The Online REPORTER
WEEKLY DISPATCHES FROM THE INTERNET FRONT
October 28-November 1 1996 Issue No 22
ISOC placates domain name dissenters with committee
The Internet Society's (ISOC) move to increase the number of top-level domain names (OR 1, 6) was effectively pushed back six months last week as ISOC announced the formation of an international ad hoc committee (IAHC) to study the issue.
Responding to concerns over InterNIC's domain name registry monopoly, a shortage of domain names, and the US government's control in the form of the National Science Foundation over the supposedly international domain name registry, the Internet Assigned Number Authority (IANA) had accepted a proposal last spring to establish global registries and up to 150 new domain names by the end of this year.
But, according to ISOC president Don Heath, there was such dissension and confusion about how to proceed within the Internet community - and even within ISOC, which had voted to accept the IANA proposal - that the ad hoc committee became necessary.
The committee will be effectively controlled by the ISOC and sister organizations IANA and the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), who, collectively, will appoint six of the nine panel members. Heath says that these three are "by and large in-line with the (IANA) proposal".
The three other appointments to the committee will come from the International Telecommunication Union, the World Intellectual Property Organization, and the International Trademark Association.
Heath feels that all stakeholders are adequately represented with this set-up. "I don't know that we have full representation (on the committee)", he says, "I do know that we have a good representation, whether or not people are members of the committee."
Non-members will be able to participate in committee discussions via a listserver that should be set up on www.iiia.org by next week. A request for proposals is expected by year's end and, if all goes well, Heath says the first registry contracts for the new domain names would be signed by mid 1997.
ORACLE READIES DEVELOPER/2000 AS NC DEVELOPMENT PLATFORM
Oracle Corp this week unveils a Java, Web and IIOP-enabled version of its Developer/2000 application development environment.
It's going to position the software as the ideal programming system for creating applications that can serve Java-based applications to network computer devices as well as the usual crop of desktops.
The application server back end is the same PL/SQL Developer/2000 programming environment that runs in conjunction with the database server, but includes a new generic Java applet which spits out Java applets converted from PL/SQL code. Oracle claims all existing Developer/2000, SQL Forms or Oracle forms users and their applications can be upgraded.
Applications are created on desktops and deployed on the server. The environment uses IIOP to distribute Java objects to browser-based client application components, but as there's no browser which yet supports direct IIOP connectivity it'll support HTTP as well as JavaSoft's Java-only point-to-point Remote Method Invocation mechanism.
Oracle wouldn't say whether it will also use Microsoft DCOM. The Web-enabled Developer/2000's due in the first quarter and can accommodate application designs already created by the Designer/2000 modeling and design product.
It will also work with the forthcoming Sedona C++ object repository and development system which uses Visual Edge Technology Ltd's ObjectBridge to provide connectivity between heterogeneous distributed object mechanisms, plus the Javelin tools which will provide Java access to Sedona. Oracle still expects Sedona to beta in November. Oracle claims 500,000 Developer/2000 licensees.
NOVERA SOFTWARE TO PLAY KEY ROLE IN SUN'S NETWORK COMPUTER
This week when Sun trots out its Network Computer in New York, a year-old Burlington, Massachusetts-based start-up called Novera Software Inc, whose name derives from the Latin words for new and true, is going to demonstrate what is essentially a newfangled operating system on it dubbed EPIC, short for Enterprise Platform for Internet Computing.
EPIC will sit above the Java virtual machine, JavaOS and HotJava browser that are reportedly part and parcel of Sun's so-called Mr Coffee Network Computer. EPIC is written completely in Java and described as providing the application management, application services, object and relational database access and user-defined services needed to deploy large-scale business-critical applications across the Internet.
It needs no interface definition language, JavaScript or CGI. Its architecture, which makes heavy use of Java Sockets, is such that it could reportedly supersede Corba, the Object Management Group's object technology dearly beloved of the Unix set and rival to Microsoft's ActiveX.
EPIC will handle Java and by extension ActiveX objects anywhere on a network, transporting them with interface and inheritance support. Essentially it's the glue that holds together and orchestrates all these free-floating applets we're promised.
Its specific capabilities include platform-independent file and print services, TCP/IP, the LDAP lightweight directory access protocol and LDAP authorization, multitasking, centralised administration, management control, metering and broadcast. It is said to be optimised to 28.8Kbps lines, supports multimedia, audio and video and mobile users.
EPIC is currently in beta 2 at 10-15 sites and should ship right after it's announced on November 18th. But Coral Corp jumped in early last week, and told the world it was to bundle the software in with its Corel Office for Java suite, aiming to make the software functional enough for serious corporates to use. The week before, Corel struck a deal with real-time operating systems house Microware Systems Corp for its OS/9.
ELECTRONIC BANKING TO TRIPLE BY NEXT YEAR - CHECKFREE CHIEF
There are two things we will remember this era for, says entrepreneur businessman Peter Kight: 1996 will be remembered as the year banks realized the power of available technology; and 1997 will be the year that customers using electronic banking tripled.
Kight, chief executive of Checkfree Corp, is on an upswing. In the last 12 months, Checkfree, based in Columbus, Ohio, has turned itself into a formidable force in the interactive finance sector. Once a simple processor of electronic bill payments, Checkfree now has four new companies under its belt and a vision of the future. "Every major bank in the country will be in the market with an electronic banking product within the next 18 months," Kight told American Banker. "It's following exactly the same curve as credit cards."
Last week, Checkfree announced that it was to acquire the processing subsidiary of Intuit Inc, which will provide it with access to Intuit's Quicken product, as well as its customers, and bank partners - all enabling the companies and the agency to collect bill payments electronically. "Essentially, Intuit enabled Checkfree to really prove the efficacy of electronic bill payment," Kight said of the early days. "If it hadn't been for Intuit and the link of Checkfree and Quicken, we wouldn't have got to the point where we could prove to the banks that this really does work. Even though the banks didn't like the fact that we and Intuit did that without them, at the time, they weren't doing it. So what we did is we proved it, to get them to pay attention." http://www.checkfree.com
BORLAND IN RETREAT, COREL TAKES PARADOX TO WEB
The incredible shrinking Borland International Inc is a little smaller now it has off-loaded all future development, marketing sales and support of its Paradox database software to the ever-ambitious Corel Corp.
Corel now has a perpetual license to all current and past versions of the software and will do all future development work at its base in Ottawa, Canada. And the bell soon looks like tolling for Borland's dBase database, acquired from Ashton-Tate five years ago. The Scotts Valley, California company said it has a 32-bit Windows 95 version in the final stages of development, "tentatively called version 6.0," according to the company. Borland "is not looking at any dates or attaching any marketing resources to it" though, so presumably somebody else will have to. It's in "a kind of fluid situation," at the moment, the company added. Borland finally conceded that it was likely not to be a Borland-branded product when it finally arrives.
The deal with Corel means the Canadian has the right to do whatever it wants with the engine, including integrating it into other products if it so chooses. But it does not own the source code, and Borland will continue to receive license fee royalties, but neither company was saying how much that might be.
There will be a new version of Paradox from Corel early next year, according to Eid Eid, Corel's VP engineering, which would include "extensive Web development capabilities." There are no plans to re-write Paradox in Java at the moment, as Corel has done with its WordPerfect suite. Eid said the object On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP) engine would be hard to write in Java.
No staff are moving between the companies, though Corel are looking for a few engineering staff, for its team that Eid said would number between "five and 40," most of them already with the company. Effective immediately, all customer service, development, sales and marketing will be handled by Corel, and Borland will support the product until November 21. Borland says it will continue to develop and sell stand-alone versions of the engine to its existing corporate customers.
I-PASS AND AIMQUEST OFFER ISP'S GLOBAL ROAMING SERVICE
I-Pass Alliance Inc says several ISP's, including BBN Corp, UUNet Technologies, Internex, Hookup Communications, TCP/IP GmbH, and Dacom, have signed up for its new global roaming service.
But UUNet's VP sales and marketing denied his company had signed, though i-Pass continued to maintain it had. But anyway, i-Pass claims the initial participants in its service collectively provide Internet Service Provider users the ability to offer local call access in 159 countries and more than 750 cities.
i-Pass acts as a broker, buying and selling the Internet access time between each provider at a negotiated rate. A user can save long distance charges by dialing a participating local ISP. After it recognizes the user is not one of its own members, the call is transferred to the i-Pass service which then calls the customer's own provider. i-Pass pays the remote ISP and then bills the customer's provider.
AimQuest, an i-Pass competitor who came out with a similar service, Global Reach Internet Connection (GRIC), said i-Pass falsified some of its participants, and named BBN Corp along with UUNet. AimQuests' service has 25 major ISP's, covering ten countries and thirty-five cities, and it expects to have worldwide coverage before the year-end. AimQuest's ISP's will start offering the service on November 1 while i-Pass providers are expected to start within the next 30 days.
AimQuest says GRIC members will charge between $4 and $5 per hour plus a small transaction fee of thirty cents per transaction. The roaming fee and transaction fee will be shared between the local and home ISP's and AimQuest. It's free to sign up for the i-Pass program but providers are charged a nominal fee, between $2-$5, the first time a customer uses the service per month. The membership application and software can be downloaded at www.ipass.com.
CUSTOMERS' QUESTIONS LEFT LINGERING IN CYBERSPACE
The Web has become the latest marketing tool for many companies large and small. A veritable Who's Who is found while surfing the hundreds of available Web pages. The current trend entices companies to toss a site on the 'net giving them the confidence they are "hip" with the times.
But what happens once they've captured the consumers' attention? Often, Web surfers send e-mails or comments to the company via their Web site and in most cases are left wondering if the company knows its site even exists. Web sites are lingering in cyberspace, doing no more than acting as a company billboard, with little or no customer response teams available.
The Wall Street Journal sent e-mail inquiries to two dozen major corporate Web sites. Nine never responded, two took three weeks to reply and the others sent a "form letter" type response which failed to answer the proposed question. In fact only three companies sent responses within 24 hours. It seems most of those who rushed to have a Web page now figure the customer interaction is too much of a hassle. That's why some, like GM Corp's Saturn division, have posted statements that they won't respond to e-mail, which is at least honest.
According to International Data Corp, almost 80% of the top 500 biggest companies will have Web sites by year end. A few have set up e-mail response units, like Ford and LL Bean. But for now, if surfers are looking for answers, they're better off getting offline and calling the company themselves.
PACKET SWITCHING COULD HELP AVOID INTERNET OVERLOAD
Pacific Telesis Enterprises CEO Michael Fitzpatrick says the only way to save the Internet from collapsing due to an overload of users is to implement a packet switched data network, which supposedly would speed up connection time for users and decrease the "server not available" postings users often receive.
Currently, ISPs are exempt from paying access charges on voice service lines paid by long-distance carriers, value added networks, and resellers. FitzPatrick has asked the FCC to replace the ISPs' exemption with a mix of types of Internet access by January 1998 which he feels will put universal data networks on a sound financial footing.
SUN SEEKS TO PREVENT JAVA VEERING OFF COURSE
Sun Microsystems Inc chief technology officer Eric Schmidt says the company's recently been drawing flak at the highest level from Fortune companies, partners and vendors concerned that separate Java vision, strategy and technology from JavaSoft, Netscape, IBM et al might be getting out of synch.
They point to the multiple security, component and implementation models, confusion over whether to use Java, LiveScript or JavaScript, sandbox extensions, and to other proprietary work.
Schmidt says Sun's taken all this on board and is holding a series of management meetings to address each issue and that in a month or so it should be ready to describe how compatibility between the various Java implementations and technologies will be maintained and the distinctions between them explained. "We want Java to be a platform that others innovate on; we encourage that," he said.
"IBM PC CO ABANDONS NC WORK" - REPORT
According to a report in PC Week, which IBM said was pretty good information, IBM's PC Co is abandoning its Intel-based network computer, leaving the AS/400's PowerPC-based Network Station family as the company's flagship NC offering (OR 15).
