondency by warning darkly that security risks to a customer's network can increase if customers dare to try to manages their own Web site.
Borland International Inc has announced InterClient, a JDBC-compliant connectivity interface for its InterBase cross-platform SQL database. Written entirely in Java, InterClient contains both client and server elements, and acts as a web-distributable front-end for InterBase. It's claimed to be the first true JDBC driver implemented completely in Java.
IBM Corp is brandishing research from International Data Corp which it says shows that its Lotus Notes won 1.61m new users in the first half of this year, 37% of the total of new users, and more than the combined sales of Novell Inc's Groupwise, which came second, Microsoft Corp's Exchange, third and Netscape Communications Corp's Collabra Share, which came fourth.
Objective Blend 1.0, Stingray Software Inc's Java class library is now shipping. It extends Sun's Abstract Windowing Library and comes with a collection of components like a hierarchical tree and graphical slide control and a mechanism for filtering text entry via a data mask. Objective Blend 1.0 costs $295 and supports Symantec CafŽ, Visual J++ and Borland Latte development environments. www.stingsoft.com
In an effort to draw more new business, ISP EarthLink Network last week announced that it had cut its Web site set up fees from $1,121 to $279 for a 25Mb Website. At the same time, it raised its monthly charges from $109 to $159, which means that, in the long run, users will actually be paying more.
Microsoft Corp's Internet Explorer version 4.0 browser is expected by group vice-president Paul Maritz to be in beta test by year-end. It will be tightly integrated with the Windows 95 operating system, but although it will be available early next year, it would be "premature" to project a release date.
Mecklermedia's Internet World browser watch site is offering an early look at the new interface to Netscape Corp's forthcoming Navigator version 4.0 browser, the main changes being to the toolbar, plus the addition of a "Tools" menu. The same source hears that, while Netscape 4.0 is set to go into beta around the middle of October, the beta of Microsoft Corp's Internet Explorer may now have been delayed until mid-November. http://browserwatch.iworld.com.
(c) 1996 May not be copied
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WEEKLY DISPATCHES FROM THE INTERNET FRONT
October 7 - October 11 1996 Issue No 19
ORACLE WEIGHS IN WITH YET ANOTHER NETWORK ARCHITECTURE
In the race to see whose ubiquitous network architecture can swallow whose, Oracle last week announced its Network Computing Architecture, which will incorporate HTTP, CORBA, IIOP, Java, Visual Basic, SQL and ActiveX, as well as providing interfaces to legacy systems.
IIOP and HTTP will be what Oracle calls the "plumbing" of the framework and CORBA will be the heart of the object system, which Oracle intends to eventually inject into its entire product line. The architecture has received the "endorsement" of 46 industry players including Sun, Novell and HP.
Oracle, never what one would call best of friends with Microsoft, also appears less than sincere in its pledge to embrace ActiveX. It claims that ActiveX "on the desktop" will be bridged, but when asked about DCOM or ActiveX on the server side, Oracle played down its importance rather than promising a full ActiveX-CORBA connection. Oracle Vice President of Internet Server Technologies Peter Relan says that Oracle's initiative is in no way in conflict with Microsoft's move to open up ActiveX or with Netscape One, but Microsoft is not on the list of supporters. Netscape is. When asked if Microsoft might be somehow forced to conform to this specification, Relan answered, "we certainly think that that is an interesting idea. That's very viable".
NASA TESTS SHOW SATELLITE INTERNET NETWORKS ARE SLOW
Plans to build a global, broadband "Internet-in-the-sky" by the satellite industry may be significantly held back by problems with TCP/IP - the core communications protocol of the Internet.
Scientists at NASA have been finding out that the vast distances covered by the data to reach the satellites involves enough delay - often as long as half a second - to cause the transmission control protocol to think there is an error on the network, and to begin its process of checking, duplicating and retransmitting lost segments. That results in a major loss of performance. In NASA trials, data that would have been reaching transmission rates up to 155 megabits per second over fibre optics slowed to just 10 megabits per second using a satellite network.
TCP was originally developed specifically for the reliable delivery of data. Downgrading the current performance of TCP/IP to improve its performance on satellites would not be an option, according to chairman of the Internet Engineer Taskforce Fred Baker, quoted in an article last week in the Los Angeles Times.
Huge sums are being invested in attempts to marry together the Internet and satellite communications systems, one of the most prominent efforts being Teledesic Corp, based in Kirkland, Washington, set up by telecommunications pioneer Craig McCaw and backed personally to the tune of $10m by Bill Gates. The company is planning to have a two-way, broadband connection using an 840-satellite Teledesic Network intended for voice, data, video conferencing and high-performance Internet access by the year 2002. The multi-satellite distributed architecture, with dynamic routing and robust scalability, was even modelled on the Internet, while supposedly providing the added benefits of real-time capability and location-insensitive access.
Teledesic has responded to the findings, spearheaded by Daniel Glover, a Cleveland-based project engineer with NASA, by issuing its own white paper, claiming it will be able to work around the problem. It also points out that its low-orbit satellites are less susceptible to delay than geostationary satellites.
JAVA SHOP MARIMBA LAUNCHES ITS FIRST PRODUCTS - CASTANET
After six months of secrecy, high-profile but tight-lipped Java start-up Marimba Inc, founded by JavaSoft team members Kim Polese, Arthur van Hoff and Sami Shao back in May (OR 1)- will finally say how it is going to make money this Monday.
Sticking to its musical percussion theme, Marimba's lead product is to be called Castanet, a suite of applications that will enable automatic repeated updating of code across the Internet. Castanet will be immediately made available at www.marimba.com.
Using Marimba's proprietary Application Distribution Protocol (ADP), Castanet users can connect with server side "Transmitters" using "Tuners". Tuners can receive and save applications to the client's hard drive in the form of "Channels". A Channel might be a customized newsfeed, or even an executable application. According to Marimba CEO, Kim Polese, the effect is not unlike that of a hybrid CD-ROM in which the bulk of the application resides on the client's hard drive - here in the form of a Channel - with continual updates being received from the Transmitter.
