The online REPORTER
WEEKLY DISPATCHES FROM THE INTERNET FRONT
July 1 - 5 1996 Issue No 5
OSF ROYALTY-FREE 'CLEAN-ROOM' JAVA MEANS COMPETITION FOR SUN
Unhappy with Sun's Java licensing policy, the Open Group (neŽ OSF) Research Institute is working on a complete clean-room implementation of the language. Creating a complete second source for the language, free from Sun's control will also open the way for Java to be considered as a de jure standard, according to Vania Joloboff, Java project manager at the Research Institute's Grenoble-based labs.
Though Joloboff is based in France, the clean-room implementation, codenamed "Javelin" will take place in Cambridge, Massachusetts. French researchers have examined some of Sun's source code and are therefore deemed "contaminated".
Until now, the rush to license Java from Sun has been virtually ubiquitous, the one notable exception being OSF luminary DEC, which is thought to be pushing the project. "Just because people have paid the fee doesn't mean they are happy" said Joloboff, who declined to name Javelin's sponsors. The laboratory is seeking additional funding to speed the project's progress. Without it, the alternative Java implementation should be completed within 18 months. With it, progress will be much faster, he said.
Unlike Sun, the Open Group plans to make its code available royalty free, after an initial payment. Licensees will receive unrestricted rights to its use.
As we went to press Sun itself was unavailable for comment, but the company will face a dilemma as it weighs up the benefits of being seen to be open on the one hand, and the potential loss of control and revenue on the other. Joloboff would not comment on any feedback he had received from Sun, but says he dos not foresee Javelin being halted by substantial legal problems. "Sun is protective of the Java trademark, but I believe that Sun will actually put in place a programme to enable clean room implementations", he says. His concern is that alternative implementations should be free to describe themselves as being "Java" without getting a trademark suit slapped on them.
Meanwhile, the OSF is also venturing into Network Computer OS territory with the JavaLite project. Though superficially akin to Sun's own JavaOS, JavaLite isn't that Lite - Joloboff says it is aimed at corporate desktops. The initial release of the OS, due this summer will need 16MB of RAM or so, at least in the first iteration, but will get skinnier with time. It is based on the OSF's Mach-derived microkernel, with Sun's Java virtual machine ported on top.
However the plan is for Javelin to eventually replace all the Sun-derived components in JavaLite, giving the Research Institute a complete top-to-bottom Sun-independent Java execution environment.
History buffs will note that the Javelin project goes right back to OSF's roots as an organisation designed to fight AT&T and Sun's then control of Unix.
CITRIX PONDERS WINDOWS APPS FOR JAVA NETWORK COMPUTERS
Network computers based on the JavaOS could be running Windows applications over the Internet in the not-so-distant future when Microsoft ally Citrix Systems ports its server-centric thin-client architecture to the Java OS.
Although the network computer was created to circumvent Windows, Citrix says it won't take off unless it finds a way to run Windows apps from a server - and Citrix' WinFrame will be that way.
Citrix' WinFrame technology, while primarily perceived as a multi-user NT application, launches Windows applications of virtually any size over any network, be it the Internet or a dedicated private network. Java Computers - network or personal - will be able to run both Java and Windows applications simply by having a Java Virtual Machine-enabled platform and the Citrix ICA (Intelligent Console Architecture) client.
ICA facilitates the use of large applications over the network by having the server running most of the application, leaving the local processor to handle graphics. Conceptually, it is a model closer to X-Windows than the classical NC approach. The combined Java/Winframe approach has been taken by Citrix-licensing NC vendors HDS and Wyse.
While Citrix reportedly has no plans to embed Java in its thin client, sources indicated that an initiative is under way to port ICA to the Java OS. Citrix officially has "no announcements or agreements," but the Java port "clearly makes sense to anyone making a network PC."
For Citrix, who has ported ICA to everything from NT PCs to age 8 8ing DOS machines, Java OS is "just another platform" - albeit a strategic one.
WinFrame licensee Insignia Solutions, whose NTrigue product integrates the X protocol with the ICA base, has also indicated that it's not averse to running Java and its thin client product together, although it's even more hesitant to discuss plans.
MAGELLAN AND EXCITE TO MERGE AS INFOSEEK RE-THINKS 'ULTRASEEK'
The Excite and Magellan online directories have reached a preliminary agreement to merge in a deal worth an estimated $18m. The combined Excite service will be the second largest Internet search and directory service after Yahoo! Inc. The McKinley group, creator of the Magellan On-Line Guide was rumored to have been looking for a buyer for quite a while. The first consolidation in the search market comes at a time at which Yahoo! is the only one of the four publically traded search firms to be trading above their IPO price.
Meanwhile, Infoseek Corp has pushed back its plans for its next generation 'Ultraseek' search engine. Originally expected to be open to the public at the end of June, the company now says it has decided to build the technology into the next big release of the Infoseek site - 3.0, due out "this Fall". Infoseek is to re-think the strategy of having two completely separate web sites, instead concentrating everything in one place. The slippage from June to the Fall, is due to the wait for the other elements of Infoseek 3.0, says the spokesperson. However a stand-alone Ultraseek 'taster' is now not due to go live until August. www.ultraseek.com:5000
VISA TO HAVE SET CERTIFICATE AUTHORITIES IN PLACE BY JAN
Are financial institutions that accept credit card transactions secured only by SSL putting their business in danger? "That's an interesting question; we don't have enough statistics" says Stephen Herz, senior VP of electronic commerce at Visa International. Visa is aiming to have a full user certificate authority infrastructure up by next January. The infrastructure will enable Visa's financial institutions to issue digital certificates to their customers for use with the Visa/Mastercard Secure Electronic Transaction (SET) Standard.
Details are still sketchy, but he says "we will have the technical ability to deliver internationally". In some countries Visa is embroiled in political and regulatory discussions about the nature of the national certification authorities.
Mastercard and Visa duly published the new version of their SET secure electronic transaction system last week. As expected, the release is mainly a question of nips and tucks, introduced in response to the 3,000+ comments received. The first end-to-end SET-based systems will probably not now arrive until early next year says Herz, "Year end really means November; nothing happens in December", he noted wryly, adding that the first systems might still appear in January.
While Visa's main thrust in Internet-based commerce is based upon SET, the company is also experimenting with adapting its Visa Cash, smart card technology for Internet use. Visa Cash is designed for use when buying small items - smaller than with a conventional debit card.
Cash totals are held by the on-card chip and debited during transactions. The chips can be refilled at specialised ATMs.
The "Smart Commerce Japan" initiative, undertaken with Toshiba is adapting Visa Cash for Internet use. Toshiba is in charge of handling systems integration and is developing Java-based interface software between the chip card and the transaction system. Netscape is also involved, developing the back-end Internet platform. Late this year, 30,000 chip cards will be distributed, together with the necessary browser software and PC-compatible chip card read-writers. The year-long trial is formally due to get under-way in the first quarter of '97. www.visa.com
MONDEX INTERNET PLANS DUE IN A MONTH OR TWO
Meanwhile, Visa Cash competitor Mondex has yet to properly elucidate its Internet strategy. However, announcements are expected in the next four to six weeks, according to sources. Mondex, devised in the UK, but with takers in Canada, the Asia-Pacific region, and latterly Australia/New Zealand is arguably the chip card best suited to the 'net. Whereas Visa Cash is orientated solely at user-merchant interactions, Mondex adds the ability for private individuals to send money to each other; great if you want to lend your friend $10 and they are 2,000 miles away. Earlier this year, Mondex gave UK consultancy Hyperion the task of deciding how it could be applied to the Internet. According to the consultancy, the technical issues have all been solved: there are PC-compatible Mondex card readers, and there is a Netscape helper application for dealing with the data transfer.
What there isn't yet, is a clear marketing or roll-out plan, largely because Mondex International acts as a catalyst and clearing house for the technology, with commercialisation in the hands of the technology licensees.
MICROSOFT MOVES INTO EDI, MAY BUMP INTO NETSCAPE
At press-time Microsoft Corp was set to announce an agreement to use Net Logistics' electronic data interchange (EDI) technology for an Internet business-to-business system, reports our sister publication Computergram International.
The firm's logistics application will be distributed with Internet Explorer and Internet Information Server, allowing companies to automatically transmit things such as purchase orders over the Internet or Intranets.
EDI has been a troublesome technology and firms often need a number of different systems to communicate with all their businesses partners, but a Web-based system might make the EDI world less proprietary.
However, Netscape Communications Corp may beat Redmond to the punch. In April, it formed a joint venture, called Actra Business Systems LLC in Mountain View California, with GE Information Services. Our colleagues at Client Server News, reckon that Actra will use Netscape's business transaction encryption technology and ship product in early 1997 through electronic commerce providers, consulting firms, GE and Netscape. Net Logistics is presumed to be a start-up, since database and Web searches turned up slim descriptive pickings.