The PC Co will instead concentrate on software dubbed LAN Client Control, or LCC, which it previously indicated might be the name of the hardware (OR 20). The LCC software detects when a client is connected to a network, assigns it an IP address, formats the hard drive (if it has one) and installs the operating system and user interface. The software's out in December for Windows NT, Novell NetWare and OS/2, says the report. The PC Co is also doing the work on what's called Network Station Manager to enable the clients to various servers. But at first, they will only be able to connect to RS/6000s. Connection to AS/400's and PC servers will come by March, according to the report.
HTMLSCRIPT JUMPS TO JYVE
Htmlscript Corp's set to introduce a new development kit dubbed Jyve by the end of this month, which will enable developers to customize its server-based htmlscript software products.
The San Diego, California-based company's htmlscript system is a server-based environment integrating HTML-like "tags" enabling development of Web applications such as shopping malls, intranet sites, and virtual communities. The htmlscript software operates as a pre-processor for CGI that interprets HTML and htmlscript tags. It reads the htmlscript document and looks for tags that it knows about. Because htmlscript is server and browser independent, claims the company, the user can freely mix HTML and htmlscript code in an htmlscript document and create HTML code on-the-fly.
It'll support NSAPI on November 1 for Sun Solaris, with support for other platforms slated to follow closely, it promises. The htmlscript system comes with ready-to-run Web applications for on-line testing, shopping carts, forums, search engines, mailing lists, and groupware and development and administration tools for creating and managing multi-user applications.
The applications come complete with source code written in the htmlscript 4GL. Jyve will dish up developers with a C function library that allows access to htmlscript system feature sets such as: read/write access to htmlscript memory space, direct access to the htmlscript expression analyzer, ability to add new data management modules into the htmlscript virtual database layer, control over (and ability to modify) htmlscript configuration routines such as security, procedures, startup procedures, etc, direct access to the htmlscript "HTTP" header management routines, ability to intercept and handle htmlscript errors and access to the htmlscript interpreter and macro preprocessor as a function call.
It includes a suite of verification applications. Jyve comes with code libraries and executables and will ship for $25,000. Jyve is up on BSDI, SCO, FreeBSD, Linux, Sun Solaris, SunOS and SGI/IRIX. Versions for DEC OSF/1, IBM AIX and HP-UX are due by the end of the year. A Windows NT version is slated for the first quarter of next year. Htmlscript prices go from $495. Application and htmlscript technology demonstrations can be seen at www.htmlscript.com.
NEXT HAS WEBOBJECTS 3.0, MAKES UP WITH NETSCAPE
NeXT Software Inc's announced the anticipated 3.0 version of its WebObjects Enterprise development environment which includes drag and drop graphical development and the ability to create HTML-based forms or browser-based applets - including Java, ActiveX, JavaScript and VBScript components - to create client-side applications. Client components are bound to prebuilt objects on the server for database access and business logic.
WebObjects 3.0 includes native client libraries for Oracle, Sybase and Informix as well as ODBC. The idea is that an organisation can use WebObjects to Web-enable existing applications and data resources. It includes palettes to store objects and their bindings to server applications for reuse. WebObjects 3.0 ships next month priced from $5,000. NeXT promises support for server side JavaScript development with the addition of free of charge extensions called French Roast due in December. It's promising support for VBScript server-side development next year in addition to the support for C, C++, ObjectiveC and WebScript it already offers. Support for OMG Corba IIOP and Microsoft DCOM distributed object protocols is also due in 1997.
NeXT claims to have repaired many of the bridges it burned to Netscape Communications Corp earlier this year. It made a presentation to Netscape developers in New York the week before last at Netscape's Internet developer show and says it has a whole bunch of work using Netscape's Java-based Internet Foundation Classes due next year.
NeXT's also going to add a more resources for creating applications that run outside the browser metaphor a la the Marimba Inc transmitter/tuner model.
SUNSOFT SET TO LAY OUT TOOLS AND JAVA WORKSHOP ROADMAP
SunSoft Inc has rather inconveniently scheduled its own set of announcements this Tuesday at Software Development '96 East in Washington DC - the same day as SMCC's Independence Day Java network computer bash in New York. It's sending runners up to the Big Apple lest its news goes unheard.
The software unit's going to lay down a roadmap for its JavaWorkshop suite of developer tools and will supposedly detail its own Project Studio environment enabling content developers to create Java applets from drag and drop building blocks.
Something called Speed-up will giddy-up compilation speed in addition to the integration of a Java JIT just-in-time compiler which JavaWorkshop in its current form still lacks.
The development tools and other Java products are also still sans support for JavaScript - promised last December. SunSoft expects the new JavaWorkshop tools to be used to create applications and content for deployment across thin client/fat server configurations including, but not restricted to, Sun's own Java client devices due on Tuesday. SunSoft apparently wanted to call its JMAPI Java management API set Studio but couldn't trademark the name and went with Solstice Workshop instead. Several firms, including Silicon Graphics, have Studio product lines.
Apple Computer Inc is set to announce two new Newton personal digital assistants today, Monday. They're expected to run the new Newton 2.1 operating system. The company is also working on a larger handheld device with a Web browser and aimed at vertical markets.
LIGHTWEIGHT INTERNET PRINTING MECHANISM PROPOSED
A group of vendors lead by Novell Inc want to adapt the ISO 10175 network printing standard known as DPA for document printing application use across Internets and intranets.
The problem is that DPA is a heavy-duty protocol designed targeting mission critical environments, while net-based print solutions require a cut-down, go-faster implementation. With that in mind, Novell, working with companies Adobe, Canon, HP, IBM, Intel, Lexmark, QMS, Ricoh, Sharp, Tektronix, Toshiba and Xerox, will next month submit a draft proposal for a lightweight implementation of DPA to the Internet Engineering Task Force.
The companies hope IETF will adopt LDPA as a standard that will enable users to send and control print jobs to remote printers attached to the Internet. Not that it will help standardize the bevy of incompatible and proprietary print management applications on the market which already used bastardized versions of DPA.
MFACTORY GETS A NEW CEO, STILL AWAITS MPIRE EXPANSION
MFactory Inc has appointed Tim Artl as president and CEO, taking over from co-founder and former president Hamish Forsythe, who will now concentrate on technology partnerships and product development.
Artl joins the Burlingame, California company from Sybase Inc, where he was VP marketing and alliance services, and before that at ReportSmith Inc as VP sales and marketing. The company released mTropolis 1.1 - the Internet-enabled version of its multimedia development tool and the Net Messenger modifier, which Internet-enables mTropolis multimedia objects - to beta recently. The other two phases of its mPire Internet strategy is Dynamic Network Adoptable Objects, or DNA Objects. These are autonomous objects that can be assimilated in real-time into an mTropolis application over the Internet.
The fourth and final phase is Dynamically Streamed Titles, which, building on the second and third stages, enables multimedia applications to be downloaded one scene at a time, but there's no word from the company on when either of these might happen. www.mfactory.com
NETEDGE BRINGS MULTI-SERVICE ACCESS SYSTEMS TO MARKET
NetEdge Systems Inc has launched a new set of multi-service access systems aimed at the carrier, Internet Service Providers and cable companies. Four new models make up the new family, christened EDGE.
First up is the 85M, due to ship at the end of the month, which provides 40 local network ports, with options for Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, FDDI and Token Ring, as well as support for up to 16 T1/E1 circuits for voice services and multiple Asynchronous Transfer Mode links. The 65M has four Ethernet ports - one of which has a Fast Ethernet option - a single 155Mbps ATM link, and an expansion slot for circuit emulation. It will ship in the first quarter of next year.
The 65S is basically the same as the 65M, without the ATM capabilities, and the 40S has the same number of slots but does not support either Asynchronous Mode or the circuit emulation option. Both will also ship in the first quarter of 1997. Research Triangle Park, North Carolina-based NetEdge is not releasing pricing information, despite the imminent launch timetable for some of the products.
SEGA SATURN FOR THE NET ALL SET FOR HALLOWEEN
Sega of America's Sega Saturn Net Link technology will hit the stores on Halloween. The company is billing its Sega Saturn Net Link as "inter-tainment in a box" - a combination of the Internet and entertainment, for the uninitiated.
The Net Link package costs $200 and comprises a 28.8Kbps modem cartridge, a CD with a Web browser and other interfaces. Extras include a $25 mouse and $20 keyboard. The 32-bit Saturn games machine must be bought separately for $200 - or you can get the lot for $450. Users can log on to their existing ISP or choose the preferred one, Concentric Network Corp. Net Link City is the environment, written by Ark Interface, from which users can choose various pre-defined sites or use the browser, from PlanetWeb, to browse at their leisure.
SILICON GRAPHICS DECIDES MMX IS A GOOD IDEA AFTER ALL
Silicon Graphics Inc was somewhat sceptical when Intel Corp first revealed its MMX multimedia extensions to the iAPX-86 instruction set earlier this year, but now it's had a change of heart and introduced its own set for its very own MIPS chip.
The new MDMX MIPS Digital Media Extensions were introduced by SGI's MIPS Technologies Inc subsidiary, along with MIPS V, the next generation instruction set for the MIPS chip. The company says it has maintained compatibility with the existing MIPS 1 to MIPS 1V architectures, which now have an installed base of some 13m. The extensions are intended to allow for fully integrated real-time processing of multiple audio, video, two- and three-dimensional graphics streams on a single chip.
The MIPS V instruction set, a superset of all previous instruction sets for the MIPS chip, adds the paired single data type to double the performance of floating point compute applications by processing two 32-bit operands in parallel along a 64-bit data path. MDMX, which is separate from, but compatible with, MIPS 1V and newer instruction sets, has an extended 192-bit accumulator similar to those found in discrete signal processing devices.
This should speed up the performance of on-chip real-time video compression, digital audio surround sound and data compression. The set will be implemented on future processors from MIPS and its partners.
IT'S WINSOCK WEEK THIS WEEK: WIN95 TO HEAD NEW PRODUCTS
Stardust Technologies is holding a week-long WinSock 2 conference this week marking the "formal" debut of the critical intranet/Internet applications communications standard approved in August by the WinSock Forum.
The new WinSock version, already embedded in NT 4.0, is a full 32-bits. WinSock 1.1, used today by myriad applications, is only 16-bits and that's a major performance bottleneck for 32-bit apps that use WinSock. It's so critical that even erstwhile enemies such as Microsoft and Novell are united in their support. That's in part because WinSock 2 includes a full TCP/IP and ATM protocol and has a name resolution mechanism that supports Novell's NetWare Directory Services as well as Microsoft's more favored I-net DNS and X.500 standards. WinSock 2 also supports IP multicast and the so-called "quality of service" techniques that guarantee that once apps connect over an I-net they stay connected.
The WinSock Week includes an interoperability bake-off, the fourth and final for WinSock 2. That's where vendors test whether their budding software really works with other WinSock 2-compliant programs. The press is barred from the event. More public will be a show-and-tell set for this Tuesday when ISVs are to announce a flood of WinSock 2 products and futures. Microsoft's expected to head the list with a WinSock 2 beta for Windows 95.
CARS TO BE INTERNET-ENABLED
Intel Corp is working with automakers in Detroit to integrate Pentium technology into cars - not this time as carburetor or brake controllers, but for PC-based navigation, entertainment and emergency summons applications.
The company has introduced a reference platform for hardware and software developers to begin building prototype in-vehicle systems, and expects technologies such as cellular and satellite communications, the Global Positioning System (GPS) and Radio Data Broadcast to be the basis of navigation, traffic and weather information applications, while Internet, e-mail and business applications could also be available.
Intel is working with GPS company Trimble Navigation Systems Inc, Magneti Marelli's TECmobility Unit and the Dearborn Group Inc of Michegan, and plans its first in-car computing and communications developers conference next year.
BHR offers Java computing to small manufacturing firms
BHR Software Inc will today launch Info.Net, a Java-enabled business information system aimed at small-to-medium manufacturing and distribution companies.
The various applications sit on a Unix or Windows NT server, either at the customer's site or outsourced to BHR, and the clients access them through their Java-enabled browsers, which simply act as the front end and display the changes as a result of the transaction or whatever is being performed, in the form of a Java applet sent down to the client. Nothing remains on the client once it is disconnected from the server.
