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If you need other assistance, please write to
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RE: The trillion dollar misunderstanding;
To make sense of this message visit
http://www.wiredbrain.net//epcot.htm spend more than a
few minutes and maybe you will experience a "Ah-ha", and say to
yourself "I get it ! It's the catch on factor ".
The big bucks in the third wave of the computer/information
global market revolution are in mega-servers and network
providers. I have reviewed the press reports and there is a
trillion dollar misunderstanding of what is going on; ( Wave one
= Main Frames, Wave two = PC, Wave three = NC + servers - ISP )
It's not a browser war,
It's not about the kinds of hardware is included in the NC,
network computer, or Web-TV, not about if the utility device has
a hard drive or not - the hardware will follow applications,
don't worry, you can take a box and put it together yourself.
If people can use the application and be 50% to 1000% more
competitive, they will build the applications, the communications
and the hardware. Form follows substance, the hardware-software
will come along as needed. In your hands will be a low cost, high
speed CPU with lots of RA Memory, a read-write CD, and Digital TV
and a 10 Mb connection. The important thing is the connection,
and the connection server and the applications.
moreinfo@schange.com
Daily Datebook The Gate
Thursday, November 28, 1996 · Page D1
© 1996 San Francisco Chronicle
Internet Is Ready for Prime Time
2 Bay Area firms are making the Net simpler by using a
broadcast format
Jon Swartz, Chronicle Staff Writer
Computer users no longer have to troll the expansive Internet for news, stock prices, the latest games and software upgrades. That information now is coming straight to their desktops.
Using new technologies with punchy names such as ``push'' and ``netcasting,'' two young Bay Area companies are making it possible to deliver a wealth of information in eye-popping packages to people while they work.
In the process, the companies, Marimba and PointCast, are helping to reshape the way information is presented and distributed over the Net by mimicking television and radio.
``The Internet is increasingly shifting toward broadcast medium metaphors as content sites sprout up,'' said Ross Rubin, an analyst at Jupiter Communications in New York, who estimates there are 500,000 Web sites. ``It's something that mainstream people and non-PC users can easily relate to.''
Marimba, a Palo Alto venture headed by former Java developers at Sun
Microsystems, last month unveiled new software called Castanet that lets information-systems managers at large companies instantly send customers and employees highly customized news, software updates and other information.
The technology also can be used to ``broadcast'' content over the Internet to consumers. Companies such as MGM and HotWired already have embraced Castanet with just such a purpose in mind.
Castanet works like a radio. ``Transmitters'' on server computers at the center of corporate networks deliver news or software to ``tuners'' on users' PCs.
The tuners can request updates quickly, resulting in the immediate delivery of news and information, or they can receive software-bug fixes and upgrades while the user is away from the PC or using it for some other task.
``What this will do is eliminate the wait part of the World Wide Web, which is becoming the World Wide Wait,'' said Kim Polese, co-founder and chief executive of Marimba.
``It's ridiculous that people have to worry about the internals of their computers,'' she said. ``PCs should be as easy and transparent to use as an electronic razor or any other home appliance.''
A test version of Castanet is available on Marimba's Web site
(www.marimba.com); the finished product will ship by the end of the year.
PointCast, a 200-person operation in Santa Clara, is the pioneer of what some call Internet broadcasting, or netcasting. The company's software, which can be downloaded free from the Internet (www.pointcast.com), transforms a PC into a high-tech news broadcast with a dizzying array of breaking news, sports scores, a scrolling stock ticker, stock charts, weather maps and ads.
The program collects its information from a variety of sources, or ``channels'' -- among them, CNN, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and the New York Times -- and displays it on a computer that is hooked up to the Net.
Users have the option of receiving news updates as frequently as every 15 minutes. But heavy usage of the service tends to bog down corporate networks -- a problem that has scared some Silicon Valley companies into banning the popular online news service.
A $1,000 version of PointCast Network, called I-Server, lets companies get around the problem by controlling the flow of the broadcast through a central network server. Despite concerns among big corporations, PointCast says 5 million copies of PointCast Network have been downloaded this year. The company said it has 1.7 million registered users and is adding about 250,000 people a month. It's also raised a whopping $48 million in venture capital.