Polese says that the software will enable publishers to create and distribute Pointcast-like applications, but that Castanet goes "a step beyond this to enable software distribution". And if the enterprise is really where the money is, you can bet Marimba will try to be there, selling its products as computer-based training and software distribution and versioning solutions to the Fortune 1,000.
Though Sun is listed as a supporter of Castanet, it seems unlikely that the Network Computing profile it has endorsed along with Oracle would provide enough hard disk memory to support a respectable number of channels. Polese says "you need some kind of local storage on your local computer." The Network Computer assumes infinite bandwidth. Four megabytes are not sufficient for any sort of sophisticated application.
The Tuner is written entirely in Java to take advantage of its sandboxing capabilities. It will be distributed free of charge to non-commercial users. It will execute non-Java code in Castanet version 1.1, which is expected in Q1, 1997. The transmitter, written in C++, will cost between $995 and $10,000, depending on the number of users. Marimba will release a Java version as soon as Sun gets the language to compile as fast as C or C++.
Marimba will also announce the availability of a Repeater Kit for $495, a Proxy Server for $995 and a visual builder for Java, called Bongo. Repeaters work in tandem with Transmitters to balance the request load from Tuners. Proxy Servers work on the client side - inside a firewall for example, to transmit to multiple Tuners.
MICROSOFT'S ACTIVEX GOES TO THE OPEN GROUP - BUT FURTHER DICKERING LIES AHEAD
A secret ballot of 63 to 19 counted by Deloitte & Touche cast ActiveX into the waiting arms of the Open Group last week, as expected (OR 19). Each of the 84 companies present at the ActiveX summit in New York were allowed one vote. There were two abstentions and no public resistance to speak of. Apparently Microsoft's enemies such as Sun, whose two representatives sat surprisingly mute, don't want to appear to be naysayers in public and figure their experience with standards processes will afford them an advantage down the road. If so, they may be kidding themselves about how much leverage they'll have even at the next Open Group meeting where they may think they can derail the train.
The opportunity for opposition may have come and gone as early as the Open Group board meeting on September 18 that unanimously sanctioned its involvement with ActiveX - a vote that included Sun's. Netscape, whose existence nominally necessitated Microsoft's Open Group maneuver in the first place and who abstained from voting, had thought to pitch the meeting on the merits of moving ActiveX to the Object Management Group. However, its representative Carl Cargill was dissuaded early Tuesday morning from making a full-tilt appeal by Microsoft who told him, he said, that no other proposals would be entertained.
Microsoft recommended that the assembly pick the Open Group proposal over the only other one available, a consortium that Microsoft would set up and run. Otherwise the two proposals were largely similar. Cargill did succeed in drawing the meeting's attention, however briefly, to the lack of any provision for creating interoperability between ActiveX objects and the OMG's rival Corba Internet InterORB Protocol (IIOP), which Netscape backs. The Open Group made noises about welcoming the opportunity to expand its relationship with OMG, but neither it nor Microsoft could offer anything more concrete than suggesting that if there is a "genuine desire" for Corba interoperability "then we will examine it."
INCOMPATIBLE OBJECT MODELS
That leaves the industry with two incompatible object models for the present and Netscape with the decision of whether it will have to support ActiveX as well as IIOP. It also casts a pall over the future of the OMG and its alternative Corba technology, which were Microsoft's real targets all along, since he who controls the infrastructure wins. Analysts were hard pressed to decide whether we're in for a new round of object skirmishes that fragment the industry or whether we will look back on last Tuesday as the end of the so-called object wars. David Smith of the Gartner Group, who attended the meeting, said "it may be the end of open systems as we know it."
From here on out any failures can be laid at the Open Group's door, but even that's doubtful since there's little left for it to do. Meanwhile, OMG chief Chris Stone, conscious of Microsoft's hand inside the puppet, blasted the Microsoft-Open Group alliance as "work for hire." He called it "a closed group that decides what to build and when and how much to spend on it. It has nothing to do with standardization," he said in his e-mail.
CORE TECHNOLOGIES
The ActiveX Core Technologies that Microsoft is currently willing to submit to the 300-man Open Group are now scheduled to become the subject of an Open Group Pre-Structured Technology (PST) collaborative development submission by October 31. By then the submission must also be blessed by the Open Group, a recent innovation created by the Unix establishment as a holding company for two of its consortia, X/Open and the Open Software Foundation. The proposal calls for the formation of an "Active Group" under Open Group's auspices and 15 companies were handpicked by Microsoft to man the Active Group's Steering Committee before and after the October 1 meeting.
Microsoft defined the ActiveX Core technologies it is willing to turn over to the Open Group as its Component Object Model (COM) and Distributed COM (DCOM); its DCE-derived remote procedure call (MS-RPC); its NTLM Standard Security Provider Interface (SSPI) for secure components invocation; its Structured Storage, a transactions-based hierarchical file format for applications to share files across applications and platforms; its Registry, a database for COM components and their configuration information; its Monikers for persistent intelligent names; and its Automation which allows objects to expose their functionality to high-level programming languages and scripting environments. All are technologies that ride above the operating system, which of course is excluded from anything touching on standards. Other components may ultimately be necessary. However, for the moment, Microsoft will provide the specifications, source and binary reference implementations and conformance test suite for these technologies. There will be reference implementations on Mac System 7.x and Unix as well as Win32. Software AG, which has been working at Microsoft's instigation on porting DCOM to non-Microsoft platforms last week put a preview of its Solaris 2.x work on the Web. It is determined to have beta versions of Solaris, AIX, Linux and Digital Unix ready by Christmas.
DCE IN THE DEAL
Meanwhile, as part of the deal, ActiveX will use OSF's Distributed Computing Environment (DCE) to enhance its interoperability. Microsoft described what it itself was throwing in as 750,000 lines of code, the results of a $100 million investment and 500 man-years of work. It would include ActiveX, COM and DCOM copyrights, trademarks, intellectual property and patents.
According to the proposal, the Active Group would govern future enhancements to the Core technologies. The Active Group in turn would be controlled by a Steering Committee composed of a mix of standing and rotating members. As well as putting its own name on the list, it recruited DEC, HP, SAP, Siemens Nixdorf, Software AG and Sybase's Powersoft Division as standing members, but Computer Associates, NCR, Adobe and Lotus were subsequently added, and there is also supposed to be an unnamed company from the Open Group Customer Council. The rotating members, who are supposed to serve for a one-year term, were Borland, VideoSoft, Wall Data, Visio and Sheridan Systems. General members are envisioned to be concerns that have taken or intend to take a license to the specs or reference implementations.