Doug Jones, VP marketing said the company is considering adding some intelligence at the front-end, but for the moment is sticking with the classic network computing model of a fat server, thin client. Info.Net has a layered architecture, comprising the RDBMS at the bottom with a database interface, application layer and finally the user interface on top.
There are 16 modules, including such things as purchasing, routings and operations, manufacturing cost accounting, general ledger and so on. The manufacturing software market is getting pretty crowded these days with the likes of PeopleSoft Inc, Oracle Corp, Baan Co NV and others jostling for position. But Jones said BHR is not competing in that high-end space. Info.Net is designed to be up and running in 90 days from scratch and is aimed at companies with revenues of between $5m and $50m.
Privately-held BHR came about as the result of a management buyout from Unisyn in 1992 and has had a traditional client/server model until now. The company reckons the software will cost on average, about $1,000 per user on an outsourcing basis and $2,875 per concurrent user. The other alternative is doing the stuff on the customers' site, but on a per-transaction basis, whereby BHR reads a meter at the end of each month and charge them accordingly. Info.Net runs on most flavors of Unix and Windows NT.
CONNECT HOPES J-BAHN WILL DRIVE ONESERVER E-COMMERCE
Connect Inc has Javatised its OneServer interactive commerce suite with the addition of a secure Java communications called J-Bahn. It will mean that applications accessing OneServer, which includes such things as catalog management, user registration, order capturing and security, can bypass HTTP to connect directly with OneServer.
Product manager Brian Valente claimed this was the secure object transport layer to go with OneServer as the object storage and Java as the object language. The Mountain View, California company says this cuts out a lot of custom code and CGI scripting that would otherwise be necessary. The effect is faster, session-based connections, unlike HTTP, enabling the creation of real-time commerce applications that can be maintained for the duration of a connection.
J-Bahn will come free with OneServer 1.3 and OrderStream 1.1, Connect's Internet-based order management application. Existing users can also get it for free. Connect suggests uses for the technology such as a real-time shopping cart that automatically totals and subtotals. And Connect is using J-Bahn to add to its other products as well, with an add-on module for OrderStream called StatusMinder, which updates users with pricing and availability information. It will ship with the next version of OrderStream, at the end of this quarter. www.connectinc.com
Security conscious V-One furtively comes to market
V-One Corp claims to be the only company to offer an integrated security package including smart cards, firewalls and encryption technology.
President, CEO and founder James Chen used to launch satellites for a living at Intelsat. Last week the Rockville, Maryland company launched itself onto Nasdaq with an initial public offering of 3.0m shares at $5 each. Unfortunately Chen wasn't around to guide his ship. He was apparently worn out after a month-long road show and canceled appointments to talk to the press at the last minute.
The original target price had been $6 to $8 for an offering of 3.3m shares, but the number and price was cut also at the last minute, with no reason given.
V-One's main products are called SmartGate, SmartWall and SmartCat. The first uses virtual or physical smart cards to authenticate clients and servers and verify the identity of users. SmartWall combines firewall and smart card technology and the SmartCat smart card technology integrates DES encryption and a challenge-response system. The National Security Agency will use the firewall technology to protect a messaging system for the US military that will replace an existing legacy e-mail application, and GE Information Services uses SmartGate in its GE InterBusiness secure Internet offering.
The company quoted UBS Securities as being ahead of the likes of Security Dynamics, Cylink, Verisign and just about everybody else when it comes to integration of firewall, encryption and authentication and end-user functionality. And no, UBS was not handling the offering, that was done by Piper Jaffray Inc. The company looks like raising about $15m in the reduced IPO, which it will use to repay a $1.5m loan from JMI and a smaller $138,000 loan from Chen himself. The rest will be used for the usual working capital, sales and marketing and research purposes. V-One made net losses of $4.4m on revenues of $2.4m in the six months to June 30 this year. The shares closed up 25 cents on the offer price on Thursday. www.v-one.com
HDS READY ALREADY WITH V 2.0 OF NC OPERATING SYSTEM
HDS Network Systems Inc has got the second version of its netOS network computer operating system out slightly earlier than planned, and before most vendors have got their first version out, according to the King of Prussia, Pennsylvania-based company (OR 20). HDS has signed "more than one" licensee of netOS, but still can't name names. The OS will ship in its @workStation network computers immediately.
New this time is a PC-style interface so users no longer have to go through a browser or the previously-available Unix interface, though both those options are still available. It also has a single-click NT application launching process now, with tighter integration with Insignia Solutions' NTrigue, which is based on Citrix Systems' Intelligent Console Architecture (ICA), and enables both Windows and X applications to be launched from a server. HDS has also cosied up tight to Netscape's client/server products and now can maintain a user's Netscape bookmarks and other settings when using HDS' @work browser. HDS's principal selling point is that it connects and runs Java, Windows, Unix or mainframe applications. The @workStation machines start at $700 (OR 19). www.hds.com.
FIRST USA PAYMENTECH TAKES VERIFONE'S WALLET
Begging the question of how many wallets can fit in the virtual pocket, VeriFone last week announced that transaction processor First USA Paymentech Inc would be distributing VeriFone e-commerce software, including its vPOS, vGATE transaction processing products, and vWALLET, which keeps track of things like credit card numbers and accounts on the client side.
Paymentech will also be piloting CyberCash's CyberCoin microtransaction "wallet" by year-end (OR 19). The software will sell under the Paymentech name. VeriFone also announced deals with Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and the Royal Bank of Canada. VeriFone won't reveal who, if anyone, is currently using its products, possibly because the SET protocol upon which they are based has yet to be finalized, but the company says a SET compliant customer will be announced around Comdex time, late November.
www.verifone.com
Markets hard to please but Netscape's growth continues
Netscape Communications Corp's impressive growth continues apace, but the next few quarters will reveal whether the Mountain View, California browser pioneer can survive in the busier market of intranet servers.
Two weeks ago the company insisted that its focus for 1997 would be on electronic mail and groupware, but there is unlikely to be enough mileage in that to reproduce the kind of figures it produced last week a year from now by organic growth alone (OR 21).
The market was in no mood however to react favorably to hi-tech stocks last Tuesday, with DEC shares being downgraded everywhere and Nasdaq suffering its biggest point loss in a month. So having just $0.25 shaved of Netscape's shares to close at $44.50 was a backhand compliment in the day's atmosphere. They rose a few dollars accordingly over the next couple of days.
The company turned in third quarter net profits of $7.7m, or $0.09 per share, up from just $175,000 in the same period last year. Third quarter revenues climbed to $100.0m, from $23.3m last time.
Netscape crammed a lot into the quarter - this is Internet time after all - with the launch of Netscape AppFoundry, a set of reusable applications, the Open Network Environment (ONE) platform and the support of more than 50 partners and 21 licensees, the launch of Navigator 3.0, what now turns out to be the last standalone browser the company will have, and finally the setting up of its Navio Communications Corp subsidiary to divvy up Netscape software into components, aimed primarily at the emerging network computer market.
Net profits for the nine months were $12.2m, $0.14 per share, after a $6.1m merger-related charge for the acquisitions of InSoft Inc, Paper Software Inc and NetCode Corp, against losses last time of $7.1m, as revenues rose to $231.1m, from $43.8m a year ago.
VISIGENIC FEELS ACQUISITION EFFECT IN FIRST PUBLIC QUARTER
Visigenic Software Inc came to market at the beginning of August at $7.50 per share and were trading $4 above that yesterday after turning in its first results as a public company.
The San Mateo, California object request broker (ORB) house swallowed fellow-ORBer PostModern Computing Inc in April, and the charge for purchased research and development hit its figures for the first six months of its current fiscal. Net losses for the second quarter to September 30 were $2.3m, up from $991,000 the previous year, as revenues rose 194% to $3.8m. But half-yearly losses were $16.0m, after the $12.0m charge, up from $2.0m losses last time.
Visigenic's future prosperity is closely tied to the battle for object supremacy between the Object Management Group's Corba and Microsoft Corp's ActiveX technologies. PostModern was responsible for the Corba Internet Inter-Orb protocol (IIOP) implementation called Black Widow, which Visigenic renamed VisiBroker for Java when it bought PostModern.
The chairman of Visigenic is Informix Corp founder Roger Sippl and the president is another former Informixer Mark Hanson. Their old and new companies, and Netscape are a few of the myriad stacked up against Microsoft in a battle that could cost a few livelihoods for whoever loses. Naturally, they all say that their technologies are better than the other sides and that the two can easily co-exist and prosper.
Meantime, it was a busy quarter for Visigenic, with the licensing agreement with Netscape to include the company's VisiBroker for Java with the next version of Navigator-cum-Communicator. Netscape, together with Platinum Technology Inc and Cisco Systems Inc put $8m into Visigenic in June in return for a stake of less than 10% between them. It also worked with Hitachi in a joint effort to produce TPBroker to integrate Hitachi's OpenTP1 transaction processing engine with VisiBroker.
MICROSOFT BEATS STREET BY A NICKEL
Microsoft Corp came in with first quarter earnings five cents per share above the Street's consensus. Revenues were right on the button as far as expectations go, up 14% at $2.30bn. The Redmonder turned in net profits up 23% at $614m, or $0.95 per share.
The worry widely expressed by market watchers is that the company won't be able to sustain its customary growth rate this fiscal, and that fear is borne out by these figures.
Microsoft recorded year-on-year first quarter growth of 58% in earnings and 62% in revenues twelve months ago. But it should be remembered that that was the quarter in which the company let Windows 95 loose on the world. This year the quarter saw the first shipments of Windows NT 4.0. The company claimed Internet Explorer 3.0 "was on a roll" and more than 3m users had downloaded the free software in eight weeks.
But the days of the standalone browser are numbered now that Netscape has pulled out of the game. In terms of geography, only OEM and international sales outside Europe actually grew, each by 2% to 17% and 29% of revenues respectively. US & Canadian, and European sales slipped by the same margin to 35% and 19% respectively in the quarter.
Research and development continues to rise as a proportion of revenues, jumping to almost 19% of sales this quarter, from 15% in the previous quarter. Unearned revenues, the way Microsoft smoothes out the lumps in its revenues stream through the year by shifting some of its revenues to the balance sheet put on another $91m in revenues to stand at $651m at the end of the quarter. Platforms are 52% of sales and applications the remainder.
COMPUSERVE HITS NEW LOW AS IT WARNS OF MORE LOSSES
CompuServe Corp took a battering from a bear market with a sore nose last week as it said its expects second quarter net losses double what it had previously forecast.
The shares hit a 52-week low of $8 later in the week. The previous low had been $10. CompuServe says it now expects the losses to come in at between $0.22 and $0.27 per share for the quarter ending October 31, having previously thought they would be between $0.10 and $0.15.
The increased losses are due to late shipment of version 3.0 of its software, which will be out this month, rather than last, and a net decrease in its subscriber base by 44,000 to 3.02m, despite signing 350,000 new subscribers, which must be particularly worrying for the Columbus, Ohio service provider.
Version 3.0 will have to give users a reason to subscribe to CompuServe again, before the rot sets in irreversibly. The numbers are due out the week beginning November 18.
NetCom's losses continue to climb, exacerbated by the ISP's expansion into the UK and Canada. The San Jose, California attributed around 40% of its $13.6m net losses to the international start-ups, which still leaves about $8.2m. This is up from $4.4m losses last time. Third quarter revenues rose 118% to $32.0m. NetCom added 83,000 subscribers in the quarter, a 17% rise from the previous quarter, to 562,000 worldwide. The company still had $86.1m in cash on September 30, down from $146.0m last year.
BBN Corp was only in the black in its first quarter because of the sale of its 85% interest in BBN Domain Corp in July, which added $20m to its bottom line, turning a $10.7m operating loss into a $9.3m net profit, against losses of $8.7m last time. Revenues rose 48.1% to $74.3m. The main focus now is on BBN Planet, the Internet managed network service, which turned in revenues of $32.7m but the company wasn't saying whether or not it actually made any money there.