ENCRYPTION: POLICIES HURT US NATIONAL SECURITY & BUSINESS
Silicon Valley executives who testified before last week's Senate encryption hearings claimed that the current policy harms business's ability to compete and prevents the US from protecting its communications networks.
The hearings were hosted last week by Senator Conrad Burns of Montana, the sponsor of the ProCODE bill aiming to eliminate restraints on encryption strength, and were the first Senate hearings to be broadcast over the Internet. Burns was able to muster computer encryption industry notables like RSA Data Security President James Bidzos and Sun Microsystems' Witfield Diffie.
Bidzos said that the current limits on encryption strength are hobbling US technology. He compared their effects to what would happen "if there existed rules that encouraged the manufacture, in the US, of cars that were limited to a top speed of three miles per hour." With no limits on imports, US computer users will effectively "buy a foreign car."
Diffie neatly turned on its head the long-held notion that encryption was harmful to national security, saying that it actually protected the nation's increasingly valuable electronic assets in areas such as telephones, networks and the Internet. "As we make more and more use of electronic communication" and its infrastructure, he asserted, "we make ourselves more vulnerable to electronic attack."
E-DATA,COURT DATE SET
The pre-trial dates in the E-Data v Compuserve et al copyright infringement case (OR issue 1) has been set. E-Data will have to have presented its detailed infringement analysis and specific patent claims to each defendant by August 21, with the next conference date on September 6th. The case is being heard by Judge Barbara Jones of U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
At the same time E-Data has cleared the decks with the announcement that it is selling its old Dial-a-Gift business to Florafax International, of Vero Beach, Florida.
AOL PRESIDENT QUITS
As if its other problems weren't enough: a besieged America Online, still stinging from Federal Trade Commission billing practices inquiries, class action suits, poor performance on Wall Street and the damage the Internet might do to its business, has to find a new president and COO. William Razzouk, who joined AOL with much fanfare just four months ago from Federal Express, has resigned, reportedly because he didn't want to move his family from Memphis, Tennessee to Washington, DC.
Both Razzouk and CEO Steve Case cite the move as the primary cause of the resignation, but indications are that he may have been shoved overboard. In a prepared statement, Case said that he needed to take a more active role in day-to-day business decisions, leading both men "to conclude that it would be best for Bill to resign immediately." Case will act as COO until a replacement is found, a process Case said will take three to six months. AOL's share price did not seem unduly affected; rising a couple of points.
HOSTILE APPLETS PUT ON LEASH
Start-up Finjan Ltd, based in Netanya, Israel thinks it has the Java hostile applets problem licked. Its first product, Surfin'Board went into public beta last week and when run, warns users of applets that are attempting to circumvent security or break user-defined resource-usage barriers. Rogue applets can be killed, either by the user or automatically. The software (itself a Java applet) also monitors the Java runtime environment, in terms of memory, threads and URLs.
The first version, which should be finished by July is being aimed at nervous home users, and will cost around $50. But a more sophisticated version aimed at corporates is due in September. This will let IT staff set security policies globally, and will presumably admit the tacky West-coast user interface.
An entirely new product, Surfin'Guard is expected before year end. This has much greater pretensions, and is claimed to build a complete security shell around both the Java runtime environment and the operating system. Surfin'Guard will initially run on Windows NT with Windows 95 and various flavours of Unix following on. How the product will work isn't entirely clear. Company founder Shlomo Touboul says the company is writing device drivers that will extend the operating system. At the same time, MIS managers will be able to set up an access list which will grant special privileges to particular applets.
One of the problems that may face Finjan in the future is how to cope with encroachment from the Java operating system itself. Touboul says that JavaSoft is likely to implement something like the Surfin'Board approach itself by early next year and acknowledges that keeping Surfin'Board ahead of the game won't be trivial. Touboul says that he is coordinating with JavaSoft and hopes to persuade it that a strong, third party security market is best for the language's development. The privately held, 10-strong company is likely to be floated at some stage, said Touboul. www.finjan.com
JUSTICE APPEALS CDA RULING
Despite appearances that it would abandon an appeal on the recent Communications Decency Act decision, the Justice Department will mount an appeal and take the case to the Supreme Court.
When a Philadelphia three-judge panel overturned the CDA on the grounds that the Internet, as a marketplace of ideas, deserved the free speech protection granted print media, the Justice Department held back on a once-inevitable appeal. But as we went to press last week, C/NET, reported that deputy attorney general Jamie Gorelick sent a letter to CDA sponsor James Exon telling of the decision to appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court.
INTRANET/INTERNET CONVERGENCE A PASSING FAD SAYS 3COM
The intranet is just a passing fad, according to 3Com VP and chief technologist John Hart. In a draft of a keynote speech Hart's preparing to deliver at the TCP/IP+Intranet Expo in San Jose, California August 13-15 the 3Com exec is planning to say that Internet techniques and technologies aren't adequate to meet the long-term needs of corporations.
Hart, who claims the word intranet should really be "webnet," agrees that the Internet provides corporations with a valuable model for handling the problems created by information overload and the geographic dispersion of data.
Currently lacking other solutions, he sees many companies using Internet technology for the time being but "the requirements for a company's intranet network infrastructure are usually dramatically different from those of the Internet in areas such as topology, bandwidth, latency, security and ownership costs."
The result, he'll predict, is that corporate networks will begin to diverge from the intranet/Internet paradigm as new technology specifically suited to corporate needs starts to emerge. Hart's promising to gaze into his crystal ball and outline the ways he thinks the intranet and Internet will start to diverge after a few brief years of convergence.
IBM TURN TO NCD FOR TERMINALS
As we put Online Reporter to bed last week, Network Computing Devices (NCD) announced that it will build "network application terminals" for IBM.
It's unclear whether the cryptically-named devices are in fact business-oriented NCs or some other sort of terminal or if they mean that IBM will abandon any of its IPC efforts. NCD has already laid the groundwork for an NC with its diminutive Explora terminal and its Citrix WinFrame-based WinCenter software, but it could be starting development of the IBM terminals with a clean slate. The name suggests, however, that the solution will include WinCenter, which runs Windows and X applications over a network.
While the agreement ostensibly says the companies will co-develop terminals and IBM will resell them, its conditions favor the giant. IBM will fund a portion of NCD's work - but only "subject to successful completion of the development effort."
It also says IBM, if satisfied, will purchase a large portion of its yearly requirements over 1997 and 1998, suggesting that development should be completed by 1997. IBM won't be required to buy anything until the boxes are developed and Big Blue has already commenced volume shipments of the devices.
NCD has already been burned in out-sourced development with its work for AT&T on the Mariner Internet client. AT&T dumped the client for the ascending Netscape Navigator.
UNIFY READIES HEAVYWEIGHT WEB DEVELOPER TOOLKIT
This week, Unify Corp introduces the latest version of its Vision application development environment, which it says is capable of producing complex transaction processing applications that will run over the Internet or intranet. It also previews a new add-on, VisionWeb, which generates Java code beneath a visual front-end environment.
Vision release 3.0 and Vision/Web are based on Visix Software's recently launched Eleven developer toolkit: Visix was an early adopter of Java, and Unify has managed to ride off the back of its technology. 3.0 includes a Corba-standard IIP (Internet Inter-ORB Protocol) to support client/server transactions, and multi-tiered, drag-and-drop partitioning with replicated services for higher performance and fault tolerance, claimed to be the equal of rival Forte Software Inc's technology. The company has also integrated its previously separate Appman applications management toolset into the main product. 3.0 now also supports Microsoft's ActiveX.
Unify has an incentive to get everything working properly by early September, as it's one of the first software partners to be signed up by Sun Microsystems for the JavaStation network computer launch, scheduled for around that time. 3.0 is currently in beta, and is due to ship in August, priced at $7,200 for five development licenses. After that, the price drops to $4,995 for additional seats. Vision/Web, which is running somewhat later and is not likely to reach volume shipments until November, costs $17,000 per development site. Vision runs on Windows 95, NT, Windows 3.1, Mac, Unix and OS/2 platforms, while Vision/Web generates code to run on any system supporting Java.
Unify is currently thinking again about its run-time charges, the sort of practice that is frowned upon amongst Web advocates. At the moment it is priced at $300 per user in packs of ten for run-time licenses, but Unify may well end up abolishing the charges altogether.
From the Huh? Department: Few Internet business models are more confusing than that proposed by CyberGold Inc, a Berkeley, California start-up that will pay Internet users to view ads that have been automatically targeted to fit their interests. While getting paid to see ads is certainly refreshing, you get paid in CyberGold, a digital currency that can only be spent on the CyberGold site or for Internet access charges. The concept springs from Nat Goldhaber, the former head of the Kaleida Labs .