The Steering Committee, which appears to be all-powerful, is supposed to create and manage Technology Subgroups, direct the development of associated technologies and manage ports to non-Microsoft platforms. It also gets to vote on new rotating and standing members, new technologies to be included in the ActiveX Core Technologies and the process for licensing and testing each adopted technology.
Microsoft would grant the Open Group a non-exclusive license to ActiveX Core Technology including source and documentation redistribution rights. Open Group says it will sublicense the technology on "fair and equitable terms" that are otherwise unspecified. Sublicensees would have to agree to share intellectual property rights when what they have becomes an Approved Update but that would give them rights to modify the source code to create reference implementations and ship the new binaries, though not the source itself. Licenses would be granted only for a network component built on top of a specification or a ported reference implementation. The first Steering Committee meeting is set for the second week in November.
Maureen O'Gara.
MICROSOFT'S FRONTPAGE 97 TO ARRIVE IN BETA THIS WEEK
This week Microsoft is expected to announce the availability of the beta version of its FrontPage 97 Web authoring tool. Boasting better integration with Microsoft Office and improved ease-of-use, FrontPage will come bundled with Microsoft's Personal Web Server for Windows 95, Microsoft Image Composer, which allows users to create and customize sprite images, and of course Internet Explorer 3.0. The package will also include WebPost Wizard, a feature that will allow FrontPage to copy Web files to servers without needing extensions.
The new product will also support HTML source code editing and OLE drag and drop for HTML, GIF and JPEG files from the Windows desktop straight onto the Web. Also expected is an improved visual interface: Folder View will let users see the directory structure of their Web site with a look and feel consistent with Windows 95 Explorer. JavaScript, VBScript and ActiveX will all be supported.
Microsoft would not comment on pricing or availability of the final product, but rumor has it that FrontPage 97 will be ready to ship by the end of the year.
SUN LAUNCHES THREE NEW NETRA INTERNET SERVERS
The next raft of Sun Microsystems Netra Internet servers were unveiled last week. There are three new NetServer 3.1 models: the Netra i 4000 and i 5000 are Ultra Enterprise 4000 and 5000 boxes with Internet bells and whistles, and the Netra i 2/120 is based on the two-way Ultra departmental server.
The servers come with Netscape SuiteSpot Internet software, with added Sun security stuff like virus scanning, firewall and intrusion detection software. Sun claims the two-way 2/1200 performs up to 626 operation per second based on SPECWeb96, compared to 305 for the 1/170E. Netscape has apparently had a 2/1200 handling up to 17m hits a day from its Web site.
Pricing comes later this month, with the machines themselves due out this quarter. As for when Sun's own Web server suite, code-named Vishnu, might be bundled with the Netras, Netra product manager Raj Sehgal claimed to not even have heard of Vishnu (OLR 17). Apparently it is being developed out of Sun's Solstice business unit.
IBM DOWNPLAYS TALK OF SUITE-SPOT PORT TO OS/2 WARP
IBM public relations last week was downplaying remarks made by Software Group Senior vice president John M. Thompson in a recent PCWeek interview. Thompson had suggested that IBM had been close to closing a deal with Netscape Communications to port Netscape's SuiteSpot Internet Servers to IBM's Warp Server and that some sort of announcement was hoped for before year's end - potentially pitting Warp Server with SuiteSpot in direct competition with IBM's own Lotus Domino server.
This week an IBM spokesperson told Online Reporter that Thompson's remarks had been taken out of context and that IBM was not in the final stages of any discussion at this point. The company did admit, however, that it would probably take only one major OS/2 customer to convince IBM to do the port.
NEW CYBERCASH CYBERCOINS AIMED AT SMALL PAYMENTS
CyberCash is piloting a micropayment service, called CyberCoin, that is targeting the kind of small value monetary transactions - between $0.25 and $10 - that have up until now been impractical and uneconomic to collect over the Internet.
If all goes well, CyberCash says, we'll be conducting secure electronic microtransactions by clicking an icon in our "electronic wallets" - which, presumably, will be filled with electronic cash transferred from bank or credit accounts, and which will reside on our PCs. Whenever a payment is made, the merchant collects from the bank.
Cybercash has announced partnerships with First Union, First USA Paymentech, First Data Corporation, and Michigan National Bank to set up the considerable back-end processing that would be required for such a scheme to work. www.cybercash.com
APPLE AND NETSCAPE WORK TOGETHER ON VIDEO STANDARDS
Apple Computer Inc and Netscape Communications Corporation are to jointly develop interoperable, standards-based applications and development tools to create real-time audio and video conferencing over the Internet. Netscape also plans to bundle Apple's QuickTime Conferencing (QTC) technology with its Navigator 3.0 Internet client software for the Mac, allowing Netscape to offer an audio conferencing solution, CoolTalk, enabling Mac users to call Mac, Windows and Unix users. An online whiteboard will be available soon after the initial release, adding cross-platform collaboration capabilities to CoolTalk. In its initial release, QTC-enabled CoolTalk will be based on Netscape's LiveMedia protocols, which should soon include the emerging H.323 standard. Netscape Navigator 3.0 with CoolTalk for the Mac is expected to cost $49. The online whiteboard should ship early next year.
MOTOROLA SOFTWARE MODEMS WILL EMERGE LATER THIS YEAR
Motorola Inc has announced more details of its plans for software-only modems, saying its first products will be host-based software running on Windows 95 PCs, and will be launched later this year.
According to Mike Tramontano, the company's product manager for information systems, they will be marketed through OEM deals; he said that the technology is currently being demonstrated to a number of PC manufacturers. In addition, said Tramontano, Motorola is expecting it to be incorporated in devices such as PDAs and set-top boxes.