FTP Software Inc warns that it expects to incur a loss of $5m to 7m in the current quarter, with revenues in the range of $22m to $24m, as it sets up its Virtual IP Network plan.
CITRIX PROFITS SOAR ON STRENGTH OF WINDOWING PROTOCOL
It's been a busy nine months for Citrix Systems Inc. The Coral Lakes, Florida-based Microsoft Corp ally has gone from strength to strength during the period, thanks to its ICA Intelligent Console Architecture protocol, which enables users of windowing terminals and other skinny clients to access Windows applications running on Windows NT servers.
Pre-tax profits soared to $5.3m for the three months to September 30, compared to $984,000 last time around on revenue that rose by 173% to $11.7m. For the nine months, pre-tax profits jumped to $11.8m from $466,000 before, on revenue up more than 200% at $29m.
It looks like a classic case of having the right technology at the right time, for the inability of Network Computers and other terminals to run Windows locally has sent vendors scurrying to Citrix and its partners for ICA licenses. The company attributed its success to the growing acceptance of Windows NT in the marketplace and the accelerated adoption of ICA as a de facto distributed windows protocol standard.
Current licensees include Microsoft itself, Wyse Technology Inc, Boundless Inc, Tektronix Inc and Network Computing Devices Inc. In the third quarter, Microsoft bundled the ICA-based WinFrame Web client with its Internet Explorer 3.0 and Starter Kit. IBM is reference selling Win Frame in OS/2 customer installations and Citrix now offers a plug-in version of its ICA engine, which allows Netscape browser customers to access WinFrame servers and run robust 32bit windows applications on corporate intranets. And last month the firm announced it is in deep talks with Sun Microsystems Inc. A letter of intent has been signed between the two regarding a proposed license to incorporate ICA into Sun's future releases.
Cash balances and short term investments at the nine month stage were up a healthy 196% on last time at $128.6m. In his statement chief executive Roger Roberts said the funds would enable the group to pursue strategic opportunities in products and technology, as well as expand global sales and marketing presence.
SPYGLASS INKS NET-OVER-CABLE DEAL WITH WORLDGATE
Spyglass Inc is getting into the hot area of Internet-over-cable and licensed its Web Client SDK technology to WorldGate Communications. It will be used to provide a browser for trials starting in January with Cablevision Systems,. Aldephia Communications, Charter Communications, Comcast Cable and Telewest Communication in Scotland.
WorldGate says it will eventually charge $5 per month for the high-speed link. Nobody was talking about any financial details but Spyglass did say that it typically gets royalties on its SDK technology of $25,000 per year for 1,000 licenses for distribution, technical support, updates, documentation and object code. Once it gets above 1,000, Spyglass gets a licensing fee for each copy over that number.
Meantime, Spyglass' fourth quarter net profits were down 14.6% at $1.0m, but that was against a period including a gain of $863,000 due in part to the sale of its data visualization product line. Revenues for the quarter rose 44.6% to $6.6m. Net earnings for the year to September 30 were up 59.0% at $3.5m, as revenues climbed 83.7% to $22.3m.
The Naperville, Illinois pioneer put this year's numbers down to licensing to various real-time operating system vendors, including Microware and QNX Software, an extension of the all-important licensing deal with Microsoft, which uses Mosaic as the backbone to Internet Explorer, plus the acquisitions of SurfWatch Software and Stonehand Inc, and their products.
This year the company is going to double the size of its research team, expand geographically and focus on what it calls the Internet device market. But it warns that the investment in people and products wouldn't come cheap and could result in "downward pressure" on both revenues and income.
Company founder and CTO Tim Krauskopf announced a three-tiered product strategy of device connectivity, that's device-independent software to access and publish information on the net, infrastructure and performance-improving software, and finally, applications for collaboration over the net.
The company also announced the appointment of Rich Houle to the new position of executive VP development and services, reporting to CEO Doug Colbeth. He had been director of systems engineering for the central area at Sun Microsystems before going on to Trimark Technologies, and now Spyglass.
AUSTRALIAN SOFTWAY HAS FASTER JIT RUNTIME THAN SUN
Australian software developer Softway Pty Ltd, based in Sydney, now has the first public beta release of its Guava just-in-time Java run-time compiler, for Solaris 2.5 and 2.5.1. The Guava 1.0 beta is a drop-in replacement for Sun's JDK 1.0.2 interpreter, and it's free to download for 30 days from http:// guava.softway.com.au/.
Guava compiles Java bytecode into native Sparc machine code as it is executed, with compiled code cached so that future uses of the code run at full speed. As a result, claims the company, Guava runs Java programs between two and 20 times faster than the Sun interpreter on the same hardware. Guava also uses operating system threads which allow it to use multiple CPUs on a symmetrical multiprocessor.
Although applied to a Unix-hosted runtime, Guava has been designed with a variety of CPUs applications in mind, including embedded systems. Softway says it is open to discussion about other uses of its technology. There has been talk of building a runtime for the Apple Newton, for instance.
Is Guava safe, and is it compatible? Softway says yes, its compiler performs the same checks as the Sun runtime, so accepts and rejects the same bytecode files. And the product "attempts to be as compatible as possible with Sun's Java runtime implementation", going by Sun's published documentation. Softway says it will test Guava with Sun's conformance test suites when they are available,
Guava is not to be confused with Guavac, the free Java compiler written by Effective Edge Technologies under the GNU public license. Guavac is available from http:// HTTP.CS.Berkeley.EDU/~engberg/guava/
GAIN TO GAIN WEB POWERS
Sybase Inc finally sold off the Gain Momentum multimedia technology it acquired back in 1991 last week, saying that with the growth of Internets and intranets, interactive environments such as Gain were no longer so desirable.
That's not the view of Triton Services Inc, of Dunkirk, Maryland, to whom Sybase handed over further sales, support and development of the product, free of charge. Triton says it will slim down the Gain product in version 3.2, due out "very soon", and within a year will release version 4, with Web-enablement and easier access to relational databases.
Vermeer chief executive officer John Mandile has also provided funding. The firm is headed by Herb Rush, who founded TCP/IP-to-SNA house Brixton Systems, and its team, said to be heavy on mainframe experience, includes folks from BBN, Sybase, Open Market, Applix and Sun. Recent recruit Jack Orenstein joined from Object Design Inc as chief architect, and he's working on providing transparent access to relational databases from Java.
According to Rush, "The software and technology currently available for businesses is insufficient to support true Internet computing across a large enterprise. Novera's technology provides corporations with the infrastructure to enable IT to build, deploy and support distributed applications across corporate intranets and the Internet. Novera also enables software vendors to build robust applications in Java (tm) and ActiveX."
DOT Gossip
Digital Equipment Corp CEO Bob Palmer says DEC has no plans right now to do an NC and will only do one "if conditions are right" even though DEC Semiconductor has the underpinnings of one in the StrongARM chip. Palmer's position of course is highly reminiscent of the posture his predecessor Ken Olsen took on the PC, causing DEC to miss that little revolution. Meanwhile, however, DEC Semi, which is trying to stir up interest in the company in doing an NC, has two designs in hand and four OEM customers will be showing them with their brands on the boxes at Comdex. One of the designs uses JavaOS; the other Oracle's NCOS derived from Acorn. In Vegas, DEC will also show Dragon Systems' speech recognition on the things as well as some less startling speech synthesis and its reference board. Pity DEC sold off its terminals business. It would have been a natural.
American Telecasting Inc, Colorado Springs has tentatively agreed to a deal with MCI to test high-speed Internet services using American Telecasting's wireless cable - cellular television - service. The test, subject to agreement, will include locations agreed to by both American Telecasting and MCI.
Softscape Inc has introduced a kind of Internet replication for individual users via e-mail with its DiffXChange software. Using what the Acton, Massachusetts-based company claims is new data synchronization and exchange technology, DiffXChange only send changes to the documents rather than the entire document. It is available now for Windows 95 or Windows NT and costs $50 until January 1, when it goes up by $20. There is an OEM version called Dante available and it's also downloadable from www.softscape.com
Sun Microsystems Inc CTO and employee number 92 Eric Schmidt has no doubts the Web, Java and network computer devices will ultimately change Sun's business model. It's kind of ironic ahead of Sun's Independence Day NC splash this week, however, that Schmidt does not believe NCs will have many applications beyond replacing dumb terminals and PCs at the front-ends of mainframe and enterprise servers for a couple of years. URL is Schmidt's answer to the perennial Java-and-the-bottom-line question: Ubiquity first Revenue Later.
Sun Microsystems reckons Java is already "the most popular language in the software world" and estimates that 200,000 programmers have used it to create about 80,000 pages on the Web.
Object Database Management Group hasn't quite finished work on its Java object database specification JavaSoft Inc engineer and ODMG chair Rick Cattell says he's going to try and get the group to vote for a public review period in a few weeks' time. Watch the Web site www.odmg.org.
WebTV Networks Inc has secured the services of Albert "Rocky" Pimentel as chief financial officer. Rocky comes by way of LSI Logic Corp, where he held the same post, and prior to that he was at Momenta Corp, Conner peripherals and Seagate Technology. Rocky should be kept pretty busy, as the Palo Alto company recently got another round of financing, including an interest, both financially and technologically from Microsoft, which intends to develop television/Internet browsing technology with WebTV (OR 19). Rocky reports to president, CEO and co-founder Steve Perlman. www.webtv.com
Simply Interactive, a four month-old start-up from the sons of one of NetCom's founders (OR 4), will debut its SI-Retrieve tool, which transfers data between corporate Web sites and back-end databases or legacy systems at Comdex Fall in Las Vegas this month. The company will roll out a Java-based Web server, securities API, electronic software and I-net collaboration software starting in the second quarter of 1997. www.simply.com
Visa announced a European pilot project for secure payment card transactions over the Internet using the SET standard. It will involve 38 Visa member banks in 16 European countries. Commercial launch of the system will begin when the scheme's completed in late 1997 or early 1998.
At the last count Corel, Informix, Computer Associates, Interleaf, Cayenne, Bulletproof, Powersoft, Insignia, Sybase, Lotus, Dun & Bradstreet, IBM, Cascade Systems, Baan, Cambridge Technology Partners, Mentor Graphics, Applix and Airteam are going to be at Sun's Independence Day NC bash this week.
Isocor has released a '93 X.500 Global Directory Server that can manage, update and replicate information across multiple sites running NT, HP-UX 10, Stratus FTX or AIX 4.1 immediately, with more platforms coming in Q1, reports sister publication ClieNT Server News. GDS, integrates Internet Directory Services and Web Browser Access through LDAP and DAP, uses X.500 to synchronize dissimilar mail systems and comes with Global Directory Navigator, an application for remote management of multiple user sites.
Passport Designs is shipping its music@passport software, which enables musicians to create and distribute musical arrangements over the Internet. The software's built-in PitchWrite technology transcribes music, recorded via a microphone, into standard notation. Only users can create compositions and upload them onto Passport's Web site but anyone can download the stuff for free. The software costs $130, supports all Windows 3.1-compatible sound card, and comes with Internet Explorer. It also works with providers, including CompuServe and AOL. www.passportdesigns.com
WorldPages Inc is spearheading a consortium of Internet companies, Privacy Assured, that intends to certify Web sites that take care of individuals' personal privacy.
JavaSoft denies reports that it's taking RSA Data Security Inc's public key encryption APIs out of its Java Development Kit 1.1. It says it's following US government export policy on encryption technology by using Digital Signature Standard, but says it's decided to go with DSS because its licensing and distribution is less restrictive than RSA's.
Microsoft is having to delay making subscription charges for its Slate on-line public affairs magazine because it hasn't been able to set up an effective billing system - can't wait for it's foray into electronic commerce.
What's the story? Sun's Eric Schmidt is certainly no fan of Britpop. While applauding his 12-year old daughter's determined and successful effort to create her own Web home pages, he's less enthusiastic about some of its content: "I can tell you Oasis' music does not improve over the Internet," he told a packed session of delegates at the Netscape Internet Developers' Conference in New York.