IS IT AN OS OR ISN'T IT?
While Netscape may be turning Navigator into a platform that an increasing number of developers will build on, at least publicly it says it has no designs to turn the browser into an operating system.
The rise of the Network Computer and its dependence on the Internet have cast the Netscape client in many minds as the software needed to run an NC. A recent story in PC Week, in fact, said that Netscape had plans for a new subsidiary focusing on things like NCs and PDAs and would reveal a comprehensive strategy later this summer to position its server and browser as an Internet OS.
Not true, Netscape says, although perhaps the distinction between Navigator as universal client and a "true" operating system is merely academic. Netscape says it won't bother with the device drivers and other infrastructure pieces that characterize an operating system - but it plans for Navigator to subsume all the functions of operating systems except for those underpinnings.
Sources even suggested that the Internet infrastructure and protocols may someday become strong enough and feature-rich enough to do away with an underlying proprietary OS altogether.
One advantage to Navigator taking over the role of operating system, Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen said in the PC Week interview, is that "Major new releases of our browser is [sic] a 12-month thing." OSes like Cairo or Copland take five years.
SUN PULLS WRAPS FROM $445 MICROJAVA NC REFERENCE SPEC
Sun Microsystems Inc's Sun Microelectronics unit has defined a $445 microJava-based reference system for the NC, illustrating that a Web appliance price war is already on. The system roadmap it defined takes the PC model and simplifies it using a $100 microSparc IIep as the JavaA1 (first-generation) model. A base JavaA1 system would be priced at around $615. The 1997 JavaA2 system would use $25-to-$50 microJava processors and come in at around $445 as Java-on-silicon immediately reduces CPU power, Flash and memory requirements, Sun says.
Sun's minimum set of technologies for building NC Reference Profile-compliant devices puts the cost of a first-generation device using an embedded microSparc IIep between $500 and $1,000, with no maintenance costs, against a $2,000 PC it reckons costs $3,500 to maintain.
Sun noted Java is just one way to get to the Network Computer and that the JavaStations its Sun Microsystems Computer Company cousin will describe in 30 days are just one implementation of its vision. Internally, Sun refers to generic NC devices as Net Portals.
MICROSOFT AND FRIENDS DEVELOP PPP TUNNELING
A Microsoft-led group of four companies has developed the Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol, designed to enable users to set up virtual private networks across the Internet.
The foursome - Microsoft, 3Com, Ascend Communications and ECI Telematics International - says that the specification is needed to enable secure access to corporate networks across the Internet. As its name suggests, the protocol is based on the Point-to-Point Protocol, and is thus claimed to be compatible with existing PPP-enabled systems.
Microsoft plans to pilot and evaluate the protocol on the Microsoft Network through UUNet. It is also planning to implement it on Windows NT Server 4.0.
APPLIX PROMISES DATA FROM ANYWHERE TO ANYWHERE
Applix Inc is in the process of morphing from a real-time spreadsheet specialist to one that bestrides the decision support and rapid application development markets too. Like so many others, it has lit upon the Internet as a way of making its old skills fresh and interesting. It took another step down the road last week with the release of the Applix Anyware family of products to build and deploy applications over the Internet or any set of networked desktops.
At the center is WebSheet, what the Westboro, Massachusetts company claims is the first Java-based extensible client/server spreadsheet with live links to real-time and historical databases. The suite builds on Applix' existing technology used in its Applixware real-time data access and analysis software, but the addition of Java broadens the base from which the data can be accessed: in short, any Java-enabled desktop.
The company is aiming at the manufacturing, banking and finance, human resources and securities trading markets with Anyware, which is out next quarter.
The Anyware server is up on Sun, Silicon Graphics, AIX, DEC Unix and HP-UX and costs $5,000. Anyware RealTime WebData is needed for SQL database access and costs $200 per concurrent user. It supports Oracle, Informix, Sybase and CA-Ingres, as well as Arbor Software Corporation's Essbase.
Anyware Web RealTime lets data be retrieved from Reuters, Bloomberg, Dow Jones/Telerate, TIBco and other data distribution vendors and costs $1,000 per user.
The Anyware tools are Innovators Workbench, WebSheet Innovators Extension and WebRealTime Innovators Extension. The Workbench will go for $2,500. There's also a starter kit for $10,000 and volume discounts apply.
INTEL INTERCAST GOES ON THE AIR
Intel, joined by the likes of NBC and Compaq, launched its Intercast technology last week, a Pentium technology that lets users view television synchronized with Internet data.
Compaq said that it's integrated Intercast - which requires both hardware and software - with a Presario home computer that will ship in mid-July. Joining Compaq is Happauge Computer Works. AST and Sony say they'll have systems running the technology later this year, and Intel claims it has half a dozen other companies planning implementations.
NBC will be the exclusive Intercaster for now, and will broadcast 70 hours of the Olympics this summer (The system will first roll out in Atlanta during the Olympics) and a detective show in the fall. ABC and CBS will start sometime next year. Intercast delivers Internet and television content in the same signal, either by cable or through the air.
The Internet segment will broadcast through the unused portion of the television signal - the vertical blanking interval, where things like closed captions also travel. The Intercast service will enable users to view television programming in one window while another is on the Internet.
l An NBC executive at the Intel Intercast announcement explained the concept of technology convergence as an attempt "to marry the computer nerd to the couch potato." Well put.
GENERAL MAGIC JOINS W3C
Sunnyvale, California's General Magic has made its new focus on the Internet (OR issue 3) official by joining the World Wide Web Consortium to develop intelligent agent standards. It's coming to the Web consortium with its Telescript technology, which is designed to enable users to launch agents onto the Internet to search for and monitor information as well as interact with services and other agents. Tony Rutkowski, VP of Internet business development at General Magic will be its W3C representative.
Twenty of what are called the "hottest" new Internet companies are supposed to trot out their ideas at VentureNet '96 July 24-25 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Long Beach, California. The conference, a first of its kind and sponsored by the Software Council of Southern California, is supposed to hook up VCs and Internet entrepreneurs. It's also supposed to have sessions on how existing companies can re-engineer themselves for the 'net and how start-ups can include the 'net in their plans. The deadline for presenter applications is Friday July 5. Foreign companies are welcome. www.venturenet.org
Network computers based on the JavaOS could be running Windows applications over the Internet in the not-so-distant future when Microsoft ally Citrix Systems ports its server-centric thin-client architecture to the Java OS.
Although the network computer was created to circumvent Windows, Citrix says it won't take off unless it finds a way to run Windows apps from a server - and Citrix' WinFrame will be that way.
Citrix' WinFrame technology, while primarily perceived as a multi-user NT application, launches Windows applications of virtually any size over any network, be it the Internet or a dedicated private network. Java Computers - network or personal - will be able to run both Java and Windows applications simply by having a Java Virtual Machine-enabled platform and the Citrix ICA (Intelligent Console Architecture) client.
ICA facilitates the use of large applications over the network by having the server running most of the application, leaving the local processor to handle graphics. Conceptually, it is a model closer to X-Windows than the classical NC approach. The combined Java/Winframe approach has been taken by Citrix-licensing NC vendors HDS and Wyse.
While Citrix reportedly has no plans to embed Java in its thin client, sources indicated that an initiative is under way to port ICA to the Java OS. Citrix officially has "no announcements or agreements," but the Java port "clearly makes sense to anyone making a network PC."
For Citrix, who has ported ICA to everything from NT PCs to age 8 8ing DOS machines, Java OS is "just another platform" - albeit a strategic one.
WinFrame licensee Insignia Solutions, whose NTrigue product integrates the X protocol with the ICA base, has also indicated
VISIX TAKES ON JAVA WORKSHOP
Visix Software Inc is set to take on SunSoft's Java toolkit with a Java application development and deployment offering that "will blow Java WorkShop out of the water," according to the Reston, Virginia company.
The Visix offering, code named Eleven, is composed of two integrated components, a visual Java-specific integrated development environment and Java compiler and an Intranet Application Platform (IAP) for deployment. Eleven-built application components will be accessible and executable using a Visix-provided launcher delivered as a Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Explorer plug-in.
IAP uses Visix's Galaxy high-end, high-brow C/C++ development tools, which been criticized in the past for being difficult to use. The company concedes this fact but it insists Eleven will be as easy to use as Microsoft Visual Basic. Visix IAP supports Java and ActiveX.
Although Visix expects to pick up the usual crowd of Web authoring types, it's looking to grab the business application space by pitching the stuff as a low-price, entry-level offering for intranet application development. The development environment is expected to cost $3,000, the Intranet Application Platform plug-in will be around $50. It's up under Windows 95, Windows NT, Unix and the Mac OS. Eleven beta tests in July.