Although there is a hardware component in the form of a transceiver to interface with the phone line, the company says its software modems will work out cheaper and lighter than current versions, as well as being more readily upgradable. Tramontano denied that the devices would be any less sophisticated than their hardware brethren, claiming: "We fully intend to have our software communications products keep pace with the features and function set of hardware-based modems." He claimed that in the long run, they would make traditional modems redundant.
But modem manufacturers remain sceptical, saying that the software will impose a big load on the host CPU. Many modems already use chips of near equivalent power to the Intel processors running the main system.
WEB TV GETS CASH INJECTION FROM MICROSOFT, FOUR OTHERS
Microsoft Corp took a minority equity position in television-browser start-up WebTV Networks. Four other firms announced investments in the company at the same time: Citicorp, VeriFone Inc, Times Mirror Corp and Lauder Partners. No financial details were released.
Microsoft plans to co-develop future television/Internet browsing technologies with the San Jose, California-based firm and will integrate elements of Internet Explorer into a future release of the WebTV browser. Redmond may also be interested in the smart card slot in WebTV's hardware reference design for electronic commerce purposes; other software big boys such as IBM Corp have been making announcements in the area of electronic commerce left, right and center.
WebTV licensed its hardware reference design to television manufacturers Sony Electronics Inc and Philips Consumer Electronics Inc, which began shipping TV-Internet set-top boxes last month. WebTV provides the online service, thereby making money two ways. It expects to sign up more hardware licensees in the near future. "We're talking to everyone," the firm said.
The last time anyone felt like counting, there were 148 different tools claiming to support client/server development. Bloor Research, the software industry watcher which did the arithmetic, reckons that's about 125 too many.
Quite why there should be room for so many players in the market is a matter for debate, but the arrival of the Internet may well precipitate the shake-out that analysts like Bloor have long predicted, and that tools purchasers would dearly like to see.
In recent months, every one of the tools vendors has articulated some sort of Internet or intranet-focused strategy. Some have felt compelled to take immediate action - cobbling together Web extensions to add to their existing development environments. Other vendors have dug deeper and are re-architecting their offerings with the Internet in mind. Others still - principally those without a large user-base to worry about - are building completely new Internet-centric tools from scratch.
TWO CAMPS
The Internet has divided the client/server industry into two camps. While all agree that the Internet is hugely significant, enthusiasm for the new environment tends to vary in inverse proportion to the pre-Internet fortunes of the vendor. So tools companies that have struggled to show healthy growth and make money in recent years - and that means most - are hoping that the Internet will prove enough of a mould breaker to overturn the existing order. Naturally, these suppliers tend to paint the Internet as a revolutionary change which renders past preferences obsolete. By contrast, today's market leaders - Powersoft, FortŽ, Oracle, Microsoft and others - are more reserved. They describe the Internet impact in less apocalyptic terms, maintaining that the change can be accommodated without a loss of serenity - or profitability.
LIFEBOAT
Centura Software Corp is one company that fits firmly into the first camp. In its previous incarnation as Gupta Corp, its SQLWindows lost out to Powersoft Corp's fierce marketing of PowerBuilder. It is now basing its strategy on two planks - the move to the use of component software that has been inspired by the widespread adoption of object-oriented software techniques, and, needless to say, the Internet.
The company describes the shift to Internet computing in epochal terms: "The Internet is a major paradigm shift in the way organizations implement business solutions and provide access to information," states Centura in a recent white paper Bridging the Internet and Client/Server. It adds that the shift is "on the magnitude of the introduction of the personal computer."
Centura's Internet-as-lifeboat stance manifests itself further when it comes to Java. "Our eventual aim is to replace the existing Centura run-time with a wholly Java solution," enthuses Dhunji Bilimoria, Centura's product manager for Europe, Middle East and Africa. This is despite the fact that Java is still a relatively untried technology for large-scale applications, and that such a move would result in many of what Bilimoria admits are "non-trivial" problems.
Fort, a company in the other category - and one that Centura is chasing - has its own Internet strategy, of course, but it is much more understated. The company has already released a Web Software Development Kit, which is scheduled to gain Java capability before the end of the year, but otherwise, FortŽ is distinctly reserved in its assessment of all things Internet. It describes the arrival of the Web as a logical progression from client/server architectures, rather than a sweeping change, and has made little alteration to its underlying sales pitch.
"Fort is sold on the basis of application partitioning," says Rich Scheffer, vice president of marketing at the company. "That means breaking the application into pieces, with a middle tier between the client and the database to enforce the business policies so that the client doesn't have to deal with these issues. The Internet has simply taken this idea one stage further. It has made the client even less important."
SERVER CHALLENGE
Scheffer acknowledges that much of the excitement surrounding the Internet is a direct result of developments on the client side, but argues that the challenge for business developers is not the Web browser itself, but "how to plug browsers into existing business applications". And that, he argues, is a server challenge.
As these remarks highlight, the vendors with a server-side, or at least a distributed application focus, have had an easier time modifying their strategies to embrace the Internet. Browsers are thin clients (although they are getting fatter, particularly with the addition of Java) and client-focused vendors have needed to be much more creative in imagining how their tools might fit into a server-centric Internet-dominated world.
THE INTERNET CLIENT/SERVER SHAKE-OUT BEGINS
The arrival of the Internet looks set to disturb the delicate balance of competition in the client/server tools industry, as Lem Bingley reports
The Portable Network Graphics (PNG) file format specification took a step towards replacing GIF last week as it received the endorsement of the World Wide Web Consortium. PNG had been championed by CompuServe as an alternative to the GIF24 specification it had been working on to avoid paying royalties to Unisys for its patent on GIF's LZW compression technology.
Other than non-patented compression, PNG boasts automatic gamma correction across platforms (which means that colors look right no matter what OS you're using), smaller, faster-loading files, indexed-color, grayscale and truecolor image support. PNG files can also contain keywords and text strings so that a search engine could be used to find a PNG file with a specific keyword.
WorldPages Inc is spearheading a consortium of Internet companies, called Privacy Assured, that intends to certify Web sites that safeguard individuals' personal privacy.
MindSpring Enterprises has purchased the Internet access of Raleigh North Carolina's Nando.net. Nando.net will now focus exclusively on content development.