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WEEKLY DISPATCHES FROM THE INTERNET FRONT
October 28-November 1 1996 Issue No 22
ISOC placates domain name dissenters with committee
The Internet Society's (ISOC) move to increase the number of top-level domain names (OR 1, 6) was effectively pushed back six months last week as ISOC announced the formation of an international ad hoc committee (IAHC) to study the issue.
Responding to concerns over InterNIC's domain name registry monopoly, a shortage of domain names, and the US government's control in the form of the National Science Foundation over the supposedly international domain name registry, the Internet Assigned Number Authority (IANA) had accepted a proposal last spring to establish global registries and up to 150 new domain names by the end of this year.
But, according to ISOC president Don Heath, there was such dissension and confusion about how to proceed within the Internet community - and even within ISOC, which had voted to accept the IANA proposal - that the ad hoc committee became necessary.
The committee will be effectively controlled by the ISOC and sister organizations IANA and the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), who, collectively, will appoint six of the nine panel members. Heath says that these three are "by and large in-line with the (IANA) proposal".
The three other appointments to the committee will come from the International Telecommunication Union, the World Intellectual Property Organization, and the International Trademark Association.
Heath feels that all stakeholders are adequately represented with this set-up. "I don't know that we have full representation (on the committee)", he says, "I do know that we have a good representation, whether or not people are members of the committee."
Non-members will be able to participate in committee discussions via a listserver that should be set up on www.iiia.org by next week. A request for proposals is expected by year's end and, if all goes well, Heath says the first registry contracts for the new domain names would be signed by mid 1997.
ORACLE READIES DEVELOPER/2000 AS NC DEVELOPMENT PLATFORM
Oracle Corp this week unveils a Java, Web and IIOP-enabled version of its Developer/2000 application development environment.
It's going to position the software as the ideal programming system for creating applications that can serve Java-based applications to network computer devices as well as the usual crop of desktops.
The application server back end is the same PL/SQL Developer/2000 programming environment that runs in conjunction with the database server, but includes a new generic Java applet which spits out Java applets converted from PL/SQL code. Oracle claims all existing Developer/2000, SQL Forms or Oracle forms users and their applications can be upgraded.
Applications are created on desktops and deployed on the server. The environment uses IIOP to distribute Java objects to browser-based client application components, but as there's no browser which yet supports direct IIOP connectivity it'll support HTTP as well as JavaSoft's Java-only point-to-point Remote Method Invocation mechanism.
Oracle wouldn't say whether it will also use Microsoft DCOM. The Web-enabled Developer/2000's due in the first quarter and can accommodate application designs already created by the Designer/2000 modeling and design product.
It will also work with the forthcoming Sedona C++ object repository and development system which uses Visual Edge Technology Ltd's ObjectBridge to provide connectivity between heterogeneous distributed object mechanisms, plus the Javelin tools which will provide Java access to Sedona. Oracle still expects Sedona to beta in November. Oracle claims 500,000 Developer/2000 licensees.
NOVERA SOFTWARE TO PLAY KEY ROLE IN SUN'S NETWORK COMPUTER
This week when Sun trots out its Network Computer in New York, a year-old Burlington, Massachusetts-based start-up called Novera Software Inc, whose name derives from the Latin words for new and true, is going to demonstrate what is essentially a newfangled operating system on it dubbed EPIC, short for Enterprise Platform for Internet Computing.
EPIC will sit above the Java virtual machine, JavaOS and HotJava browser that are reportedly part and parcel of Sun's so-called Mr Coffee Network Computer. EPIC is written completely in Java and described as providing the application management, application services, object and relational database access and user-defined services needed to deploy large-scale business-critical applications across the Internet.
It needs no interface definition language, JavaScript or CGI. Its architecture, which makes heavy use of Java Sockets, is such that it could reportedly supersede Corba, the Object Management Group's object technology dearly beloved of the Unix set and rival to Microsoft's ActiveX.
EPIC will handle Java and by extension ActiveX objects anywhere on a network, transporting them with interface and inheritance support. Essentially it's the glue that holds together and orchestrates all these free-floating applets we're promised.
Its specific capabilities include platform-independent file and print services, TCP/IP, the LDAP lightweight directory access protocol and LDAP authorization, multitasking, centralised administration, management control, metering and broadcast. It is said to be optimised to 28.8Kbps lines, supports multimedia, audio and video and mobile users.
EPIC is currently in beta 2 at 10-15 sites and should ship right after it's announced on November 18th. But Coral Corp jumped in early last week, and told the world it was to bundle the software in with its Corel Office for Java suite, aiming to make the software functional enough for serious corporates to use. The week before, Corel struck a deal with real-time operating systems house Microware Systems Corp for its OS/9.
ELECTRONIC BANKING TO TRIPLE BY NEXT YEAR - CHECKFREE CHIEF
There are two things we will remember this era for, says entrepreneur businessman Peter Kight: 1996 will be remembered as the year banks realized the power of available technology; and 1997 will be the year that customers using electronic banking tripled.
Kight, chief executive of Checkfree Corp, is on an upswing. In the last 12 months, Checkfree, based in Columbus, Ohio, has turned itself into a formidable force in the interactive finance sector. Once a simple processor of electronic bill payments, Checkfree now has four new companies under its belt and a vision of the future. "Every major bank in the country will be in the market with an electronic banking product within the next 18 months," Kight told American Banker. "It's following exactly the same curve as credit cards."
Last week, Checkfree announced that it was to acquire the processing subsidiary of Intuit Inc, which will provide it with access to Intuit's Quicken product, as well as its customers, and bank partners - all enabling the companies and the agency to collect bill payments electronically. "Essentially, Intuit enabled Checkfree to really prove the efficacy of electronic bill payment," Kight said of the early days. "If it hadn't been for Intuit and the link of Checkfree and Quicken, we wouldn't have got to the point where we could prove to the banks that this really does work. Even though the banks didn't like the fact that we and Intuit did that without them, at the time, they weren't doing it. So what we did is we proved it, to get them to pay attention." http://www.checkfree.com
BORLAND IN RETREAT, COREL TAKES PARADOX TO WEB
The incredible shrinking Borland International Inc is a little smaller now it has off-loaded all future development, marketing sales and support of its Paradox database software to the ever-ambitious Corel Corp.
Corel now has a perpetual license to all current and past versions of the software and will do all future development work at its base in Ottawa, Canada. And the bell soon looks like tolling for Borland's dBase database, acquired from Ashton-Tate five years ago. The Scotts Valley, California company said it has a 32-bit Windows 95 version in the final stages of development, "tentatively called version 6.0," according to the company. Borland "is not looking at any dates or attaching any marketing resources to it" though, so presumably somebody else will have to. It's in "a kind of fluid situation," at the moment, the company added. Borland finally conceded that it was likely not to be a Borland-branded product when it finally arrives.
The deal with Corel means the Canadian has the right to do whatever it wants with the engine, including integrating it into other products if it so chooses. But it does not own the source code, and Borland will continue to receive license fee royalties, but neither company was saying how much that might be.
There will be a new version of Paradox from Corel early next year, according to Eid Eid, Corel's VP engineering, which would include "extensive Web development capabilities." There are no plans to re-write Paradox in Java at the moment, as Corel has done with its WordPerfect suite. Eid said the object On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP) engine would be hard to write in Java.
No staff are moving between the companies, though Corel are looking for a few engineering staff, for its team that Eid said would number between "five and 40," most of them already with the company. Effective immediately, all customer service, development, sales and marketing will be handled by Corel, and Borland will support the product until November 21. Borland says it will continue to develop and sell stand-alone versions of the engine to its existing corporate customers.
I-PASS AND AIMQUEST OFFER ISP'S GLOBAL ROAMING SERVICE
I-Pass Alliance Inc says several ISP's, including BBN Corp, UUNet Technologies, Internex, Hookup Communications, TCP/IP GmbH, and Dacom, have signed up for its new global roaming service.
But UUNet's VP sales and marketing denied his company had signed, though i-Pass continued to maintain it had. But anyway, i-Pass claims the initial participants in its service collectively provide Internet Service Provider users the ability to offer local call access in 159 countries and more than 750 cities.
i-Pass acts as a broker, buying and selling the Internet access time between each provider at a negotiated rate. A user can save long distance charges by dialing a participating local ISP. After it recognizes the user is not one of its own members, the call is transferred to the i-Pass service which then calls the customer's own provider. i-Pass pays the remote ISP and then bills the customer's provider.
AimQuest, an i-Pass competitor who came out with a similar service, Global Reach Internet Connection (GRIC), said i-Pass falsified some of its participants, and named BBN Corp along with UUNet. AimQuests' service has 25 major ISP's, covering ten countries and thirty-five cities, and it expects to have worldwide coverage before the year-end. AimQuest's ISP's will start offering the service on November 1 while i-Pass providers are expected to start within the next 30 days.
AimQuest says GRIC members will charge between $4 and $5 per hour plus a small transaction fee of thirty cents per transaction. The roaming fee and transaction fee will be shared between the local and home ISP's and AimQuest. It's free to sign up for the i-Pass program but providers are charged a nominal fee, between $2-$5, the first time a customer uses the service per month. The membership application and software can be downloaded at www.ipass.com.
CUSTOMERS' QUESTIONS LEFT LINGERING IN CYBERSPACE
The Web has become the latest marketing tool for many companies large and small. A veritable Who's Who is found while surfing the hundreds of available Web pages. The current trend entices companies to toss a site on the 'net giving them the confidence they are "hip" with the times.
But what happens once they've captured the consumers' attention? Often, Web surfers send e-mails or comments to the company via their Web site and in most cases are left wondering if the company knows its site even exists. Web sites are lingering in cyberspace, doing no more than acting as a company billboard, with little or no customer response teams available.
The Wall Street Journal sent e-mail inquiries to two dozen major corporate Web sites. Nine never responded, two took three weeks to reply and the others sent a "form letter" type response which failed to answer the proposed question. In fact only three companies sent responses within 24 hours. It seems most of those who rushed to have a Web page now figure the customer interaction is too much of a hassle. That's why some, like GM Corp's Saturn division, have posted statements that they won't respond to e-mail, which is at least honest.
According to International Data Corp, almost 80% of the top 500 biggest companies will have Web sites by year end. A few have set up e-mail response units, like Ford and LL Bean. But for now, if surfers are looking for answers, they're better off getting offline and calling the company themselves.
PACKET SWITCHING COULD HELP AVOID INTERNET OVERLOAD
Pacific Telesis Enterprises CEO Michael Fitzpatrick says the only way to save the Internet from collapsing due to an overload of users is to implement a packet switched data network, which supposedly would speed up connection time for users and decrease the "server not available" postings users often receive.
Currently, ISPs are exempt from paying access charges on voice service lines paid by long-distance carriers, value added networks, and resellers. FitzPatrick has asked the FCC to replace the ISPs' exemption with a mix of types of Internet access by January 1998 which he feels will put universal data networks on a sound financial footing.
SUN SEEKS TO PREVENT JAVA VEERING OFF COURSE
Sun Microsystems Inc chief technology officer Eric Schmidt says the company's recently been drawing flak at the highest level from Fortune companies, partners and vendors concerned that separate Java vision, strategy and technology from JavaSoft, Netscape, IBM et al might be getting out of synch.
They point to the multiple security, component and implementation models, confusion over whether to use Java, LiveScript or JavaScript, sandbox extensions, and to other proprietary work.
Schmidt says Sun's taken all this on board and is holding a series of management meetings to address each issue and that in a month or so it should be ready to describe how compatibility between the various Java implementations and technologies will be maintained and the distinctions between them explained. "We want Java to be a platform that others innovate on; we encourage that," he said.
"IBM PC CO ABANDONS NC WORK" - REPORT
According to a report in PC Week, which IBM said was pretty good information, IBM's PC Co is abandoning its Intel-based network computer, leaving the AS/400's PowerPC-based Network Station family as the company's flagship NC offering (OR 15).