I/Pro, which drew data from over 1 trillion log entries to analyze web site activity, has released a report on its initial findings. It found among other things that traffic on ad-supported pages has more than doubled since January and that while US visitors now makes up 70% of traffic, foreign traffic is increasing twice as fast as the US. The report's only $3,000, which answers the questionof how at least some people plan to make money on the Internet.
HDS HAS PRO-WINDOWS NCS
As expected, HDS Network Systems Inc was quick out of the Network Computer blocks, launching its @workStation and sounding off about the NC plans fellow travellers IBM, Sun Microsystems and Oracle are cooking up. It claims HDS @workStation will provide access to mainframe, Unix and Windows applications while Oracle and Sun are off running Java applets.
HDS says its initial hostility to the Network Computer Reference Profile was the NC's anti-WinTel orientation, something it's been able to overcome by licensing Insignia Solutions' NTrigue, a thin-client Citrix Winframe-based software that lets users access Windows and X applications from a server.
It decided to give its netOS operating system the NC-compliant tag only when it realized how little work it had to do to what it already had @workStation will run with a Java Virtual Machine and NTrigue's ICA thin clients.
MANZI GETS BOUGHT AGAIN
Jim Manzi, despite being such an independent soul, can't seem to stay away from giants. He lasted only 100 days when IBM bought Lotus, but now he's been bought by another giant, AT&T. AT&T announced last week that it would merge its New Media Services unit with Industry.Net - where Manzi fled, to provide secure business-to-business Electronic Data Interchange over the Internet - to create Nets Inc, an Internet company designed "to create the largest business-to-business marketplace on the Web."
AT&T will maintain, at least for the moment, only a minority share in the new company, indicating that it's basically abandoned its own online content plans in favor of outsourcing them to a smaller, more mobile company. Nets Inc will have a combined staff of about 300. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Manzi will serve as chairman and chief executive of Nets. Industry.Net and AT&T Business Network will remain separate Web sites, but with links to drive traffic between the two.
APPLE VETS JOIN REDMOND 'NET SQUAD
Microsoft's Internet push has gotten a boost from an unlikely source as it snared two key Apple players and put them to work in its Internet division.
The new hires, Steven Capps and Walter Smith, are both Newton veterans, with Capps going all the way back to Xerox in the 1970s and Apple's Lisa. He left in 1985 only to return three years later to become the Newton team's chief developer. Smith designed the NewtonScript language and environment and Newton's object-based data storage system.
They will both work on "futures," next-generation user interfaces in the Internet division. Although Microsoft is sharing few details, their work will most likely show up in future versions of the Explorer Web browser. Both men report directly to Internet chief Brad Silverberg.
Apple's stock hit the lowest point it's seen in 10 years last Wednesday, dipping below $20 in a drop that wasn't traced to any single event. The stock has traded in the $24-$30 range since Gil Amelio took the helm. Its current price is low enough to have Sun sniffing around as a buyer again.
ANDERSEN, BBN PITCH IN ON NET VENTURE
Andersen Consulting and BBN Corporation announced a joint venture to design and sell Internet-based business services such as transaction processing for airlines and other industries.
The venture is 87.5% owned by Andersen, 12.5% by BBN, and Andersen will contribute $35 million in cash and services to the venture, while BBN will contribute $5 million. Andersen describes the venture as an electronic utility that will provide software and systems for processing electronic orders to enable companies to set up businesses that will exploit the Internet.
CITRIX, JAVA NCS AND WINDOWS APPS
DOT Gossip
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and its little friend, the Object Management Group, met together for a two-day workshop last week to discuss the ins and outs of distributed and mobile code. The OMG would like nothing more than for URL, HTTP and CGI to become Corba-compliant, reportedly a 70% probability. In fact, it wouldn't mind it a bit if it were to absorb W3C, which is currently looking for a CEO. All the major Web players were at the meeting except for Netscape which is being standoffish because it's got its own fish to fry with LiveConnect. Microsoft was there as was Sun which was sitting on the fence not knowing which way to go since Java has its own Remote Method Invocation.
Oh yeah? Take that. Microsoft, rankled by Netscape's boast that Navigator's 38 million users make it the most popular PC application, now claims that 25 million copies of Explorer have been downloaded. It is left as an exercise for the reader to calculate how many people have installed both .
Microsoft is launching in July an Internet package called Athena to fill in the holes in Windows 95 for Internet connectivity. It will include an Internet telephone client called Net.Meeting as well as final releases of Explorer 3.0, Mail, News and a TCP/IP stack.
Intel will take 4.5% of San Francisco-based C/net Inc to get a toehold in Internet content. C/net provides reports on technology topics on cable TV and the World Wide Web, and Intel and C/net will develop a jointly owned Web site. Cnet has filed to go public and Intel's involvement was revealed in the prospectus. Intel says it makes dozens of such investments but most are not disclosed.
Microsoft has launched the Internet Workshop, a Web site designed to help ActiveX developers and content authors. It will initially post information on subjects like HTML, Web design and ActiveX, with Java documentation and sample Web site code to follow. It remains to be seen whether the site will run into trademark trouble with Internet WorkShop, Solstice's Web development kit.
Symantec Corporation says version 1.2 of its CafŽ visual Java development tool is out now. The new version includes a Just In Time compiler, JDK version 1.0.2 and remote debugging. Existing users can download the 1.2 update gratis from http://cafe.symantec.com. the complete package costs $129.95.
SunSoft tells us that the abstracts for NetWorld+Interop '97's Internet speakers are due this week, almost a year before the conference takes place. As if anyone knows what they'll be saying about the Internet then - just how abstract does N+I want it?
Microsoft is teaming with credit card issuer JCB Company Ltd for electronic commerce in Japan. The two will establish Planet, a service that will enable consumers to buy products at virtual shops on the Internet. The site will initially feature about 200 JCB member shops from around the world, and will expand as the business develops. It will use the SET system. JCB is scheduled to start testing Planet later this year and is expected to begin services from next April.
MCI plans to spend $60 million on upgrading its Internet network. The investment in new equipment will quadruple the backbone speed to 622Mbps from 155Mbps by the end of the year. The company will also add about 13,000 switch ports by the end of the year to meet demand for Internet access. MCI says it now runs 250 terabytes - the equivalent of 9 million encylopedia volumes - over its
backbone each month.
Though NSI thought there would be 25,000 Internet domain names cut off last week, a last-minute scramble means only 9,272 went.
Latest company to pledge itself to Netscape's server software is IBM. Big Blue will be bundling elements of Netscape SuiteSpot and 'Commercial Applications for AIX' with some of its RS/6000s. IBM is mainly aiming to woo intranet users.
SunService has put in a 900 number for Java Workshop technical support. It costs $2.95 a minute. It's the first time SunService has tried a 900 number.
NetWorld+Interop and a companion piece Interop DotCom described as a business Internet event are set for September 16-20 in Atlanta. The exhibits part of both will run September 18-20.
America Online has signed Neilsen Media Research, the TV ratings company, to provide advertisers withdetailed profiles of AOL users to help them make tailored ads. AOL, hit by sluggish subscriber growth and recent price cuts, will have to rely increasingly on advertisements.
The 10 most wired countries in the world measuredÊby the number of their websites are the US, Canada, the UK, Italy, Australia, Germany, Japan, France, Netherlands and Sweden, according to University of Maryland research.
IDC says intranet servers will outsell Internet servers 4.6 million to 400,000 by the turn of the century.
WWW Advisors Inc of Lexington, Kentucky has created the WWW Internet Fund to spread the risks of the Internet market through collective investments It wants to invest in three tiers of Internet play: mature, mid-life and adolescent, but it seems like most Net companies fit squarely into the
adolescent category.
Ziff Davis's ZD Net has been the victim of a Web version of ballot stuffing, with the fingers pointing at Netscape. One of ZD Net's recent Quick Polls posed the question "Who will win the browser wars - Microsoft or Netscape?" It appeared that for the first 24 hours the honors were just about even, but then Netscape pulled dramatically ahead. ZD investigated and found that three IP addresses, each belonging to Netscape, had cast a total of 953 votes in a matter of hours, getting
around the defenses that are intended to prevent users from casting more than one vote per poll. The crooked votes were identified and removed.
PointCast Network, the advertising-driven service that's clogged up networks all over the world by bringing news reports and such to individual desktops, claims 26 million hits a day, second only to Netscape's Web site. It says it'll top a million users by year-end.
General Magic Inc has bought substantially all the assets of Conterra Software Inc, a Windows NT Internet and intranet application development company based in the Carolinas. Terms were not disclosed. It also licensed Explorer 2.0 from Microsoft to bundle with its Magic Cap for Windows, an upcoming version of its PDA operating system, due in the second half.
Sun Microsystems may be heavily regulating its Java trademark and its usage in Internet addresses, but it's gracious enough to say that "If the island of Java were to establish a domain name that had Java in it, no, we would not go after that."