After a two-month delay caused by a plunge in the stock market, Wired Ventures has re-filed with the SEC to make 4.75 million shares publicly available, priced at $12 to $14 per share. The IPO is being underwritten by Goldman Sachs and Robertson, Stephens & Co and should be completed within the month. http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/ Graphics/ PNG/Overview.html
RECOVERY ALLIANCE AGREES TO SHARE KEYS TO ENCRYPTION
Following last week's decision by the Clinton administration to bump the legal encryption key length from 40 to 56 bits and implement an encryption key recovery system for US exporters within two years, a group of 11 hardware and software vendors announced the formation of an alliance to facilitate key recovery. The alliance is expected to ensure that no one entity owns the entire key - a major stumbling block in previous administration proposals. Of course there is still nothing to prevent the unscrupulous from purchasing more complex encryption technology within US borders and sneaking it out to the rest of the world. The 11 alliance members are Apple, Atalla, DEC, Groupe Bull, HP, IBM, NCR, RSA, Sun Microsystems, Trusted Information Systems and UPS.
ORACLE TO ENTER SUITE WARS WITH NETWORK COMPUTER
Oracle Corp is developing its own suite of network-based personal productivity applications written in Java and designed to run on Network Computers.
The company is working on "a suite of network-aware applications" comparable with Microsoft Corp's Office suite, "that assume there's a dial tone, assume there's a server at the other end," Joseph Vassallo, vice-president of the Sun products division at the company told InfoWorld last week, adding that they will have the advantage of having been designed from the start to run on a network.
More information on when the applications will be released will be given in 30 to 45 days, he said, adding that information will likely be available at Oracle Open World in San Francisco next month.
IP MULTICAST INITIATIVE KICKS OFF WITH BIG NAME BACKING
Stressing that it will be a marketing and educational forum, the charter members of the newly created IP Multicast Initiative held their first meeting last Thursday in the Bay Area. Charter members, including the likes of Cisco, Microsoft, Netscape and Sun, have shelled out $25,000 apiece to fund the Initiative.
When compared to bandwidth-hungry "unicasting", which sets up a separate point-to-point data stream between the sender and each receiver, or "broadcasting", which sends the stream to everyone on the network, multicasting uses network bandwidth more efficiently for applications that distribute data to multiple recipients, sending a single stream of data that can be accessed by any recipient who wants the information.
Chairwoman Karen Milne says that the goal of the Initiative is to increase IP Multicast usage on the Internet by serving as, essentially, the marketing agent for the technology. Milne adds, "we are adamant from the outset that we will not be doing standards". That will be the province of the IETF - which participates on the Initiative's advisory council. Milne is also the president of Stardust Technologies, the company best known for providing WinSock certification and one of the driving force behind the IP Multicast Initiative, along with Judy Estrin's Precept Software Inc.
Following Thursday's meeting, the group is chartered to expand its membership, commission studies into IP Multicast usage on the Internet, and begin a number of educational initiatives. It will commission white papers, host a seminar series and develop a home page. A general membership meeting open to all interested parties will be held on December 13th to coincide with the IETF's meeting in San Jose. An exact location has not yet been chosen, but you can bet that it won't be too far from the San Jose Fairmont.
General membership runs between $5,000 and $25,000, depending on the size of the company. The charter members are: 3COM, Bay Networks, Cabletron, Cascade Communications, Cisco, FTP Software, HP, IBM, Intel, INTELSAT, Microsoft, Netscape, Precept Software, Silicon Graphics, StarBurst Communications, Stardust, Sun Microsystems, TIBCO, Vivo Software, White Pine, and Xerox PARC. Information on the IP Multicast Initiative can be found on Stardust's Website at: www.stardust.com/multi
WEB USERS TO TIGHTEN NOOSE ON INTERNET "SPAMMERS"
A grassroots campaign to put an end to Internet spamming plans to go public with one of the Internet's first anti-spamming Websites this week.
Campaign organizer Scott Hazen Mueller has been running an anti-spam mailing list (spam@zorch.sf-bay.org) for a year and a half now. He says that recent developments like the AOL's legal battles and the Panix SYN flooding attack have all contributed to a growing sentiment on the Internet that unwanted mail needs to be blocked out. "Towards the beginning of last month", Mueller adds, " things started to hit critical mass with people wanting to block spam".
Mueller's site, which is can currently be accessed in beta form at www.sf-bay.org/spam/, will provide a variety of information on spamming issues, like information on blocking spam, a blacklist of Internet advertisers. Mueller says that for spamming to be eradicated either service providers must blockade spamming sites or consumers must stop buying products from people who spam. He hopes that the anti-spam site is a first step in making that happen.
Any mention of anti-spamming sites must also acknowledge the magnificent "Make Money Fast" Hall of Humiliation site, where hapless perpetrators of Internet chain letters, and those who respond to them, are put to public shame. The page invites direct mail companies and telemarketers to add the names on the list to their databases, as "the people on these lists have proven to be gullible and stupid - just the sort you're looking for!" www.clark.net/pub/rolf/mmf
Microsoft is beta testing a point upgrade to the Index Server for Internet Information Server 2.0 that adds hit highlighting, a helpful feature that lets users see their search terms in boldface amongst the documents Index Server 1.1 digs up.
Following the launch of UB Networks Inc's new Web-based network management system (OR 15), Bay Networks Inc has followed suit with the announcement that version 7.1 of its Optivity system will provide World Wide Web-based monitoring and viewing capabilities when it ships in November. The Web capabilities will be made available through the company's object-oriented Enterprise Command Centre.
The high-end version of DeltaPoint Inc's QuickSite Web development software is now shipping. QuickSite Developers' edition now includes JavaScript support, a full-screen HTML editor and the "Dueling Browser" technology that lets developers test their sites on Navigator and Internet Explorer simultaneously. QuickSite Developer runs on Windows 3.1, 95, and NT. It costs $295.
Hoping to turn it into a stand-alone business unit, Cabletron Systems has acquired Framingham-based Netlink Inc for about $150 million in Cabletron stock. The 80 person operation sells frame relay access and management products.
Four firewall vendors have signed up to provide customized support for Sybase's SQL Server, web.sql, NetImpact, and Open Server applications through Sybase's Firewall Partnership Program. CheckPoint Software, Livermore Software, Network-1, and Trusted Information Systems will all develop firewall proxies based on Sybase's proprietary Tabular Data Stream protocol.