The PC Co will instead concentrate on software dubbed LAN Client Control, or LCC, which it previously indicated might be the name of the hardware (OR 20). The LCC software detects when a client is connected to a network, assigns it an IP address, formats the hard drive (if it has one) and installs the operating system and user interface. The software's out in December for Windows NT, Novell NetWare and OS/2, says the report. The PC Co is also doing the work on what's called Network Station Manager to enable the clients to various servers. But at first, they will only be able to connect to RS/6000s. Connection to AS/400's and PC servers will come by March, according to the report.
HTMLSCRIPT JUMPS TO JYVE
Htmlscript Corp's set to introduce a new development kit dubbed Jyve by the end of this month, which will enable developers to customize its server-based htmlscript software products.
The San Diego, California-based company's htmlscript system is a server-based environment integrating HTML-like "tags" enabling development of Web applications such as shopping malls, intranet sites, and virtual communities. The htmlscript software operates as a pre-processor for CGI that interprets HTML and htmlscript tags. It reads the htmlscript document and looks for tags that it knows about. Because htmlscript is server and browser independent, claims the company, the user can freely mix HTML and htmlscript code in an htmlscript document and create HTML code on-the-fly.
It'll support NSAPI on November 1 for Sun Solaris, with support for other platforms slated to follow closely, it promises. The htmlscript system comes with ready-to-run Web applications for on-line testing, shopping carts, forums, search engines, mailing lists, and groupware and development and administration tools for creating and managing multi-user applications.
The applications come complete with source code written in the htmlscript 4GL. Jyve will dish up developers with a C function library that allows access to htmlscript system feature sets such as: read/write access to htmlscript memory space, direct access to the htmlscript expression analyzer, ability to add new data management modules into the htmlscript virtual database layer, control over (and ability to modify) htmlscript configuration routines such as security, procedures, startup procedures, etc, direct access to the htmlscript "HTTP" header management routines, ability to intercept and handle htmlscript errors and access to the htmlscript interpreter and macro preprocessor as a function call.
It includes a suite of verification applications. Jyve comes with code libraries and executables and will ship for $25,000. Jyve is up on BSDI, SCO, FreeBSD, Linux, Sun Solaris, SunOS and SGI/IRIX. Versions for DEC OSF/1, IBM AIX and HP-UX are due by the end of the year. A Windows NT version is slated for the first quarter of next year. Htmlscript prices go from $495. Application and htmlscript technology demonstrations can be seen at www.htmlscript.com.
NEXT HAS WEBOBJECTS 3.0, MAKES UP WITH NETSCAPE
NeXT Software Inc's announced the anticipated 3.0 version of its WebObjects Enterprise development environment which includes drag and drop graphical development and the ability to create HTML-based forms or browser-based applets - including Java, ActiveX, JavaScript and VBScript components - to create client-side applications. Client components are bound to prebuilt objects on the server for database access and business logic.
WebObjects 3.0 includes native client libraries for Oracle, Sybase and Informix as well as ODBC. The idea is that an organisation can use WebObjects to Web-enable existing applications and data resources. It includes palettes to store objects and their bindings to server applications for reuse. WebObjects 3.0 ships next month priced from $5,000. NeXT promises support for server side JavaScript development with the addition of free of charge extensions called French Roast due in December. It's promising support for VBScript server-side development next year in addition to the support for C, C++, ObjectiveC and WebScript it already offers. Support for OMG Corba IIOP and Microsoft DCOM distributed object protocols is also due in 1997.
NeXT claims to have repaired many of the bridges it burned to Netscape Communications Corp earlier this year. It made a presentation to Netscape developers in New York the week before last at Netscape's Internet developer show and says it has a whole bunch of work using Netscape's Java-based Internet Foundation Classes due next year.
NeXT's also going to add a more resources for creating applications that run outside the browser metaphor a la the Marimba Inc transmitter/tuner model.
SUNSOFT SET TO LAY OUT TOOLS AND JAVA WORKSHOP ROADMAP
SunSoft Inc has rather inconveniently scheduled its own set of announcements this Tuesday at Software Development '96 East in Washington DC - the same day as SMCC's Independence Day Java network computer bash in New York. It's sending runners up to the Big Apple lest its news goes unheard.
The software unit's going to lay down a roadmap for its JavaWorkshop suite of developer tools and will supposedly detail its own Project Studio environment enabling content developers to create Java applets from drag and drop building blocks.
Something called Speed-up will giddy-up compilation speed in addition to the integration of a Java JIT just-in-time compiler which JavaWorkshop in its current form still lacks.
The development tools and other Java products are also still sans support for JavaScript - promised last December. SunSoft expects the new JavaWorkshop tools to be used to create applications and content for deployment across thin client/fat server configurations including, but not restricted to, Sun's own Java client devices due on Tuesday. SunSoft apparently wanted to call its JMAPI Java management API set Studio but couldn't trademark the name and went with Solstice Workshop instead. Several firms, including Silicon Graphics, have Studio product lines.
Apple Computer Inc is set to announce two new Newton personal digital assistants today, Monday. They're expected to run the new Newton 2.1 operating system. The company is also working on a larger handheld device with a Web browser and aimed at vertical markets.
LIGHTWEIGHT INTERNET PRINTING MECHANISM PROPOSED
A group of vendors lead by Novell Inc want to adapt the ISO 10175 network printing standard known as DPA for document printing application use across Internets and intranets.
The problem is that DPA is a heavy-duty protocol designed targeting mission critical environments, while net-based print solutions require a cut-down, go-faster implementation. With that in mind, Novell, working with companies Adobe, Canon, HP, IBM, Intel, Lexmark, QMS, Ricoh, Sharp, Tektronix, Toshiba and Xerox, will next month submit a draft proposal for a lightweight implementation of DPA to the Internet Engineering Task Force.
The companies hope IETF will adopt LDPA as a standard that will enable users to send and control print jobs to remote printers attached to the Internet. Not that it will help standardize the bevy of incompatible and proprietary print management applications on the market which already used bastardized versions of DPA.
MFACTORY GETS A NEW CEO, STILL AWAITS MPIRE EXPANSION
MFactory Inc has appointed Tim Artl as president and CEO, taking over from co-founder and former president Hamish Forsythe, who will now concentrate on technology partnerships and product development.
Artl joins the Burlingame, California company from Sybase Inc, where he was VP marketing and alliance services, and before that at ReportSmith Inc as VP sales and marketing. The company released mTropolis 1.1 - the Internet-enabled version of its multimedia development tool and the Net Messenger modifier, which Internet-enables mTropolis multimedia objects - to beta recently. The other two phases of its mPire Internet strategy is Dynamic Network Adoptable Objects, or DNA Objects. These are autonomous objects that can be assimilated in real-time into an mTropolis application over the Internet.
The fourth and final phase is Dynamically Streamed Titles, which, building on the second and third stages, enables multimedia applications to be downloaded one scene at a time, but there's no word from the company on when either of these might happen. www.mfactory.com
NETEDGE BRINGS MULTI-SERVICE ACCESS SYSTEMS TO MARKET
NetEdge Systems Inc has launched a new set of multi-service access systems aimed at the carrier, Internet Service Providers and cable companies. Four new models make up the new family, christened EDGE.
First up is the 85M, due to ship at the end of the month, which provides 40 local network ports, with options for Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, FDDI and Token Ring, as well as support for up to 16 T1/E1 circuits for voice services and multiple Asynchronous Transfer Mode links. The 65M has four Ethernet ports - one of which has a Fast Ethernet option - a single 155Mbps ATM link, and an expansion slot for circuit emulation. It will ship in the first quarter of next year.
The 65S is basically the same as the 65M, without the ATM capabilities, and the 40S has the same number of slots but does not support either Asynchronous Mode or the circuit emulation option. Both will also ship in the first quarter of 1997. Research Triangle Park, North Carolina-based NetEdge is not releasing pricing information, despite the imminent launch timetable for some of the products.
SEGA SATURN FOR THE NET ALL SET FOR HALLOWEEN
Sega of America's Sega Saturn Net Link technology will hit the stores on Halloween. The company is billing its Sega Saturn Net Link as "inter-tainment in a box" - a combination of the Internet and entertainment, for the uninitiated.
The Net Link package costs $200 and comprises a 28.8Kbps modem cartridge, a CD with a Web browser and other interfaces. Extras include a $25 mouse and $20 keyboard. The 32-bit Saturn games machine must be bought separately for $200 - or you can get the lot for $450. Users can log on to their existing ISP or choose the preferred one, Concentric Network Corp. Net Link City is the environment, written by Ark Interface, from which users can choose various pre-defined sites or use the browser, from PlanetWeb, to browse at their leisure.
SILICON GRAPHICS DECIDES MMX IS A GOOD IDEA AFTER ALL
Silicon Graphics Inc was somewhat sceptical when Intel Corp first revealed its MMX multimedia extensions to the iAPX-86 instruction set earlier this year, but now it's had a change of heart and introduced its own set for its very own MIPS chip.
The new MDMX MIPS Digital Media Extensions were introduced by SGI's MIPS Technologies Inc subsidiary, along with MIPS V, the next generation instruction set for the MIPS chip. The company says it has maintained compatibility with the existing MIPS 1 to MIPS 1V architectures, which now have an installed base of some 13m. The extensions are intended to allow for fully integrated real-time processing of multiple audio, video, two- and three-dimensional graphics streams on a single chip.
The MIPS V instruction set, a superset of all previous instruction sets for the MIPS chip, adds the paired single data type to double the performance of floating point compute applications by processing two 32-bit operands in parallel along a 64-bit data path. MDMX, which is separate from, but compatible with, MIPS 1V and newer instruction sets, has an extended 192-bit accumulator similar to those found in discrete signal processing devices.
This should speed up the performance of on-chip real-time video compression, digital audio surround sound and data compression. The set will be implemented on future processors from MIPS and its partners.
IT'S WINSOCK WEEK THIS WEEK: WIN95 TO HEAD NEW PRODUCTS
Stardust Technologies is holding a week-long WinSock 2 conference this week marking the "formal" debut of the critical intranet/Internet applications communications standard approved in August by the WinSock Forum.
The new WinSock version, already embedded in NT 4.0, is a full 32-bits. WinSock 1.1, used today by myriad applications, is only 16-bits and that's a major performance bottleneck for 32-bit apps that use WinSock. It's so critical that even erstwhile enemies such as Microsoft and Novell are united in their support. That's in part because WinSock 2 includes a full TCP/IP and ATM protocol and has a name resolution mechanism that supports Novell's NetWare Directory Services as well as Microsoft's more favored I-net DNS and X.500 standards. WinSock 2 also supports IP multicast and the so-called "quality of service" techniques that guarantee that once apps connect over an I-net they stay connected.
The WinSock Week includes an interoperability bake-off, the fourth and final for WinSock 2. That's where vendors test whether their budding software really works with other WinSock 2-compliant programs. The press is barred from the event. More public will be a show-and-tell set for this Tuesday when ISVs are to announce a flood of WinSock 2 products and futures. Microsoft's expected to head the list with a WinSock 2 beta for Windows 95.
CARS TO BE INTERNET-ENABLED
Intel Corp is working with automakers in Detroit to integrate Pentium technology into cars - not this time as carburetor or brake controllers, but for PC-based navigation, entertainment and emergency summons applications.
The company has introduced a reference platform for hardware and software developers to begin building prototype in-vehicle systems, and expects technologies such as cellular and satellite communications, the Global Positioning System (GPS) and Radio Data Broadcast to be the basis of navigation, traffic and weather information applications, while Internet, e-mail and business applications could also be available.
Intel is working with GPS company Trimble Navigation Systems Inc, Magneti Marelli's TECmobility Unit and the Dearborn Group Inc of Michegan, and plans its first in-car computing and communications developers conference next year.
BHR offers Java computing to small manufacturing firms
BHR Software Inc will today launch Info.Net, a Java-enabled business information system aimed at small-to-medium manufacturing and distribution companies.
The various applications sit on a Unix or Windows NT server, either at the customer's site or outsourced to BHR, and the clients access them through their Java-enabled browsers, which simply act as the front end and display the changes as a result of the transaction or whatever is being performed, in the form of a Java applet sent down to the client. Nothing remains on the client once it is disconnected from the server.