``We want to be the broadcast network operating on the Internet,'' chief executive Chris Hassett said. ``We want to be the ABC of the Net.''
Both companies are getting their fair share of interest.
Because they are the most high-profile players yet in a move to deliver up-to-the- minute information to consumers' desktop terminals, their developments have aroused the interest of both users and content vendors.
Netscape Communications is implementing PointCast and Marimba's
technologies into Constellation, a software program due in mid-1997 that will allow PC users to personalize their desktop terminal with buttons connecting them directly to Web pages, word-processing documents, spreadsheets and e-mail.
Microsoft, meanwhile, is developing competing software, dubbed Active
Desktop, in hopes of protecting its desktop PC turf.
``The Internet is moving to the TV screen, and it has Microsoft's attention,'' Jupiter's Rubin said. ``But PointCast and Marimba have an early jump.''
© The Chronicle Publishing Company
RE: 1+2+3+4= 15 Synergy is more then the sum of its parts;
Mega-bucks can be made by a EPCOT II ( Electronic Prototype Communications and Operations Teleport ). Hotel, entertainment and work centers which provide a bag up synergy of Internet/Intranets working on 10 Mb connections.
1= Marc: The Internet - Web browsers and Intranets - Enterprise servers that provide active e-mail, news, on-line data, forms, input/outputs, http pages et al from Netscape managed by powerful search engines.
2= Larry NC ( Network Computers ) from Oracle and Web-TV, utility systems where the complex stuff is moved from a PC to the server.
3= Java, MIRIMBA and IIOP, Visual Basic C+++++++ Sun Microsystems object programs that work cross platforms, with a small plug in.
4= Motorola's Low orbit Satellites and new wireless systems alone with cable.
Each of these systems is being built for its own good reasons but the real power is in the combination. The INTERNET with high band width, running on utility machines, where the server does most of the complex stuff, downloading applications that contain their own OS ( operating systems ) and language codes, all supplied by satellites, to anyone with a cable or a 12" dish.
1:30 PM EST
http://www.ipc-interactive.com IPC Interactive Inc.
EMAIL by Peter Lambert
Time Warner Cable of New York has licensed a beta version video-on-demand platform from SeaChange International and IPC Interactive Inc. for potential use in 140 hotels in the Big Apple's cable franchise area.
The combination of SeaChange's Video Server 100 and MediaCluster system and IPC Interactive's GuestServe Network with Time Warner's cable network will deliver digitally stored, on-demand movies, guest information, shopping and advertising, as well as billing review, messaging and transaction services to analog terminals in hotels and other hospitality and multiple dwelling units, the companies said.
SeaChange said a five-node version of its MediaCluster distributed server platform will support more than 100 simultaneous video streams over more than a terabyte of storage, as a single "virtual system"; IPC's MeTIL software manages communications between the SeaChange Video Server 100 and each analog terminal in the network.
" Until now, the industry has failed to meet the practical business economics " of VOD, said IPC Interactive chairman Johnathan Edwards. " The GuestServe Network is the first cost-effective and reliable solution that broadband television operators can implement today.
SeaChange said MediaCluster will be available commercially early next year. Time Warner Cable already uses SeaChange's digital SPOT advertising insertion system in Manhattan. The GuestServe Network is jointly marketed by IPC Interactive and SeaChange. SeaChange International can be reached at www.schange.com
It's not even Netscape-oracle-sun, who are with it; vs.
Microsoft-Intel, that will get with it, because it's about
communications / information / systems that work together to do
stuff never done before. The great search engine and display
system in the sky. The new applications can include their own OS
( operating systems ). The NT. vs what ever is a dog show, a
horse and buggy race like IBM did in the 1970's with mainframes
and GM with self destruct automobiles with fins. Sure you can
sell second rate obsolete stuff, American Business is built that
way, BUT... not for ever.
IT IS THE ELEPHANT IN THE DARK.
Most people are feeling around the elephant from a very limited
perspective. The really interesting stuff is synergy between
diverse technologies, fast chips, fast groups, satellites, cable,
object programs, and global markets.
It's the applications, stupid !