Microtec Research Inc has followed Wind River Systems (OR 18) as the next real-time software vendor to license Sun's JavaOS operating system for the embedded market. Microtec will integrate JavaOS into its XRAY debugger, Spectra development system, and VRTX real-time operating system. XRAY for Java will be out in the first half of 1997, with VRTX and Spectra to follow.
And Microware Systems, which licensed Java last February, says that its OS-9 real-time operating system will be used in the forthcoming line of Internet products from Unidem America Corp, of Fort Worth, Texas. The first product will be an Email phone, due out in January 1997.
Effective November 1, 1996, Gabe Battista will be the new chief executive officer of Network Solutions, the Domain Name Registrar for the InterNIC.
BRIEFLY
DIMENSION X INC ACQUIRES GRAPHICS FIRM ANYWHERE FAST
Dimension X Inc, the year-old San Francisco-based Java development tools house has bought a small San Jose-based graphics development tools company called Anyware Fast Inc, which has just four employees.
The four have been around for some time though, and specialise in two- and three-dimensional graphics applications, Java development and virtual reality software. The partners of Anyware Fast are Alan Walkendowski, Alan Greenblatt and Chet Haase. The two Alans formed the company in 1989 after working at Computervision Corp's graphics group together. Haase left Sun Microsystems Inc's XGL graphics group two years ago to join the company. Dimension X had about 15 employees six months ago and now has 40. Its main product is its Liquid Motion Java development tool for end-users.
INTEL, NOKIA TEAM ON SPEC FOR NARROWBAND SOCKETS
Intel Corp and Nokia Oy have created a Narrowband Sockets specification which they hope will become an industry standard. The aim is to help software developers to create wireless messaging applications for mobile personal computer and SmartPhone users using familiar Internet programming interfaces.
Narrowband Sockets defines an implementation of UDP and TCP services over wireless messaging networks. The specification is compatible with a number of wireless messaging networks and protocols, including SMS in GSM, TDMA and CDMA, pACT, Reflex, Mobilex, Ardis, and TDP. Implementations for GSM/PCS1900 are expected to be available for Windows 95 and NT next quarter. Support for pACT, Mobitex, and Ardis is promised shortly. The spec is out for comment and can be found at http://www.intel.com/ial/nbs/ or ://www.club.nokia.com/
USOFT TO APPLY BUSINESS RULES TO THE WEB WITH DEVELOPER 4
Unisys Corp's Brisbane, California-based Usoft subsidiary has launched the latest version of its fourth generation development environment, Usoft Developer 4.0. Usoft, which nowadays pitches itself at what it calls the "business rules automation market", claims the tool delivers direct support of business rules, technology Usoft says is essential for the building of logical three-tier architectures. Usually, it says, these rules are defined only in analytical and design documents, and then buried deep in procedural code, which results in inconsistent enforcement of the rules and an inability to make rapid changes. Three-tiers allows a business policy layer to sit between database and presentation, providing a central place for change and extension to occur with more flexibility. Usoft 4.0 uses data modeling and standard SQL, rather than procedural language, to define and store business rules at a single point, from where they can be processed with no further programming by the Business Rules Engine. An SQL Definer provides a graphical drag and drop front-end to SQL. Rules can be made available to non-Usoft applications through ODBC. The Rules Engine replicates a local, compact copy of the central repository for each client workstation and tasks are dynamically distributed between client and server using a partitioning algorithm. The new version adds a Windows 95 look and feel and TeamWork version control and update facilities for business objects, along with multilingual support. Supporting the major relational databases, including DB2, Usoft Developer 4.0 runs on Windows 95 and WindowsNT, but can also be deployed on Windows 3.1 and Unix/Motif target systems. Pricing is $10,000 per developer, with no runtime fees. Future plans include a Web version that automatically generates Java and ActiveX applets. These will be co-ordinated with the Business Rules Engine on Usoft's web server, code-named "WebRuler", which was demonstrated for the first time at the Client/Server Expo in Paris last month. Beta testing is set to begin some time this quarter.
HDS HAS "SECOND GENERATION" NETWORK COMPUTERS
King of Prussia, Pennsylvania-based HDS Network Systems Inc reckons it's way ahead of the field in Network Computers with its @workStation, claiming that it is still the only shipping Network Computer with local Web browser and Java - and it is determined to stay that way. Last week it became the first Network Computer vendor to get into its second generation of the things, launching the new @workStation Supra-66 models, based on the Intel Corp's 66MHz 80960-HD superscalar RISC processor, which offers performance "equivalent to or faster than" today's typical desktop personal computers. The Network Computers run Java, Windows, Unix and mainframe applications "at very fast speeds over a network." Later this quarter, HDS will also move into the second generation of its netOS operating system, release 2.0 - and once again, you can license it if you want to build your own network-centric devices. But the talk of $500 machines remains ambitious: the cheapest HDS @workStation is $700, and prices for the @workStation Supra-66 models begin at $1,300, which buys a system with 8Mb of memory, and a keyboard and mouse.
FREE SOFTWARE DEFENDS AGAINST SYN FLOODING ATTACKS
In response to recent high profile denial-of-service attacks (OR 17), Berkeley Software Design and CheckPoint Software have both released free software designed to thwart hackers who flood sites with synchronising packets. Checkpoint's SYNDefender software module works with its FireWall-1 product. It can either intercept SYN packets and relay them to the server only if it determines them to be valid, or it can accept all connection attempts and move them from the backlog queue to the open connections queue, which CheckPoint says, is more easily handled by the server.
Berkeley's solution is to provide a set of patches that reduce the resources an attacker can consume as well as a kernel-level packet filter so that ISPs can filter out spoofed addresses at the source. Berkeley admits that even with their patches, a hacker could conceivably swamp the victim with bogus SYNs if they came from a T1 or faster connection - an attack strategy that would be likely to create a bottleneck with Checkpoint's product as well.
www.bsdi.com/press/19961002.html
www.checkpoint.com
Hitachi ships AppGallery, supports Java and ActiveX
Hitachi Europe has finally started to ship its much-hyped AppGallery Visual Basic-like development environment, after many months of hints and pre-briefings. The product, firmly targeted at the Windows and Windows NT world, is designed to build applications using Object Linking & Embedding and ActiveX components. Java applets are supported, but native Java component creation is not.