Doug Jones, VP marketing said the company is considering adding some intelligence at the front-end, but for the moment is sticking with the classic network computing model of a fat server, thin client. Info.Net has a layered architecture, comprising the RDBMS at the bottom with a database interface, application layer and finally the user interface on top.
There are 16 modules, including such things as purchasing, routings and operations, manufacturing cost accounting, general ledger and so on. The manufacturing software market is getting pretty crowded these days with the likes of PeopleSoft Inc, Oracle Corp, Baan Co NV and others jostling for position. But Jones said BHR is not competing in that high-end space. Info.Net is designed to be up and running in 90 days from scratch and is aimed at companies with revenues of between $5m and $50m.
Privately-held BHR came about as the result of a management buyout from Unisyn in 1992 and has had a traditional client/server model until now. The company reckons the software will cost on average, about $1,000 per user on an outsourcing basis and $2,875 per concurrent user. The other alternative is doing the stuff on the customers' site, but on a per-transaction basis, whereby BHR reads a meter at the end of each month and charge them accordingly. Info.Net runs on most flavors of Unix and Windows NT.
CONNECT HOPES J-BAHN WILL DRIVE ONESERVER E-COMMERCE
Connect Inc has Javatised its OneServer interactive commerce suite with the addition of a secure Java communications called J-Bahn. It will mean that applications accessing OneServer, which includes such things as catalog management, user registration, order capturing and security, can bypass HTTP to connect directly with OneServer.
Product manager Brian Valente claimed this was the secure object transport layer to go with OneServer as the object storage and Java as the object language. The Mountain View, California company says this cuts out a lot of custom code and CGI scripting that would otherwise be necessary. The effect is faster, session-based connections, unlike HTTP, enabling the creation of real-time commerce applications that can be maintained for the duration of a connection.
J-Bahn will come free with OneServer 1.3 and OrderStream 1.1, Connect's Internet-based order management application. Existing users can also get it for free. Connect suggests uses for the technology such as a real-time shopping cart that automatically totals and subtotals. And Connect is using J-Bahn to add to its other products as well, with an add-on module for OrderStream called StatusMinder, which updates users with pricing and availability information. It will ship with the next version of OrderStream, at the end of this quarter. www.connectinc.com
Security conscious V-One furtively comes to market
V-One Corp claims to be the only company to offer an integrated security package including smart cards, firewalls and encryption technology.
President, CEO and founder James Chen used to launch satellites for a living at Intelsat. Last week the Rockville, Maryland company launched itself onto Nasdaq with an initial public offering of 3.0m shares at $5 each. Unfortunately Chen wasn't around to guide his ship. He was apparently worn out after a month-long road show and canceled appointments to talk to the press at the last minute.
The original target price had been $6 to $8 for an offering of 3.3m shares, but the number and price was cut also at the last minute, with no reason given.
V-One's main products are called SmartGate, SmartWall and SmartCat. The first uses virtual or physical smart cards to authenticate clients and servers and verify the identity of users. SmartWall combines firewall and smart card technology and the SmartCat smart card technology integrates DES encryption and a challenge-response system. The National Security Agency will use the firewall technology to protect a messaging system for the US military that will replace an existing legacy e-mail application, and GE Information Services uses SmartGate in its GE InterBusiness secure Internet offering.
The company quoted UBS Securities as being ahead of the likes of Security Dynamics, Cylink, Verisign and just about everybody else when it comes to integration of firewall, encryption and authentication and end-user functionality. And no, UBS was not handling the offering, that was done by Piper Jaffray Inc. The company looks like raising about $15m in the reduced IPO, which it will use to repay a $1.5m loan from JMI and a smaller $138,000 loan from Chen himself. The rest will be used for the usual working capital, sales and marketing and research purposes. V-One made net losses of $4.4m on revenues of $2.4m in the six months to June 30 this year. The shares closed up 25 cents on the offer price on Thursday. www.v-one.com
HDS READY ALREADY WITH V 2.0 OF NC OPERATING SYSTEM
HDS Network Systems Inc has got the second version of its netOS network computer operating system out slightly earlier than planned, and before most vendors have got their first version out, according to the King of Prussia, Pennsylvania-based company (OR 20). HDS has signed "more than one" licensee of netOS, but still can't name names. The OS will ship in its @workStation network computers immediately.
New this time is a PC-style interface so users no longer have to go through a browser or the previously-available Unix interface, though both those options are still available. It also has a single-click NT application launching process now, with tighter integration with Insignia Solutions' NTrigue, which is based on Citrix Systems' Intelligent Console Architecture (ICA), and enables both Windows and X applications to be launched from a server. HDS has also cosied up tight to Netscape's client/server products and now can maintain a user's Netscape bookmarks and other settings when using HDS' @work browser. HDS's principal selling point is that it connects and runs Java, Windows, Unix or mainframe applications. The @workStation machines start at $700 (OR 19). www.hds.com.
FIRST USA PAYMENTECH TAKES VERIFONE'S WALLET
Begging the question of how many wallets can fit in the virtual pocket, VeriFone last week announced that transaction processor First USA Paymentech Inc would be distributing VeriFone e-commerce software, including its vPOS, vGATE transaction processing products, and vWALLET, which keeps track of things like credit card numbers and accounts on the client side.
Paymentech will also be piloting CyberCash's CyberCoin microtransaction "wallet" by year-end (OR 19). The software will sell under the Paymentech name. VeriFone also announced deals with Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and the Royal Bank of Canada. VeriFone won't reveal who, if anyone, is currently using its products, possibly because the SET protocol upon which they are based has yet to be finalized, but the company says a SET compliant customer will be announced around Comdex time, late November.
www.verifone.com
Markets hard to please but Netscape's growth continues
Netscape Communications Corp's impressive growth continues apace, but the next few quarters will reveal whether the Mountain View, California browser pioneer can survive in the busier market of intranet servers.
Two weeks ago the company insisted that its focus for 1997 would be on electronic mail and groupware, but there is unlikely to be enough mileage in that to reproduce the kind of figures it produced last week a year from now by organic growth alone (OR 21).
The market was in no mood however to react favorably to hi-tech stocks last Tuesday, with DEC shares being downgraded everywhere and Nasdaq suffering its biggest point loss in a month. So having just $0.25 shaved of Netscape's shares to close at $44.50 was a backhand compliment in the day's atmosphere. They rose a few dollars accordingly over the next couple of days.
The company turned in third quarter net profits of $7.7m, or $0.09 per share, up from just $175,000 in the same period last year. Third quarter revenues climbed to $100.0m, from $23.3m last time.
Netscape crammed a lot into the quarter - this is Internet time after all - with the launch of Netscape AppFoundry, a set of reusable applications, the Open Network Environment (ONE) platform and the support of more than 50 partners and 21 licensees, the launch of Navigator 3.0, what now turns out to be the last standalone browser the company will have, and finally the setting up of its Navio Communications Corp subsidiary to divvy up Netscape software into components, aimed primarily at the emerging network computer market.
Net profits for the nine months were $12.2m, $0.14 per share, after a $6.1m merger-related charge for the acquisitions of InSoft Inc, Paper Software Inc and NetCode Corp, against losses last time of $7.1m, as revenues rose to $231.1m, from $43.8m a year ago.
VISIGENIC FEELS ACQUISITION EFFECT IN FIRST PUBLIC QUARTER
Visigenic Software Inc came to market at the beginning of August at $7.50 per share and were trading $4 above that yesterday after turning in its first results as a public company.
The San Mateo, California object request broker (ORB) house swallowed fellow-ORBer PostModern Computing Inc in April, and the charge for purchased research and development hit its figures for the first six months of its current fiscal. Net losses for the second quarter to September 30 were $2.3m, up from $991,000 the previous year, as revenues rose 194% to $3.8m. But half-yearly losses were $16.0m, after the $12.0m charge, up from $2.0m losses last time.
Visigenic's future prosperity is closely tied to the battle for object supremacy between the Object Management Group's Corba and Microsoft Corp's ActiveX technologies. PostModern was responsible for the Corba Internet Inter-Orb protocol (IIOP) implementation called Black Widow, which Visigenic renamed VisiBroker for Java when it bought PostModern.
The chairman of Visigenic is Informix Corp founder Roger Sippl and the president is another former Informixer Mark Hanson. Their old and new companies, and Netscape are a few of the myriad stacked up against Microsoft in a battle that could cost a few livelihoods for whoever loses. Naturally, they all say that their technologies are better than the other sides and that the two can easily co-exist and prosper.
Meantime, it was a busy quarter for Visigenic, with the licensing agreement with Netscape to include the company's VisiBroker for Java with the next version of Navigator-cum-Communicator. Netscape, together with Platinum Technology Inc and Cisco Systems Inc put $8m into Visigenic in June in return for a stake of less than 10% between them. It also worked with Hitachi in a joint effort to produce TPBroker to integrate Hitachi's OpenTP1 transaction processing engine with VisiBroker.
MICROSOFT BEATS STREET BY A NICKEL
Microsoft Corp came in with first quarter earnings five cents per share above the Street's consensus. Revenues were right on the button as far as expectations go, up 14% at $2.30bn. The Redmonder turned in net profits up 23% at $614m, or $0.95 per share.
The worry widely expressed by market watchers is that the company won't be able to sustain its customary growth rate this fiscal, and that fear is borne out by these figures.
Microsoft recorded year-on-year first quarter growth of 58% in earnings and 62% in revenues twelve months ago. But it should be remembered that that was the quarter in which the company let Windows 95 loose on the world. This year the quarter saw the first shipments of Windows NT 4.0. The company claimed Internet Explorer 3.0 "was on a roll" and more than 3m users had downloaded the free software in eight weeks.
But the days of the standalone browser are numbered now that Netscape has pulled out of the game. In terms of geography, only OEM and international sales outside Europe actually grew, each by 2% to 17% and 29% of revenues respectively. US & Canadian, and European sales slipped by the same margin to 35% and 19% respectively in the quarter.
Research and development continues to rise as a proportion of revenues, jumping to almost 19% of sales this quarter, from 15% in the previous quarter. Unearned revenues, the way Microsoft smoothes out the lumps in its revenues stream through the year by shifting some of its revenues to the balance sheet put on another $91m in revenues to stand at $651m at the end of the quarter. Platforms are 52% of sales and applications the remainder.
COMPUSERVE HITS NEW LOW AS IT WARNS OF MORE LOSSES
CompuServe Corp took a battering from a bear market with a sore nose last week as it said its expects second quarter net losses double what it had previously forecast.
The shares hit a 52-week low of $8 later in the week. The previous low had been $10. CompuServe says it now expects the losses to come in at between $0.22 and $0.27 per share for the quarter ending October 31, having previously thought they would be between $0.10 and $0.15.
The increased losses are due to late shipment of version 3.0 of its software, which will be out this month, rather than last, and a net decrease in its subscriber base by 44,000 to 3.02m, despite signing 350,000 new subscribers, which must be particularly worrying for the Columbus, Ohio service provider.
Version 3.0 will have to give users a reason to subscribe to CompuServe again, before the rot sets in irreversibly. The numbers are due out the week beginning November 18.
NetCom's losses continue to climb, exacerbated by the ISP's expansion into the UK and Canada. The San Jose, California attributed around 40% of its $13.6m net losses to the international start-ups, which still leaves about $8.2m. This is up from $4.4m losses last time. Third quarter revenues rose 118% to $32.0m. NetCom added 83,000 subscribers in the quarter, a 17% rise from the previous quarter, to 562,000 worldwide. The company still had $86.1m in cash on September 30, down from $146.0m last year.
BBN Corp was only in the black in its first quarter because of the sale of its 85% interest in BBN Domain Corp in July, which added $20m to its bottom line, turning a $10.7m operating loss into a $9.3m net profit, against losses of $8.7m last time. Revenues rose 48.1% to $74.3m. The main focus now is on BBN Planet, the Internet managed network service, which turned in revenues of $32.7m but the company wasn't saying whether or not it actually made any money there.