Applications drive hardware, software and systems not the other
way around. The applications are fast, smart, small companies and
collectives that move information and products on a global scale.
The middle aged people who depend on territorial franchises and
institutional power are replaced by kids running international
services, high tech servers, entertainment, fun and games. Gates
in his book talked about the replacement of the middle people (
retail, distributors, teachers, OS ) with direct connections
between the learner and the information, the buyer and producer,
the program and the CPU chip.
The driving application is inter-office web pages. ( Intranets )
Pages that are hyper-linked, graphic, sound and video
input/output forms. Your phone book, the yellow pages, your
calendar, your sales calls, your bank account, your accounts,
your library, all connected by "the server in the sky".
RE: COMDEX: It's the economy stupid ! NC, Intranets, home work
and "the club";
The force of ROI ( return on investment ), benefit/cost (B/C)
ratio's and the economies of scale (EoS) will DRIVE investment
decisions. While people with "sunk costs" in old technology, old
expertise and knowledge, old jobs and positions, old power plays,
and old operations will drag their feet, they will be FORCED by
short pay back times, (PBT) ROI, B/C's, EoS's to change from PC
work stations (Local Area Networks) LAN, using expensive office
space to more Internet/Intranets/extranets Network Computers
(NC's) working at the office, at "EPCOT II" office clubs and at
home. The annual ROI is more than 100 %, payback in a year or
less, B/C from 10 to no less than 2.5: the replacement and
reduction of telephone and leased line costs can increase the
benefits to 1000 %.
The average work station ( including the software, servers,
maintenance and wires, only good for about 3 years ) in a office
costs more than $15,000 per year to set up and maintain, house,
heat, cool and feed, per year in capital and operations. For as
little as 10% of that the same worker can save commuting time, be
happier and more productive working at home or at a "office club"
in their own neighborhoods. With a $1000.00 MONORAIL or NC ( good
for two years ) that goes anywhere, using a good monitor and
@home style cable connection it can be done NOW for 10% of the
capital cost and annual hook up fees and services of $500.00 to
$1,000 everything included. The company will maintain a server
and/or contract out many network applications. The Internet
Service Provider (ISP) will provide for remote access management
of the network. The party of the first part is the employer, they
have still have their own servers and connections. The party of
the second part is the ISP who provides communications. The ISP
and/or site managers provide data banks and the core of the
network operations, servers and software - data, e-mail, audio
visual, phone, fax, et al. The party of the fourth part is a
software/hardware management consultant who helps operate the
network from a remote location.
In the office work stations capital cost are cut by 80% or more.
If set up at home the $15,000 per year office operation costs
less than $1,500, 1/10, 10% got it? The BIG DEAL are Work
stations at "the club" costing $1,500 to install and rent for
$25.00 a day x 250 day year or 2000 hours at $3.50 per hour to
bring in about $6,000 each ( They pay less than $500.00 annual
hook ups because several stations are packaged on the same
networks ). If the employee is paid for their home office or the
fees at "office club" the care and feeding costs are reduced from
$10,000 to $5,000, the capital costs from $10,000 to $1,500, the
annual costs from $15,000 to $6,500. It's good economics, good
for business, good for the environment, good for family life,
good for the hotel business, it makes good sense. People who stay
in business take advantage of their good sense.
A World Leading Development Environment for Internet and Intranet
Applications
Showcased in More Than 100 Partner Products
LAS VEGAS, Nov. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Netscape Communications
Corporation
(Nasdaq: NSCP) today announced that more than 100 companies
supporting the Netscape ONE open network environment will
showcase their products at Comdex -- both in Netscape's partner
pavilion and throughout the show floor. Those featured in the
partner pavilion (booth #H422, adjacent to the Netscape main
pavilion at the Las Vegas Hilton) include ACI US, Inc.,
Bitstream, DigitalStyle, Elektroson, IBM, Mercury Mail,
Mobileware, Net-It Software Corp., Net-Scene, OpenConnect,
Systems, Paralogic Corp., Progress Software Corp., Simware, UWI
Unisoft Wares Inc. and Verity, Inc.