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WEEKLY DISPATCHES FROM THE INTERNET FRONT
July 1 - 5 1996 Issue No 5
OSF ROYALTY-FREE 'CLEAN-ROOM' JAVA MEANS COMPETITION FOR SUN
Unhappy with Sun's Java licensing policy, the Open Group (neŽ OSF) Research Institute is working on a complete clean-room implementation of the language. Creating a complete second source for the language, free from Sun's control will also open the way for Java to be considered as a de jure standard, according to Vania Joloboff, Java project manager at the Research Institute's Grenoble-based labs.
Though Joloboff is based in France, the clean-room implementation, codenamed "Javelin" will take place in Cambridge, Massachusetts. French researchers have examined some of Sun's source code and are therefore deemed "contaminated".
Until now, the rush to license Java from Sun has been virtually ubiquitous, the one notable exception being OSF luminary DEC, which is thought to be pushing the project. "Just because people have paid the fee doesn't mean they are happy" said Joloboff, who declined to name Javelin's sponsors. The laboratory is seeking additional funding to speed the project's progress. Without it, the alternative Java implementation should be completed within 18 months. With it, progress will be much faster, he said.
Unlike Sun, the Open Group plans to make its code available royalty free, after an initial payment. Licensees will receive unrestricted rights to its use.
As we went to press Sun itself was unavailable for comment, but the company will face a dilemma as it weighs up the benefits of being seen to be open on the one hand, and the potential loss of control and revenue on the other. Joloboff would not comment on any feedback he had received from Sun, but says he dos not foresee Javelin being halted by substantial legal problems. "Sun is protective of the Java trademark, but I believe that Sun will actually put in place a programme to enable clean room implementations", he says. His concern is that alternative implementations should be free to describe themselves as being "Java" without getting a trademark suit slapped on them.
Meanwhile, the OSF is also venturing into Network Computer OS territory with the JavaLite project. Though superficially akin to Sun's own JavaOS, JavaLite isn't that Lite - Joloboff says it is aimed at corporate desktops. The initial release of the OS, due this summer will need 16MB of RAM or so, at least in the first iteration, but will get skinnier with time. It is based on the OSF's Mach-derived microkernel, with Sun's Java virtual machine ported on top.
However the plan is for Javelin to eventually replace all the Sun-derived components in JavaLite, giving the Research Institute a complete top-to-bottom Sun-independent Java execution environment.
History buffs will note that the Javelin project goes right back to OSF's roots as an organisation designed to fight AT&T and Sun's then control of Unix.
CITRIX PONDERS WINDOWS APPS FOR JAVA NETWORK COMPUTERS
Network computers based on the JavaOS could be running Windows applications over the Internet in the not-so-distant future when Microsoft ally Citrix Systems ports its server-centric thin-client architecture to the Java OS.
Although the network computer was created to circumvent Windows, Citrix says it won't take off unless it finds a way to run Windows apps from a server - and Citrix' WinFrame will be that way.
Citrix' WinFrame technology, while primarily perceived as a multi-user NT application, launches Windows applications of virtually any size over any network, be it the Internet or a dedicated private network. Java Computers - network or personal - will be able to run both Java and Windows applications simply by having a Java Virtual Machine-enabled platform and the Citrix ICA (Intelligent Console Architecture) client.
ICA facilitates the use of large applications over the network by having the server running most of the application, leaving the local processor to handle graphics. Conceptually, it is a model closer to X-Windows than the classical NC approach. The combined Java/Winframe approach has been taken by Citrix-licensing NC vendors HDS and Wyse.
While Citrix reportedly has no plans to embed Java in its thin client, sources indicated that an initiative is under way to port ICA to the Java OS. Citrix officially has "no announcements or agreements," but the Java port "clearly makes sense to anyone making a network PC."
For Citrix, who has ported ICA to everything from NT PCs to age 8 8ing DOS machines, Java OS is "just another platform" - albeit a strategic one.
WinFrame licensee Insignia Solutions, whose NTrigue product integrates the X protocol with the ICA base, has also indicated that it's not averse to running Java and its thin client product together, although it's even more hesitant to discuss plans.
MAGELLAN AND EXCITE TO MERGE AS INFOSEEK RE-THINKS 'ULTRASEEK'
The Excite and Magellan online directories have reached a preliminary agreement to merge in a deal worth an estimated $18m. The combined Excite service will be the second largest Internet search and directory service after Yahoo! Inc. The McKinley group, creator of the Magellan On-Line Guide was rumored to have been looking for a buyer for quite a while. The first consolidation in the search market comes at a time at which Yahoo! is the only one of the four publically traded search firms to be trading above their IPO price.
Meanwhile, Infoseek Corp has pushed back its plans for its next generation 'Ultraseek' search engine. Originally expected to be open to the public at the end of June, the company now says it has decided to build the technology into the next big release of the Infoseek site - 3.0, due out "this Fall". Infoseek is to re-think the strategy of having two completely separate web sites, instead concentrating everything in one place. The slippage from June to the Fall, is due to the wait for the other elements of Infoseek 3.0, says the spokesperson. However a stand-alone Ultraseek 'taster' is now not due to go live until August. www.ultraseek.com:5000
VISA TO HAVE SET CERTIFICATE AUTHORITIES IN PLACE BY JAN
Are financial institutions that accept credit card transactions secured only by SSL putting their business in danger? "That's an interesting question; we don't have enough statistics" says Stephen Herz, senior VP of electronic commerce at Visa International. Visa is aiming to have a full user certificate authority infrastructure up by next January. The infrastructure will enable Visa's financial institutions to issue digital certificates to their customers for use with the Visa/Mastercard Secure Electronic Transaction (SET) Standard.
Details are still sketchy, but he says "we will have the technical ability to deliver internationally". In some countries Visa is embroiled in political and regulatory discussions about the nature of the national certification authorities.
Mastercard and Visa duly published the new version of their SET secure electronic transaction system last week. As expected, the release is mainly a question of nips and tucks, introduced in response to the 3,000+ comments received. The first end-to-end SET-based systems will probably not now arrive until early next year says Herz, "Year end really means November; nothing happens in December", he noted wryly, adding that the first systems might still appear in January.
While Visa's main thrust in Internet-based commerce is based upon SET, the company is also experimenting with adapting its Visa Cash, smart card technology for Internet use. Visa Cash is designed for use when buying small items - smaller than with a conventional debit card.
Cash totals are held by the on-card chip and debited during transactions. The chips can be refilled at specialised ATMs.
The "Smart Commerce Japan" initiative, undertaken with Toshiba is adapting Visa Cash for Internet use. Toshiba is in charge of handling systems integration and is developing Java-based interface software between the chip card and the transaction system. Netscape is also involved, developing the back-end Internet platform. Late this year, 30,000 chip cards will be distributed, together with the necessary browser software and PC-compatible chip card read-writers. The year-long trial is formally due to get under-way in the first quarter of '97. www.visa.com
MONDEX INTERNET PLANS DUE IN A MONTH OR TWO
Meanwhile, Visa Cash competitor Mondex has yet to properly elucidate its Internet strategy. However, announcements are expected in the next four to six weeks, according to sources. Mondex, devised in the UK, but with takers in Canada, the Asia-Pacific region, and latterly Australia/New Zealand is arguably the chip card best suited to the 'net. Whereas Visa Cash is orientated solely at user-merchant interactions, Mondex adds the ability for private individuals to send money to each other; great if you want to lend your friend $10 and they are 2,000 miles away. Earlier this year, Mondex gave UK consultancy Hyperion the task of deciding how it could be applied to the Internet. According to the consultancy, the technical issues have all been solved: there are PC-compatible Mondex card readers, and there is a Netscape helper application for dealing with the data transfer.
What there isn't yet, is a clear marketing or roll-out plan, largely because Mondex International acts as a catalyst and clearing house for the technology, with commercialisation in the hands of the technology licensees.
MICROSOFT MOVES INTO EDI, MAY BUMP INTO NETSCAPE
At press-time Microsoft Corp was set to announce an agreement to use Net Logistics' electronic data interchange (EDI) technology for an Internet business-to-business system, reports our sister publication Computergram International.
The firm's logistics application will be distributed with Internet Explorer and Internet Information Server, allowing companies to automatically transmit things such as purchase orders over the Internet or Intranets.
EDI has been a troublesome technology and firms often need a number of different systems to communicate with all their businesses partners, but a Web-based system might make the EDI world less proprietary.
However, Netscape Communications Corp may beat Redmond to the punch. In April, it formed a joint venture, called Actra Business Systems LLC in Mountain View California, with GE Information Services. Our colleagues at Client Server News, reckon that Actra will use Netscape's business transaction encryption technology and ship product in early 1997 through electronic commerce providers, consulting firms, GE and Netscape. Net Logistics is presumed to be a start-up, since database and Web searches turned up slim descriptive pickings.