These components, according to Hitachi, can either be standard such as Microsoft Corp's Word or Excel or generated using AppGallery's scripting language for specific business tasks. AppGallery is shipping now, and it is supplied with pre-packaged components.
CONNECT PROMISES FASTER COMPRESSION FOR JAVA APPS
Connect! Corp, Scottsdale, Arizona has released for download its Quick Client, which it claims compresses Java applets for two to three times faster download.
Adding a Quick Server to the configuration increases performance even more. The client runs under Navigator under Windows95 and NT and is being implemented for Mac, Unix and other browsers like Explorer as Java support becomes firmer. Their web site is: www.connectcorp.com/
NOW MERCURY LAUNCHES INTO THE INTERNET SERVICES MARKET
Cable & Wireless Plc's Mercury Communications Ltd has entered the Internet services market with the launch of two Internet access offerings, Mercury Corporate Internet Direct and Mercury Internet Dial. Mercury also said it will host Netscape Communications Corp's European Web site. Mercury, which announced a £100m investment in its DataLink 2000 services in June, will invest a further £35m over the next three years in a bid to become the preferred Internet service provider in the business sector by 1998.
VOCALTEC SHIPS VOICE SOFTWARE AS ELECTRONIC MAIL ADD-ON
Israeli company VocalTec Ltd is now shipping Internet Voice Mail 3.0, voice messaging software designed as an add-on to e-mail. According to the company, the package integrates voice and text for multimedia messaging. Voice messages can be sent with a voice mail player, so that recipients without the software can hear them.
Features include the ability to save, forward, track and reply to messages, and to make voice, text and file attachments. Drag-and-drop file transfer is included. The company claims full compatibility with most major e-mail packages. A microphone and copy of Microsoft Internet Explorer are included. The street price of Internet Voice Mail 3.0 is expected to be around $30.
ARTISOFT SHIPS I.SHARE MULTIPLE SIMULTANEOUS ACCESS KIT
Artisoft Inc, headquartered in Tucson, Arizona, has announced the release of its i.Share v1.0 software for Internet and intranet access. The package is claimed to allow up to five users on a Microsoft network to share one Internet provider address simultaneously, eliminating the need for multiple Internet accounts, IP addresses, phone connections and TCP/IP stacks. It includes firewall security. The package is available free for down- load at http://www.artisoft.com/ishare; a more advanced version will be available by the end of the year.
Artisoft is also now shipping Dialogic Fax Support v2.0 for Windows NT and Windows 95, as well as Aculab E-1/ISDN support v2.0 for Windows NT. The 32-bit ActiveX controls are designed to enhance the company's Visual Voice computer telephony development tools by making it easier to build complex multi-line fax solutions and computer telephony systems for digital E-1 and ISDN phone lines.
JSB RE-INVENTS ITSELF AS WEB ACCESS CONTROL COMPANY
Having re-styled itself "the intranet company" at the end of last year, JSB Computer Systems Ltd has created a separate product and division, surfControl, to deal with the thorny issue of Internet-intranet access control. The personal computer-to-Unix terminal emulation company saw the stagnation of its core business coming, and is looking to the emerging Internet technologies for its future success.
Last year, it launched a multimedia kiosk-style front end with its own suite of back office operations for corporate intranets, which it called Intranet Jazz. However, the company is now referring to this offering as a "technology showcase," which it has apparently been touting around to potential customers. It would seem the access control options were what most impressed the customers, so, buoyed up by some independent research on the subject, JSB has launched surfControl.
Some 84% of companies interviewed in the research said connection to the Internet was a fundamental business requirement, but most of those were concerned about time-wasting by surfers. While employees were cagey about giving precise timings, 100% of those questioned admitted to surfing the Internet for personal use, averaging 15 to 30 minutes per day.
SurfControl currently runs under Novell Inc's NetWare. It consists of an access control engine, in which organisations define their access rules. The system uses Novell Directory Services to implement the access rights. In this way, users and workgroups are already defined. The administrator simply drags a user or group onto company-defined access rules. The company can create a blacklist or a whitelist, either listing all sites that a user is not permitted to visit, or alternatively listing only those sites that the user is allowed to visit. The system is equally applicable to internal intranet access or external access to the Internet.
SurfControl also includes a monitor of all sites visited by each user, so that companies can build up the blacklist as they go. JSB will also bring out versions of surfControl under Windows NT and Unix, it said.
JSB's European managing director Steve Purdham becomes president of surfControl. He said the company's traditional business will continue to be an important revenue stream, and he does not see it dwindling in the near future. In fact, 60% of the Intranet Jazz product has been incorporated in a new 32-bit intranet-enabled version of the company's Multiview terminal emulation product, soon to be released as Multiview 2000. However, Purdham says he expects surfControl to become JSB's main business in the next few years. The NetWare version of surfControl is available now, on CD-ROM or to download from JSB's Web site. In the UK, it costs an expensive sounding £5,000 for the first 50 concurrent users and £4,000 for each additional 50 users. http://www.surfco ntrol.com/ (but don't get into trouble for it).
FOLLOWING GRANITE, CISCO WILL CONTINUE ON TAKE-OVER TRAIL
Cisco Systems Inc dash for growth by acquisition has by no means run out of steam, and the company expects to acquire six to 10 new companies in the next 12 months, chief executive John Chambers told analysts last week, adding that most of the acquisitions will be to add new or next generation technology.
Granite Systems Inc - the acquisition of which was completed last week -is typical of what Cisco will pursue - a small company with cutting edge, next generation technology that no one else matched, he said. Chambers predicted Cisco's quarterly revenue growth would continue to vacillate quarter to quarter because of increasingly short lead times in product sales, which have shrunk to one-to-four weeks before they want them, down from eight to 12 weeks a year ago. Revenues grew 19% between its second and third quarter and then jumped 31% between its third and fourth quarters. Cisco will concentrate on the integration of speech, data and video, the dial-up market for Internet access, and on security - firewalls and encryption software.