Across the Internet and Intranet development landscape,
Netscape enabling technologies continue to fuel phenomenal
market growth. Some of the most prominent companies in the
information technology arena lead the community of Netscape ONE
supporters. For example, AT&T, Compaq Computer Corp., Digital
Equipment Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., IBM, Informix, Intel Corp.,
Open Connect, Silicon Graphics, Inc., Sun Microsystems and Unify
are among the organizations who co-sponsored the Netscape
Internet Developers Conference last month in New York. In
addition, Netscape recently announced strategic relationships
with Oracle Corp., Lotus Development Corp. and Autodesk, Inc.
"The emergence of the Internet and corporate Intranets is
fundamentally changing the way our customers work and the way we
address their needs," said Carol Bartz, chairman and CEO at
Autodesk. "We embrace the Netscape ONE Platform to leverage our
development efforts. This allows us to bring powerful design
products geographic information systems to customers using the
Internet and Intranets as a collaborative environment."
Netscape is working continually to improve the level of
service it provides to its development partners. During the
last year, the company has moved aggressively to empower its
developers with a more comprehensive set of tools, technologies,
information and support through the Netscape ONE Platform, the
DevEdge Online Community and Netscape DevEdge programs.
"We are profiting significantly from Netscape's efforts to
work with developers on both a technical and marketing level,"
said Jim Hamerly, president and CEO of DigitalStyle. "Netscape
is committed to providing industry-leading Intranet solutions.
Netscape fully realizes the importance of third parties in
achieving success and continues to invest heavily to support the
development community."
"Netscape is working hard to give developers a compelling a
business proposition, a smooth technology adoption path and the
freedom to make choices that advance their position in the
market," said Danny Shader, vice president of industry and
developer relations at Netscape. "Netscape's strong position in
the client and server software market, along with its role at the
forefront of next-generation communication and collaboration,
helps developers gain a competitive edge. Because Netscape ONE
is based on open industry standards, our developers enjoy the
benefit of choice as they build interoperable Internet and
Intranet applications."
In addition to providing development resources, Netscape is
committed to fostering relationships across its developer base.
The spirit of community among Netscape developers was reinforced
at last month's Netscape Internet Developers Conference, where
the company shared its technology roadmap with more than 3,000
attendees from 44 states and 36 countries. At the
conference, Netscape also introduced the Netscape ONE Experts
program -- an opportunity for developers worldwide to earn
credentials that signify proficiency in building
Netscape-compliant Internet and Intranet applications. Already,
more than 2,000 developers have taken the first step toward
Netscape ONE Expert qualification by requesting CBT System's
CD-ROM-based training in JavaScript -- Netscape's open, freely
licensable Java-based scripting language for rapid application
development.
Netscape AppFoundry -- an online collection of
cross-platform, reusable business applications featuring the
Informix online workgroup database -- has distributed more than
20,000 copies of sample code and development tools at no cost to
recipients. These applications enable corporate developers to
build prototypes quickly for enterprise needs ranging from order
and inventory tracking, to project management and sales trend
analysis. These vendors include: Arbor Software, Aurum
Software, Broadvision, Dun & Bradstreet, Software, Information
Dimensions, Lawson Software, OneWave, Scopus and Simware.
Netscape ONE open network environment is a standards-based
platform that enables developers to create a new generation of
distributed client/server applications for Intranets and the
Internet. Netscape ONE unifies into a single platform of
current Internet standards such as HTTP, HTML, LDAP, JavaScript
and a tool chest of open, cross-platform software and
technologies for creating rich, distributed Web-based
applications.
Netscape Communications Corporation is a premier provider of
open software for linking people and information over enterprise
networks and the Internet. The company offers a full line of
clients, servers, development tools and commercial applications
to create a complete platform for next-generation, live online
applications. Traded on Nasdaq under the symbol NSCP, Netscape
Communications Corporation is based in Mountain View, California.
Additional information on Netscape Communications Corporation
is available on the Internet at http://home.netscape.com, by
sending email to info@netscape.com, or by calling 415-937-2555
(corporate customers) or 415-937-3777 (individuals).
NOTE: Netscape, Netscape Communications Corporation,
Netscape Communications Corporation logo, Netscape DevEdge and
Netscape ONE are trademarks of Netscape Communications
Corporation. All other product names are trademarks of their
respective companies.