ENCRYPTION: POLICIES HURT US NATIONAL SECURITY & BUSINESS
Silicon Valley executives who testified before last week's Senate encryption hearings claimed that the current policy harms business's ability to compete and prevents the US from protecting its communications networks.
The hearings were hosted last week by Senator Conrad Burns of Montana, the sponsor of the ProCODE bill aiming to eliminate restraints on encryption strength, and were the first Senate hearings to be broadcast over the Internet. Burns was able to muster computer encryption industry notables like RSA Data Security President James Bidzos and Sun Microsystems' Witfield Diffie.
Bidzos said that the current limits on encryption strength are hobbling US technology. He compared their effects to what would happen "if there existed rules that encouraged the manufacture, in the US, of cars that were limited to a top speed of three miles per hour." With no limits on imports, US computer users will effectively "buy a foreign car."
Diffie neatly turned on its head the long-held notion that encryption was harmful to national security, saying that it actually protected the nation's increasingly valuable electronic assets in areas such as telephones, networks and the Internet. "As we make more and more use of electronic communication" and its infrastructure, he asserted, "we make ourselves more vulnerable to electronic attack."
E-DATA,COURT DATE SET
The pre-trial dates in the E-Data v Compuserve et al copyright infringement case (OR issue 1) has been set. E-Data will have to have presented its detailed infringement analysis and specific patent claims to each defendant by August 21, with the next conference date on September 6th. The case is being heard by Judge Barbara Jones of U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
At the same time E-Data has cleared the decks with the announcement that it is selling its old Dial-a-Gift business to Florafax International, of Vero Beach, Florida.
AOL PRESIDENT QUITS
As if its other problems weren't enough: a besieged America Online, still stinging from Federal Trade Commission billing practices inquiries, class action suits, poor performance on Wall Street and the damage the Internet might do to its business, has to find a new president and COO. William Razzouk, who joined AOL with much fanfare just four months ago from Federal Express, has resigned, reportedly because he didn't want to move his family from Memphis, Tennessee to Washington, DC.
Both Razzouk and CEO Steve Case cite the move as the primary cause of the resignation, but indications are that he may have been shoved overboard. In a prepared statement, Case said that he needed to take a more active role in day-to-day business decisions, leading both men "to conclude that it would be best for Bill to resign immediately." Case will act as COO until a replacement is found, a process Case said will take three to six months. AOL's share price did not seem unduly affected; rising a couple of points.
HOSTILE APPLETS PUT ON LEASH
Start-up Finjan Ltd, based in Netanya, Israel thinks it has the Java hostile applets problem licked. Its first product, Surfin'Board went into public beta last week and when run, warns users of applets that are attempting to circumvent security or break user-defined resource-usage barriers. Rogue applets can be killed, either by the user or automatically. The software (itself a Java applet) also monitors the Java runtime environment, in terms of memory, threads and URLs.
The first version, which should be finished by July is being aimed at nervous home users, and will cost around $50. But a more sophisticated version aimed at corporates is due in September. This will let IT staff set security policies globally, and will presumably admit the tacky West-coast user interface.
An entirely new product, Surfin'Guard is expected before year end. This has much greater pretensions, and is claimed to build a complete security shell around both the Java runtime environment and the operating system. Surfin'Guard will initially run on Windows NT with Windows 95 and various flavours of Unix following on. How the product will work isn't entirely clear. Company founder Shlomo Touboul says the company is writing device drivers that will extend the operating system. At the same time, MIS managers will be able to set up an access list which will grant special privileges to particular applets.
One of the problems that may face Finjan in the future is how to cope with encroachment from the Java operating system itself. Touboul says that JavaSoft is likely to implement something like the Surfin'Board approach itself by early next year and acknowledges that keeping Surfin'Board ahead of the game won't be trivial. Touboul says that he is coordinating with JavaSoft and hopes to persuade it that a strong, third party security market is best for the language's development. The privately held, 10-strong company is likely to be floated at some stage, said Touboul. www.finjan.com
JUSTICE APPEALS CDA RULING
Despite appearances that it would abandon an appeal on the recent Communications Decency Act decision, the Justice Department will mount an appeal and take the case to the Supreme Court.
When a Philadelphia three-judge panel overturned the CDA on the grounds that the Internet, as a marketplace of ideas, deserved the free speech protection granted print media, the Justice Department held back on a once-inevitable appeal. But as we went to press last week, C/NET, reported that deputy attorney general Jamie Gorelick sent a letter to CDA sponsor James Exon telling of the decision to appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court.
INTRANET/INTERNET CONVERGENCE A PASSING FAD SAYS 3COM
The intranet is just a passing fad, according to 3Com VP and chief technologist John Hart. In a draft of a keynote speech Hart's preparing to deliver at the TCP/IP+Intranet Expo in San Jose, California August 13-15 the 3Com exec is planning to say that Internet techniques and technologies aren't adequate to meet the long-term needs of corporations.
Hart, who claims the word intranet should really be "webnet," agrees that the Internet provides corporations with a valuable model for handling the problems created by information overload and the geographic dispersion of data.
Currently lacking other solutions, he sees many companies using Internet technology for the time being but "the requirements for a company's intranet network infrastructure are usually dramatically different from those of the Internet in areas such as topology, bandwidth, latency, security and ownership costs."
The result, he'll predict, is that corporate networks will begin to diverge from the intranet/Internet paradigm as new technology specifically suited to corporate needs starts to emerge. Hart's promising to gaze into his crystal ball and outline the ways he thinks the intranet and Internet will start to diverge after a few brief years of convergence.
IBM TURN TO NCD FOR TERMINALS
As we put Online Reporter to bed last week, Network Computing Devices (NCD) announced that it will build "network application terminals" for IBM.
It's unclear whether the cryptically-named devices are in fact business-oriented NCs or some other sort of terminal or if they mean that IBM will abandon any of its IPC efforts. NCD has already laid the groundwork for an NC with its diminutive Explora terminal and its Citrix WinFrame-based WinCenter software, but it could be starting development of the IBM terminals with a clean slate. The name suggests, however, that the solution will include WinCenter, which runs Windows and X applications over a network.
While the agreement ostensibly says the companies will co-develop terminals and IBM will resell them, its conditions favor the giant. IBM will fund a portion of NCD's work - but only "subject to successful completion of the development effort."
It also says IBM, if satisfied, will purchase a large portion of its yearly requirements over 1997 and 1998, suggesting that development should be completed by 1997. IBM won't be required to buy anything until the boxes are developed and Big Blue has already commenced volume shipments of the devices.
NCD has already been burned in out-sourced development with its work for AT&T on the Mariner Internet client. AT&T dumped the client for the ascending Netscape Navigator.
UNIFY READIES HEAVYWEIGHT WEB DEVELOPER TOOLKIT
This week, Unify Corp introduces the latest version of its Vision application development environment, which it says is capable of producing complex transaction processing applications that will run over the Internet or intranet. It also previews a new add-on, VisionWeb, which generates Java code beneath a visual front-end environment.
Vision release 3.0 and Vision/Web are based on Visix Software's recently launched Eleven developer toolkit: Visix was an early adopter of Java, and Unify has managed to ride off the back of its technology. 3.0 includes a Corba-standard IIP (Internet Inter-ORB Protocol) to support client/server transactions, and multi-tiered, drag-and-drop partitioning with replicated services for higher performance and fault tolerance, claimed to be the equal of rival Forte Software Inc's technology. The company has also integrated its previously separate Appman applications management toolset into the main product. 3.0 now also supports Microsoft's ActiveX.
Unify has an incentive to get everything working properly by early September, as it's one of the first software partners to be signed up by Sun Microsystems for the JavaStation network computer launch, scheduled for around that time. 3.0 is currently in beta, and is due to ship in August, priced at $7,200 for five development licenses. After that, the price drops to $4,995 for additional seats. Vision/Web, which is running somewhat later and is not likely to reach volume shipments until November, costs $17,000 per development site. Vision runs on Windows 95, NT, Windows 3.1, Mac, Unix and OS/2 platforms, while Vision/Web generates code to run on any system supporting Java.
Unify is currently thinking again about its run-time charges, the sort of practice that is frowned upon amongst Web advocates. At the moment it is priced at $300 per user in packs of ten for run-time licenses, but Unify may well end up abolishing the charges altogether.
From the Huh? Department: Few Internet business models are more confusing than that proposed by CyberGold Inc, a Berkeley, California start-up that will pay Internet users to view ads that have been automatically targeted to fit their interests. While getting paid to see ads is certainly refreshing, you get paid in CyberGold, a digital currency that can only be spent on the CyberGold site or for Internet access charges. The concept springs from Nat Goldhaber, the former head of the Kaleida Labs .