FTP Software Inc warns that it expects to incur a loss of $5m to 7m in the current quarter, with revenues in the range of $22m to $24m, as it sets up its Virtual IP Network plan.
CITRIX PROFITS SOAR ON STRENGTH OF WINDOWING PROTOCOL
It's been a busy nine months for Citrix Systems Inc. The Coral Lakes, Florida-based Microsoft Corp ally has gone from strength to strength during the period, thanks to its ICA Intelligent Console Architecture protocol, which enables users of windowing terminals and other skinny clients to access Windows applications running on Windows NT servers.
Pre-tax profits soared to $5.3m for the three months to September 30, compared to $984,000 last time around on revenue that rose by 173% to $11.7m. For the nine months, pre-tax profits jumped to $11.8m from $466,000 before, on revenue up more than 200% at $29m.
It looks like a classic case of having the right technology at the right time, for the inability of Network Computers and other terminals to run Windows locally has sent vendors scurrying to Citrix and its partners for ICA licenses. The company attributed its success to the growing acceptance of Windows NT in the marketplace and the accelerated adoption of ICA as a de facto distributed windows protocol standard.
Current licensees include Microsoft itself, Wyse Technology Inc, Boundless Inc, Tektronix Inc and Network Computing Devices Inc. In the third quarter, Microsoft bundled the ICA-based WinFrame Web client with its Internet Explorer 3.0 and Starter Kit. IBM is reference selling Win Frame in OS/2 customer installations and Citrix now offers a plug-in version of its ICA engine, which allows Netscape browser customers to access WinFrame servers and run robust 32bit windows applications on corporate intranets. And last month the firm announced it is in deep talks with Sun Microsystems Inc. A letter of intent has been signed between the two regarding a proposed license to incorporate ICA into Sun's future releases.
Cash balances and short term investments at the nine month stage were up a healthy 196% on last time at $128.6m. In his statement chief executive Roger Roberts said the funds would enable the group to pursue strategic opportunities in products and technology, as well as expand global sales and marketing presence.
SPYGLASS INKS NET-OVER-CABLE DEAL WITH WORLDGATE
Spyglass Inc is getting into the hot area of Internet-over-cable and licensed its Web Client SDK technology to WorldGate Communications. It will be used to provide a browser for trials starting in January with Cablevision Systems,. Aldephia Communications, Charter Communications, Comcast Cable and Telewest Communication in Scotland.
WorldGate says it will eventually charge $5 per month for the high-speed link. Nobody was talking about any financial details but Spyglass did say that it typically gets royalties on its SDK technology of $25,000 per year for 1,000 licenses for distribution, technical support, updates, documentation and object code. Once it gets above 1,000, Spyglass gets a licensing fee for each copy over that number.
Meantime, Spyglass' fourth quarter net profits were down 14.6% at $1.0m, but that was against a period including a gain of $863,000 due in part to the sale of its data visualization product line. Revenues for the quarter rose 44.6% to $6.6m. Net earnings for the year to September 30 were up 59.0% at $3.5m, as revenues climbed 83.7% to $22.3m.
The Naperville, Illinois pioneer put this year's numbers down to licensing to various real-time operating system vendors, including Microware and QNX Software, an extension of the all-important licensing deal with Microsoft, which uses Mosaic as the backbone to Internet Explorer, plus the acquisitions of SurfWatch Software and Stonehand Inc, and their products.
This year the company is going to double the size of its research team, expand geographically and focus on what it calls the Internet device market. But it warns that the investment in people and products wouldn't come cheap and could result in "downward pressure" on both revenues and income.
Company founder and CTO Tim Krauskopf announced a three-tiered product strategy of device connectivity, that's device-independent software to access and publish information on the net, infrastructure and performance-improving software, and finally, applications for collaboration over the net.
The company also announced the appointment of Rich Houle to the new position of executive VP development and services, reporting to CEO Doug Colbeth. He had been director of systems engineering for the central area at Sun Microsystems before going on to Trimark Technologies, and now Spyglass.
AUSTRALIAN SOFTWAY HAS FASTER JIT RUNTIME THAN SUN
Australian software developer Softway Pty Ltd, based in Sydney, now has the first public beta release of its Guava just-in-time Java run-time compiler, for Solaris 2.5 and 2.5.1. The Guava 1.0 beta is a drop-in replacement for Sun's JDK 1.0.2 interpreter, and it's free to download for 30 days from http:// guava.softway.com.au/.
Guava compiles Java bytecode into native Sparc machine code as it is executed, with compiled code cached so that future uses of the code run at full speed. As a result, claims the company, Guava runs Java programs between two and 20 times faster than the Sun interpreter on the same hardware. Guava also uses operating system threads which allow it to use multiple CPUs on a symmetrical multiprocessor.
Although applied to a Unix-hosted runtime, Guava has been designed with a variety of CPUs applications in mind, including embedded systems. Softway says it is open to discussion about other uses of its technology. There has been talk of building a runtime for the Apple Newton, for instance.
Is Guava safe, and is it compatible? Softway says yes, its compiler performs the same checks as the Sun runtime, so accepts and rejects the same bytecode files. And the product "attempts to be as compatible as possible with Sun's Java runtime implementation", going by Sun's published documentation. Softway says it will test Guava with Sun's conformance test suites when they are available,
Guava is not to be confused with Guavac, the free Java compiler written by Effective Edge Technologies under the GNU public license. Guavac is available from http:// HTTP.CS.Berkeley.EDU/~engberg/guava/
GAIN TO GAIN WEB POWERS
Sybase Inc finally sold off the Gain Momentum multimedia technology it acquired back in 1991 last week, saying that with the growth of Internets and intranets, interactive environments such as Gain were no longer so desirable.
That's not the view of Triton Services Inc, of Dunkirk, Maryland, to whom Sybase handed over further sales, support and development of the product, free of charge. Triton says it will slim down the Gain product in version 3.2, due out "very soon", and within a year will release version 4, with Web-enablement and easier access to relational databases.
Vermeer chief executive officer John Mandile has also provided funding. The firm is headed by Herb Rush, who founded TCP/IP-to-SNA house Brixton Systems, and its team, said to be heavy on mainframe experience, includes folks from BBN, Sybase, Open Market, Applix and Sun. Recent recruit Jack Orenstein joined from Object Design Inc as chief architect, and he's working on providing transparent access to relational databases from Java.
According to Rush, "The software and technology currently available for businesses is insufficient to support true Internet computing across a large enterprise. Novera's technology provides corporations with the infrastructure to enable IT to build, deploy and support distributed applications across corporate intranets and the Internet. Novera also enables software vendors to build robust applications in Java (tm) and ActiveX."
DOT Gossip
Digital Equipment Corp CEO Bob Palmer says DEC has no plans right now to do an NC and will only do one "if conditions are right" even though DEC Semiconductor has the underpinnings of one in the StrongARM chip. Palmer's position of course is highly reminiscent of the posture his predecessor Ken Olsen took on the PC, causing DEC to miss that little revolution. Meanwhile, however, DEC Semi, which is trying to stir up interest in the company in doing an NC, has two designs in hand and four OEM customers will be showing them with their brands on the boxes at Comdex. One of the designs uses JavaOS; the other Oracle's NCOS derived from Acorn. In Vegas, DEC will also show Dragon Systems' speech recognition on the things as well as some less startling speech synthesis and its reference board. Pity DEC sold off its terminals business. It would have been a natural.
American Telecasting Inc, Colorado Springs has tentatively agreed to a deal with MCI to test high-speed Internet services using American Telecasting's wireless cable - cellular television - service. The test, subject to agreement, will include locations agreed to by both American Telecasting and MCI.
Softscape Inc has introduced a kind of Internet replication for individual users via e-mail with its DiffXChange software. Using what the Acton, Massachusetts-based company claims is new data synchronization and exchange technology, DiffXChange only send changes to the documents rather than the entire document. It is available now for Windows 95 or Windows NT and costs $50 until January 1, when it goes up by $20. There is an OEM version called Dante available and it's also downloadable from www.softscape.com
Sun Microsystems Inc CTO and employee number 92 Eric Schmidt has no doubts the Web, Java and network computer devices will ultimately change Sun's business model. It's kind of ironic ahead of Sun's Independence Day NC splash this week, however, that Schmidt does not believe NCs will have many applications beyond replacing dumb terminals and PCs at the front-ends of mainframe and enterprise servers for a couple of years. URL is Schmidt's answer to the perennial Java-and-the-bottom-line question: Ubiquity first Revenue Later.
Sun Microsystems reckons Java is already "the most popular language in the software world" and estimates that 200,000 programmers have used it to create about 80,000 pages on the Web.
Object Database Management Group hasn't quite finished work on its Java object database specification JavaSoft Inc engineer and ODMG chair Rick Cattell says he's going to try and get the group to vote for a public review period in a few weeks' time. Watch the Web site www.odmg.org.
WebTV Networks Inc has secured the services of Albert "Rocky" Pimentel as chief financial officer. Rocky comes by way of LSI Logic Corp, where he held the same post, and prior to that he was at Momenta Corp, Conner peripherals and Seagate Technology. Rocky should be kept pretty busy, as the Palo Alto company recently got another round of financing, including an interest, both financially and technologically from Microsoft, which intends to develop television/Internet browsing technology with WebTV (OR 19). Rocky reports to president, CEO and co-founder Steve Perlman. www.webtv.com
Simply Interactive, a four month-old start-up from the sons of one of NetCom's founders (OR 4), will debut its SI-Retrieve tool, which transfers data between corporate Web sites and back-end databases or legacy systems at Comdex Fall in Las Vegas this month. The company will roll out a Java-based Web server, securities API, electronic software and I-net collaboration software starting in the second quarter of 1997. www.simply.com
Visa announced a European pilot project for secure payment card transactions over the Internet using the SET standard. It will involve 38 Visa member banks in 16 European countries. Commercial launch of the system will begin when the scheme's completed in late 1997 or early 1998.
At the last count Corel, Informix, Computer Associates, Interleaf, Cayenne, Bulletproof, Powersoft, Insignia, Sybase, Lotus, Dun & Bradstreet, IBM, Cascade Systems, Baan, Cambridge Technology Partners, Mentor Graphics, Applix and Airteam are going to be at Sun's Independence Day NC bash this week.
Isocor has released a '93 X.500 Global Directory Server that can manage, update and replicate information across multiple sites running NT, HP-UX 10, Stratus FTX or AIX 4.1 immediately, with more platforms coming in Q1, reports sister publication ClieNT Server News. GDS, integrates Internet Directory Services and Web Browser Access through LDAP and DAP, uses X.500 to synchronize dissimilar mail systems and comes with Global Directory Navigator, an application for remote management of multiple user sites.
Passport Designs is shipping its music@passport software, which enables musicians to create and distribute musical arrangements over the Internet. The software's built-in PitchWrite technology transcribes music, recorded via a microphone, into standard notation. Only users can create compositions and upload them onto Passport's Web site but anyone can download the stuff for free. The software costs $130, supports all Windows 3.1-compatible sound card, and comes with Internet Explorer. It also works with providers, including CompuServe and AOL. www.passportdesigns.com
WorldPages Inc is spearheading a consortium of Internet companies, Privacy Assured, that intends to certify Web sites that take care of individuals' personal privacy.
JavaSoft denies reports that it's taking RSA Data Security Inc's public key encryption APIs out of its Java Development Kit 1.1. It says it's following US government export policy on encryption technology by using Digital Signature Standard, but says it's decided to go with DSS because its licensing and distribution is less restrictive than RSA's.
Microsoft is having to delay making subscription charges for its Slate on-line public affairs magazine because it hasn't been able to set up an effective billing system - can't wait for it's foray into electronic commerce.
What's the story? Sun's Eric Schmidt is certainly no fan of Britpop. While applauding his 12-year old daughter's determined and successful effort to create her own Web home pages, he's less enthusiastic about some of its content: "I can tell you Oasis' music does not improve over the Internet," he told a packed session of delegates at the Netscape Internet Developers' Conference in New York.
(c) 1996 May not be copied
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