RE: Looking for a few good people: Tutors and Instructors TOP
dollar for lessons and on-line help with NC - Network Computers:
And your Job:
There are two classes of people who need to get on board the NC
IIOP revolution. Those that are currently running networks and
those that want to be able to work with networks. The educational
and training market is strong. 1000's of people who need to stay
up or they will go down. In current dog years ( 1 = 7 ) every two
month 5 % of what you know has expired, in four or five years you
know nothing unless you spend 5 to 10 % of your time keeping up.
There is no reason to believe it will slow down or we have any
other choices. The SYNERGY is too strong and the market is out of
control, as it should be.
see PC week
http://www.pcweek.com/news/1028/29eisv.html
RE: NC realities; Where you stand depends on where you sit.
Just as MS had a cloudy vision of the Internet last year, they
have now have a limit view of the NC which is replacing the PC.
Like the INTERNET NC will move much faster than MS now believes.
A huge industry that produces the complex and expensive, hard to
operate PC, requiring lots of support and constant upgrades are
being replaced by Network Computers, a simple low cost utility,
where the complex stuff is shifted to the network and computers
become utilities like the telephone or TV. MS is scrambling to
catch up with the WEB ( http://www.msn.com ) but the NC threatens
it's whole reason for being and it's self image.
For every change there are more looser than winners. Millions of
people who produce PC hardware, software, support, management,
expertise and magazines are threatened. They become the candle
makers, ice men and blacksmiths replaced by the electric light
and internal combustion engine. Technology is not neural. It
drives the economy, determines who has economic power then who
has political power and power creates our current perceptions of
reality. Marx, Mill, Marshall discussed the shift from land to
capital in just these terms and started modern economics and
social sciences. Where you stand depend on where you sit,
ideology follows interests, people in different positions see
reality from different angles. The elephant is in the dark.
Microsoft as a propaganda machine, with its more than willing
allies in Ziff and most of the other "PC" press is going "nuts"
because it's whole world, as they know it, is under a real
threat. I would not buy a new PC, I would not buy $1000 's in
software packages, I would wait 6 months or if I am a BIG
organization install Netscape Oracle Sun systems NOW and save 90%
over PC costs, more in long distance, fax, printers, data bases,
and get voice mail, video, newsletters, HTTP/IIOP standards. I
have seen the future and it works.
The future is not one simple image but a mirage of changing
impressions. The way the image of future can shift is
dramatically more vivid than our rewrite of past history or the
current popular accepted view of the present. We are not one
fixed "self" but our awareness is shifting between many "selves"
depending on how we control the filers of preacceptance or
rejection of new information. We hear what we want to hear and
see what we want to see. Our internal state controls the our
image of the future changes.
Where we stand depends on where we sit. Netscape and Oracle have
different perceptions of the NC because their hopes are different
from Microsoft, Intel and the PC establishment. The NC threatens
the whole PC industry, including PC magazine. The new NC system
is much more efficient than the old PC, a work station cost is
reduced from 90 % $8,000 to $800.00 ( including servers,
maintenance, training, staff support ). Given a big cost saving
the forces of economics take over from old attitudes. It doesn't
matter what we think or believe when the forces that big of a
benefit/cost nature take over.
Sometimes we are brave, other times fearful, sometimes confident,
other times uncertain. Where we stand depends on our position at
that moment and the impressions filtered from the events that
surround us. It is not either/or but a mixture that changes in
tone and balance. The "real" is only a moving picture with a plot
imposed by our assumptions and interests. Sometimes, we pay
attentions to opportunities and threats but often we don't take
in information that doesn't fit with our self image, and hang on
with passions to assumptions about the past, present or future.
Larry Ellison's Network Computer "Campaign Lies"
http://www.anchordesk.com/anchordesk/story/story_468.html
by Jesse Berst, Editorial Director
ZD Net AnchorDesk
Friday, November 08, 1996
The election is over. The next one won't be for another four
years or so. Now the newly anointed will engage in that honored
American tradition of breaking their campaign promises.
No, no, I'm not talking about Bill Clinton. I'm referring to
Larry Ellison and the Network Computer. The NC will only be able
to keep one of its promises. The others will be long delayed, if
they are kept at all.