IS IT AN OS OR ISN'T IT?
While Netscape may be turning Navigator into a platform that an increasing number of developers will build on, at least publicly it says it has no designs to turn the browser into an operating system.
The rise of the Network Computer and its dependence on the Internet have cast the Netscape client in many minds as the software needed to run an NC. A recent story in PC Week, in fact, said that Netscape had plans for a new subsidiary focusing on things like NCs and PDAs and would reveal a comprehensive strategy later this summer to position its server and browser as an Internet OS.
Not true, Netscape says, although perhaps the distinction between Navigator as universal client and a "true" operating system is merely academic. Netscape says it won't bother with the device drivers and other infrastructure pieces that characterize an operating system - but it plans for Navigator to subsume all the functions of operating systems except for those underpinnings.
Sources even suggested that the Internet infrastructure and protocols may someday become strong enough and feature-rich enough to do away with an underlying proprietary OS altogether.
One advantage to Navigator taking over the role of operating system, Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen said in the PC Week interview, is that "Major new releases of our browser is [sic] a 12-month thing." OSes like Cairo or Copland take five years.
SUN PULLS WRAPS FROM $445 MICROJAVA NC REFERENCE SPEC
Sun Microsystems Inc's Sun Microelectronics unit has defined a $445 microJava-based reference system for the NC, illustrating that a Web appliance price war is already on. The system roadmap it defined takes the PC model and simplifies it using a $100 microSparc IIep as the JavaA1 (first-generation) model. A base JavaA1 system would be priced at around $615. The 1997 JavaA2 system would use $25-to-$50 microJava processors and come in at around $445 as Java-on-silicon immediately reduces CPU power, Flash and memory requirements, Sun says.
Sun's minimum set of technologies for building NC Reference Profile-compliant devices puts the cost of a first-generation device using an embedded microSparc IIep between $500 and $1,000, with no maintenance costs, against a $2,000 PC it reckons costs $3,500 to maintain.
Sun noted Java is just one way to get to the Network Computer and that the JavaStations its Sun Microsystems Computer Company cousin will describe in 30 days are just one implementation of its vision. Internally, Sun refers to generic NC devices as Net Portals.
MICROSOFT AND FRIENDS DEVELOP PPP TUNNELING
A Microsoft-led group of four companies has developed the Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol, designed to enable users to set up virtual private networks across the Internet.
The foursome - Microsoft, 3Com, Ascend Communications and ECI Telematics International - says that the specification is needed to enable secure access to corporate networks across the Internet. As its name suggests, the protocol is based on the Point-to-Point Protocol, and is thus claimed to be compatible with existing PPP-enabled systems.
Microsoft plans to pilot and evaluate the protocol on the Microsoft Network through UUNet. It is also planning to implement it on Windows NT Server 4.0.
APPLIX PROMISES DATA FROM ANYWHERE TO ANYWHERE
Applix Inc is in the process of morphing from a real-time spreadsheet specialist to one that bestrides the decision support and rapid application development markets too. Like so many others, it has lit upon the Internet as a way of making its old skills fresh and interesting. It took another step down the road last week with the release of the Applix Anyware family of products to build and deploy applications over the Internet or any set of networked desktops.
At the center is WebSheet, what the Westboro, Massachusetts company claims is the first Java-based extensible client/server spreadsheet with live links to real-time and historical databases. The suite builds on Applix' existing technology used in its Applixware real-time data access and analysis software, but the addition of Java broadens the base from which the data can be accessed: in short, any Java-enabled desktop.
The company is aiming at the manufacturing, banking and finance, human resources and securities trading markets with Anyware, which is out next quarter.
The Anyware server is up on Sun, Silicon Graphics, AIX, DEC Unix and HP-UX and costs $5,000. Anyware RealTime WebData is needed for SQL database access and costs $200 per concurrent user. It supports Oracle, Informix, Sybase and CA-Ingres, as well as Arbor Software Corporation's Essbase.
Anyware Web RealTime lets data be retrieved from Reuters, Bloomberg, Dow Jones/Telerate, TIBco and other data distribution vendors and costs $1,000 per user.
The Anyware tools are Innovators Workbench, WebSheet Innovators Extension and WebRealTime Innovators Extension. The Workbench will go for $2,500. There's also a starter kit for $10,000 and volume discounts apply.
INTEL INTERCAST GOES ON THE AIR
Intel, joined by the likes of NBC and Compaq, launched its Intercast technology last week, a Pentium technology that lets users view television synchronized with Internet data.
Compaq said that it's integrated Intercast - which requires both hardware and software - with a Presario home computer that will ship in mid-July. Joining Compaq is Happauge Computer Works. AST and Sony say they'll have systems running the technology later this year, and Intel claims it has half a dozen other companies planning implementations.
NBC will be the exclusive Intercaster for now, and will broadcast 70 hours of the Olympics this summer (The system will first roll out in Atlanta during the Olympics) and a detective show in the fall. ABC and CBS will start sometime next year. Intercast delivers Internet and television content in the same signal, either by cable or through the air.
The Internet segment will broadcast through the unused portion of the television signal - the vertical blanking interval, where things like closed captions also travel. The Intercast service will enable users to view television programming in one window while another is on the Internet.
l An NBC executive at the Intel Intercast announcement explained the concept of technology convergence as an attempt "to marry the computer nerd to the couch potato." Well put.
GENERAL MAGIC JOINS W3C
Sunnyvale, California's General Magic has made its new focus on the Internet (OR issue 3) official by joining the World Wide Web Consortium to develop intelligent agent standards. It's coming to the Web consortium with its Telescript technology, which is designed to enable users to launch agents onto the Internet to search for and monitor information as well as interact with services and other agents. Tony Rutkowski, VP of Internet business development at General Magic will be its W3C representative.
Twenty of what are called the "hottest" new Internet companies are supposed to trot out their ideas at VentureNet '96 July 24-25 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Long Beach, California. The conference, a first of its kind and sponsored by the Software Council of Southern California, is supposed to hook up VCs and Internet entrepreneurs. It's also supposed to have sessions on how existing companies can re-engineer themselves for the 'net and how start-ups can include the 'net in their plans. The deadline for presenter applications is Friday July 5. Foreign companies are welcome. www.venturenet.org
Network computers based on the JavaOS could be running Windows applications over the Internet in the not-so-distant future when Microsoft ally Citrix Systems ports its server-centric thin-client architecture to the Java OS.
Although the network computer was created to circumvent Windows, Citrix says it won't take off unless it finds a way to run Windows apps from a server - and Citrix' WinFrame will be that way.
Citrix' WinFrame technology, while primarily perceived as a multi-user NT application, launches Windows applications of virtually any size over any network, be it the Internet or a dedicated private network. Java Computers - network or personal - will be able to run both Java and Windows applications simply by having a Java Virtual Machine-enabled platform and the Citrix ICA (Intelligent Console Architecture) client.
ICA facilitates the use of large applications over the network by having the server running most of the application, leaving the local processor to handle graphics. Conceptually, it is a model closer to X-Windows than the classical NC approach. The combined Java/Winframe approach has been taken by Citrix-licensing NC vendors HDS and Wyse.
While Citrix reportedly has no plans to embed Java in its thin client, sources indicated that an initiative is under way to port ICA to the Java OS. Citrix officially has "no announcements or agreements," but the Java port "clearly makes sense to anyone making a network PC."
For Citrix, who has ported ICA to everything from NT PCs to age 8 8ing DOS machines, Java OS is "just another platform" - albeit a strategic one.
WinFrame licensee Insignia Solutions, whose NTrigue product integrates the X protocol with the ICA base, has also indicated
VISIX TAKES ON JAVA WORKSHOP
Visix Software Inc is set to take on SunSoft's Java toolkit with a Java application development and deployment offering that "will blow Java WorkShop out of the water," according to the Reston, Virginia company.
The Visix offering, code named Eleven, is composed of two integrated components, a visual Java-specific integrated development environment and Java compiler and an Intranet Application Platform (IAP) for deployment. Eleven-built application components will be accessible and executable using a Visix-provided launcher delivered as a Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Explorer plug-in.
IAP uses Visix's Galaxy high-end, high-brow C/C++ development tools, which been criticized in the past for being difficult to use. The company concedes this fact but it insists Eleven will be as easy to use as Microsoft Visual Basic. Visix IAP supports Java and ActiveX.
Although Visix expects to pick up the usual crowd of Web authoring types, it's looking to grab the business application space by pitching the stuff as a low-price, entry-level offering for intranet application development. The development environment is expected to cost $3,000, the Intranet Application Platform plug-in will be around $50. It's up under Windows 95, Windows NT, Unix and the Mac OS. Eleven beta tests in July.