In the race to see whose ubiquitous network architecture can swallow whose, Oracle last week announced its Network Computing Architecture, which will incorporate HTTP, CORBA, IIOP, Java, Visual Basic, SQL and ActiveX, as well as providing interfaces to legacy systems.
IIOP and HTTP will be what Oracle calls the "plumbing" of the framework and CORBA will be the heart of the object system, which Oracle intends to eventually inject into its entire product line. The architecture has received the "endorsement" of 46 industry players including Sun, Novell and HP.
Oracle, never what one would call best of friends with Microsoft, also appears less than sincere in its pledge to embrace ActiveX. It claims that ActiveX "on the desktop" will be bridged, but when asked about DCOM or ActiveX on the server side, Oracle played down its importance rather than promising a full ActiveX-CORBA connection. Oracle Vice President of Internet Server Technologies Peter Relan says that Oracle's initiative is in
DOT Gossip
Netscape Communications Corp says 80% of its turnover comes from companies, not individuals, and that most are using its software to set up intranets and distribute information inside the company, not to set up Internet sites says the Wall Street Journal, adding that Microsoft Corp says 80% of its Internet servers are used on intranets.
AT&T Corp is to make Microsoft Corp's Explorer its preferred browser on the AT&T WorldNet Service, which will get its own button - alongside all the now manifold other buttons, on the Windows 95 desktop: analysts told Reuter that while Microsoft is beginning to gain market share in the browser market, Netscape still has unrivalled dominance in the Internet server software market, where all the real revenues are coming from.
America Online and Netcom have already agreed to make Explorer their default browser, and, according to CNet, Prodigy and Sprint are also on the verge of signing deal this week. The Earthlink network also signed an agreement last week, and also claims an icon on the Windows desktop. Just how much room is left?
Microsoft Corp is used to having words - like "open" and "hand over" - mean just what it wants them to mean, no more and no less, so according to the Wall Street Journal, when at the ActiveX meeting in New York last Tuesday, a software developer questioned why Microsoft handpicked the Open Group committee that will oversee ActiveX instead of putting it to an industry vote, an Open Group staffer said the process of selecting committee members would "evolve" over time.
Microsoft Corp says the beta II version of its Normandy Internet server software has been shipped to preview customers on CD-ROM and is available for downloading from the World Wide Web. Normandy is designed to help users cultivate information on the Web, address difficulties in content publishing and site management, and conduct business on line. Microsoft Internet Chat Server and Content Replication Server, two other applications in the Normandy family, are scheduled to be available within two weeks.
Microsoft Corp's Visual J++ development tool is now "widely available", says Redmond.
America Online shares slumped this week after the company's latest warning that other on-line services and direct Internet access providers could spell tougher competition in future: the shares fell $3.75 to $31.75 in late trading on the New York Stock Exchange. The company reiterated comments it made to analysts warning of potentially high churn rates, the rate at which new customers join and leave the service. Some analysts were surprised at the stock's fall, saying there was nothing new in the filing to merit a sell-off; America Online will spend more than $100m marketing to personal computer owners who are not current America Online members.
Nippon Broadcasting System Inc and Recruit Group companies will start distributing music over the Internet on October 26, giving their site the yearningly wannabe name of the Digital Woodstock site. It will enable customers to download CD-quality music for about a dollar a song. The service will start with some 100 songs recorded by independent artists, increasing to 500 within a year. The site will use encryption technology to make sure only those that pay can listen. Customers will need to register and give a credit card number to download player software from the site - but it will take around 10 minutes to download an average-length song with a 28.8Kbps modem.
Seeking to confound those that say it is a company with no future, Novell Inc plans to invest all of $300m to build a new campus in San Jose which is planned to employ 3,000 people after six years. According to the San Jose Mercury News it chose a site in North San Jose it already owned rather than go downtown to cut construction time to a year from two; operations include the development of products used for network management, the Internet and corporate intranets.
The UUnet Technologies Inc Fairfax, Virginia arm of MFS Communications, Omaha has created a new business unit focused on Web server- hosting and related opportunities. The Web Services Business Unit, is comprised of sales, marketing and technical resources for the company to manage Web sites for corporate customers. UUnet is also trying to spread alarm and despondency by warning darkly that security risks to a customer's network can increase if customers dare to try to manages their own Web site.
Borland International Inc has announced InterClient, a JDBC-compliant connectivity interface for its InterBase cross-platform SQL database. Written entirely in Java, InterClient contains both client and server elements, and acts as a web-distributable front-end for InterBase. It's claimed to be the first true JDBC driver implemented completely in Java.
IBM Corp is brandishing research from International Data Corp which it says shows that its Lotus Notes won 1.61m new users in the first half of this year, 37% of the total of new users, and more than the combined sales of Novell Inc's Groupwise, which came second, Microsoft Corp's Exchange, third and Netscape Communications Corp's Collabra Share, which came fourth.
Objective Blend 1.0, Stingray Software Inc's Java class library is now shipping. It extends Sun's Abstract Windowing Library and comes with a collection of components like a hierarchical tree and graphical slide control and a mechanism for filtering text entry via a data mask. Objective Blend 1.0 costs $295 and supports Symantec CafŽ, Visual J++ and Borland Latte development environments. www.stingsoft.com
In an effort to draw more new business, ISP EarthLink Network last week announced that it had cut its Web site set up fees from $1,121 to $279 for a 25Mb Website. At the same time, it raised its monthly charges from $109 to $159, which means that, in the long run, users will actually be paying more.
Microsoft Corp's Internet Explorer version 4.0 browser is expected by group vice-president Paul Maritz to be in beta test by year-end. It will be tightly integrated with the Windows 95 operating system, but although it will be available early next year, it would be "premature" to project a release date.
Mecklermedia's Internet World browser watch site is offering an early look at the new interface to Netscape Corp's forthcoming Navigator version 4.0 browser, the main changes being to the toolbar, plus the addition of a "Tools" menu. The same source hears that, while Netscape 4.0 is set to go into beta around the middle of October, the beta of Microsoft Corp's Internet Explorer may now have been delayed until mid-November. http://browserwatch.iworld.com.
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