The NC is the nickname for a new generation of "thin client"
computers (also called "zero administration clients"). These
devices eschew the storage and expansion slots of traditional
PCs. They trade that power and flexibility for a lower cost of
ownership through centralized installation and maintenance ***In
a recent PC Week column (see links), I warned PC vendors to take
quick action. Otherwise the NC revolution would depose them. No
sooner had the ink dried than IBM, Compaq and others announced
sweeping NC initiatives. Oracle and Sun followed hard on their
heels with more NC pronouncements.
TECHVISION: IIOP
Marc Andreessen, Sr. VP of Technology
http://home.netscape.com/comprod/columns/techvision/iiop.html
In the last two years we've seen an amazing change in the way
businesses communicate. They've recognized that corporate
networks based on Web technology offer a powerful way to tie
together a variety of EMAIL, database, and operating system
platforms. ...
The next shift catalyzed by the Web will be the adoption of
enterprise systems based on distributed objects and IIOP
(Internet Inter-ORB Protocol).
In a full-service intranet different operating systems need to
talk to each other, Java needs to talk to C code on the back-end
system, and different applications need to communicate using open
standards.
IIOP is a standard for facilitating communication between
objects, as defined by the Object Management Group. We expect
that over the nextfew years IIOP will become as ubiquitous as
HTTP and CGI. ...
IIOP provides a comprehensive system through which objects can
request services from one another across the wide variety of
platforms or database systems they're built on.
Just as Web technology has helped companies simplify and
centralize the distribution of information, distributed objects
will help them simplify and centralize their enterprise
applications.
Certainly NC will be 25 % of the current market by this time
next year, and will make a big leap into the market of those 85
% non-user who are not now connected. Within a year, NC
operational packages will be more than an order of magnitude ( 10
or 100 times or more ) cheaper than PC's, with no dedicated phone
lines, voice mail, fax, long distance charges, constant up
grades, training requirements, up keep and repair, programs,
crashes... Windows 95 or NT is too complex and expensive to work
for MOST people. NC with high band-width and IIOP Internet
Inter-ORB Protocol are simply much cheaper, easier, and
better...and for 90 % of the users invisible as the T.V.
networks, phone systems or power grid, it just works. ( says
Oracle ).
http://home.netscape.com/comprod/columns/techvision/iiop.html
What IIOP is all about is OBJECTS that do stuff. The fat server
provides to the thin NC everything it needs to do: updates,
operational, fast, plug and play, in most formats supported by a
CD-ROM. Sun Microsystems multi-channel servers hardware, oracle
information managers, and Netscape's server software and plug-in
packages provided by 1000's of software creators, including IBM
and IIOP lotus notes is a big challenge to Microsoft fixed PC
installed office packages.
Web-TV is a domestic version of the office NC connected by cable
then low orbit satellites. NC's can replace most office PC's now.
There are still a majority of these machines at 486 or less and
without Windows 95. Rather than buy complex and expensive 586 or
686, with big hard drives, complex graph cards, hunks of memory -
a NC at $500 or less will work BETTER because it's simpler.
Current servers with only a little new software can do the rest.
Where there are 1 Mb lines or better it will work NOW. Australia
is installing 10 Mb lines as are Singapore, Sweden, and many
other countries.
NC ( web-tv ) is ideal for Libraries, Schools, small business,
and much of the 85 % of the market not currently using the
Internet. NC maybe as easy to use as a phone and as cheap as a TV
plus a VCR. Plug and play -
( see http://www.wiredbrain.net//hotflash.htm )
Go to directory, categories, education, page 5, synergy:
I would really would like it if you would use the ForumForum. Go
in and set up conference, documents, newspaper, mess around. We
will only learn by doing. You can find out what this conference
program has to offer and we can see how people can use it.
pflaump@cfl.rr.com & 504
Copies of the SYNERGY JOURNAL sent by request: pflaump@cfl.rr.com
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Peter E. Pflaum Ph.D. , Headmaster GLOBAL_VILLAGE_SCHOOLHOUSE
225 Robinson Road, New Smyrna Beach, FL 32169-2176 (904) 428-9609
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