I/Pro, which drew data from over 1 trillion log entries to analyze web site activity, has released a report on its initial findings. It found among other things that traffic on ad-supported pages has more than doubled since January and that while US visitors now makes up 70% of traffic, foreign traffic is increasing twice as fast as the US. The report's only $3,000, which answers the questionof how at least some people plan to make money on the Internet.
HDS HAS PRO-WINDOWS NCS
As expected, HDS Network Systems Inc was quick out of the Network Computer blocks, launching its @workStation and sounding off about the NC plans fellow travellers IBM, Sun Microsystems and Oracle are cooking up. It claims HDS @workStation will provide access to mainframe, Unix and Windows applications while Oracle and Sun are off running Java applets.
HDS says its initial hostility to the Network Computer Reference Profile was the NC's anti-WinTel orientation, something it's been able to overcome by licensing Insignia Solutions' NTrigue, a thin-client Citrix Winframe-based software that lets users access Windows and X applications from a server.
It decided to give its netOS operating system the NC-compliant tag only when it realized how little work it had to do to what it already had @workStation will run with a Java Virtual Machine and NTrigue's ICA thin clients.
MANZI GETS BOUGHT AGAIN
Jim Manzi, despite being such an independent soul, can't seem to stay away from giants. He lasted only 100 days when IBM bought Lotus, but now he's been bought by another giant, AT&T. AT&T announced last week that it would merge its New Media Services unit with Industry.Net - where Manzi fled, to provide secure business-to-business Electronic Data Interchange over the Internet - to create Nets Inc, an Internet company designed "to create the largest business-to-business marketplace on the Web."
AT&T will maintain, at least for the moment, only a minority share in the new company, indicating that it's basically abandoned its own online content plans in favor of outsourcing them to a smaller, more mobile company. Nets Inc will have a combined staff of about 300. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Manzi will serve as chairman and chief executive of Nets. Industry.Net and AT&T Business Network will remain separate Web sites, but with links to drive traffic between the two.
APPLE VETS JOIN REDMOND 'NET SQUAD
Microsoft's Internet push has gotten a boost from an unlikely source as it snared two key Apple players and put them to work in its Internet division.
The new hires, Steven Capps and Walter Smith, are both Newton veterans, with Capps going all the way back to Xerox in the 1970s and Apple's Lisa. He left in 1985 only to return three years later to become the Newton team's chief developer. Smith designed the NewtonScript language and environment and Newton's object-based data storage system.
They will both work on "futures," next-generation user interfaces in the Internet division. Although Microsoft is sharing few details, their work will most likely show up in future versions of the Explorer Web browser. Both men report directly to Internet chief Brad Silverberg.
Apple's stock hit the lowest point it's seen in 10 years last Wednesday, dipping below $20 in a drop that wasn't traced to any single event. The stock has traded in the $24-$30 range since Gil Amelio took the helm. Its current price is low enough to have Sun sniffing around as a buyer again.
ANDERSEN, BBN PITCH IN ON NET VENTURE
Andersen Consulting and BBN Corporation announced a joint venture to design and sell Internet-based business services such as transaction processing for airlines and other industries.
The venture is 87.5% owned by Andersen, 12.5% by BBN, and Andersen will contribute $35 million in cash and services to the venture, while BBN will contribute $5 million. Andersen describes the venture as an electronic utility that will provide software and systems for processing electronic orders to enable companies to set up businesses that will exploit the Internet.
CITRIX, JAVA NCS AND WINDOWS APPS
DOT Gossip
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and its little friend, the Object Management Group, met together for a two-day workshop last week to discuss the ins and outs of distributed and mobile code. The OMG would like nothing more than for URL, HTTP and CGI to become Corba-compliant, reportedly a 70% probability. In fact, it wouldn't mind it a bit if it were to absorb W3C, which is currently looking for a CEO. All the major Web players were at the meeting except for Netscape which is being standoffish because it's got its own fish to fry with LiveConnect. Microsoft was there as was Sun which was sitting on the fence not knowing which way to go since Java has its own Remote Method Invocation.
Oh yeah? Take that. Microsoft, rankled by Netscape's boast that Navigator's 38 million users make it the most popular PC application, now claims that 25 million copies of Explorer have been downloaded. It is left as an exercise for the reader to calculate how many people have installed both .
Microsoft is launching in July an Internet package called Athena to fill in the holes in Windows 95 for Internet connectivity. It will include an Internet telephone client called Net.Meeting as well as final releases of Explorer 3.0, Mail, News and a TCP/IP stack.
Intel will take 4.5% of San Francisco-based C/net Inc to get a toehold in Internet content. C/net provides reports on technology topics on cable TV and the World Wide Web, and Intel and C/net will develop a jointly owned Web site. Cnet has filed to go public and Intel's involvement was revealed in the prospectus. Intel says it makes dozens of such investments but most are not disclosed.
Microsoft has launched the Internet Workshop, a Web site designed to help ActiveX developers and content authors. It will initially post information on subjects like HTML, Web design and ActiveX, with Java documentation and sample Web site code to follow. It remains to be seen whether the site will run into trademark trouble with Internet WorkShop, Solstice's Web development kit.
Symantec Corporation says version 1.2 of its CafŽ visual Java development tool is out now. The new version includes a Just In Time compiler, JDK version 1.0.2 and remote debugging. Existing users can download the 1.2 update gratis from http://cafe.symantec.com. the complete package costs $129.95.
SunSoft tells us that the abstracts for NetWorld+Interop '97's Internet speakers are due this week, almost a year before the conference takes place. As if anyone knows what they'll be saying about the Internet then - just how abstract does N+I want it?
Microsoft is teaming with credit card issuer JCB Company Ltd for electronic commerce in Japan. The two will establish Planet, a service that will enable consumers to buy products at virtual shops on the Internet. The site will initially feature about 200 JCB member shops from around the world, and will expand as the business develops. It will use the SET system. JCB is scheduled to start testing Planet later this year and is expected to begin services from next April.
MCI plans to spend $60 million on upgrading its Internet network. The investment in new equipment will quadruple the backbone speed to 622Mbps from 155Mbps by the end of the year. The company will also add about 13,000 switch ports by the end of the year to meet demand for Internet access. MCI says it now runs 250 terabytes - the equivalent of 9 million encylopedia volumes - over its
backbone each month.
Though NSI thought there would be 25,000 Internet domain names cut off last week, a last-minute scramble means only 9,272 went.
Latest company to pledge itself to Netscape's server software is IBM. Big Blue will be bundling elements of Netscape SuiteSpot and 'Commercial Applications for AIX' with some of its RS/6000s. IBM is mainly aiming to woo intranet users.
SunService has put in a 900 number for Java Workshop technical support. It costs $2.95 a minute. It's the first time SunService has tried a 900 number.
NetWorld+Interop and a companion piece Interop DotCom described as a business Internet event are set for September 16-20 in Atlanta. The exhibits part of both will run September 18-20.
America Online has signed Neilsen Media Research, the TV ratings company, to provide advertisers withdetailed profiles of AOL users to help them make tailored ads. AOL, hit by sluggish subscriber growth and recent price cuts, will have to rely increasingly on advertisements.
The 10 most wired countries in the world measuredÊby the number of their websites are the US, Canada, the UK, Italy, Australia, Germany, Japan, France, Netherlands and Sweden, according to University of Maryland research.
IDC says intranet servers will outsell Internet servers 4.6 million to 400,000 by the turn of the century.
WWW Advisors Inc of Lexington, Kentucky has created the WWW Internet Fund to spread the risks of the Internet market through collective investments It wants to invest in three tiers of Internet play: mature, mid-life and adolescent, but it seems like most Net companies fit squarely into the
adolescent category.
Ziff Davis's ZD Net has been the victim of a Web version of ballot stuffing, with the fingers pointing at Netscape. One of ZD Net's recent Quick Polls posed the question "Who will win the browser wars - Microsoft or Netscape?" It appeared that for the first 24 hours the honors were just about even, but then Netscape pulled dramatically ahead. ZD investigated and found that three IP addresses, each belonging to Netscape, had cast a total of 953 votes in a matter of hours, getting
around the defenses that are intended to prevent users from casting more than one vote per poll. The crooked votes were identified and removed.
PointCast Network, the advertising-driven service that's clogged up networks all over the world by bringing news reports and such to individual desktops, claims 26 million hits a day, second only to Netscape's Web site. It says it'll top a million users by year-end.
General Magic Inc has bought substantially all the assets of Conterra Software Inc, a Windows NT Internet and intranet application development company based in the Carolinas. Terms were not disclosed. It also licensed Explorer 2.0 from Microsoft to bundle with its Magic Cap for Windows, an upcoming version of its PDA operating system, due in the second half.
Sun Microsystems may be heavily regulating its Java trademark and its usage in Internet addresses, but it's gracious enough to say that "If the island of Java were to establish a domain name that had Java in it, no, we would not go after that."
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