State of Web development showcased at Internet World

By Jacqueline Emigh

NB-The fourth annual Internet World show and conference rolled into New York's Jacob Javits Convention Centre Dec. 9-13. Some of the world's biggest computer companies presented their visions of what the connected world of tomorrow has in store Following are some highlights.

Vivo teams on Web video streams Vivo Software announced the release of Vivo Active 2.0, complete with a demo and testimonials from Web masters, during an Internet World press conference. The company also outlined its strategy to ease integration of the streaming video software into World Wide Web sites through increased standards support and partnerships with other video software vendors and Informix.

Peter Zaballos, vice-president of marketing for Vivo, said three months after its commercial release in September, VivoActive Producer is now being used by 300 organizations, including ABC, CNN, HBO, NetRadio, and Music Network USA. Corporations are also deploying the software for product demos and on their internal intranets.

VivoActive Producer is designed to let organizations add streaming video to their Web sites, for on-demand video viewing by users who have downloaded the VivoActive Player.

Brenden Kootsey of WGBH-TV claimed that VivoActive produces the smoothest video streaming of all the software he has tried. He said his station started using VivoActive on its Nova Web site about five months ago. Kootsey said he has received only a few complaints from users during that period-all from people whose modems were too slow for viewing streaming video.

Zaballos said that Vivo has added new capabilities to the latest VivoActive release, letting Web masters process high volumes of content on remote machines through scripted production, define streaming parameters for frequent content types, and automatically generate media for transmission at multiple rates.

In addition, support is now available for FM-quality wideband audio, and-on intranets with integrated services digital networks (ISDN) or faster connections-for high resolution, full-CIF (cells in frames) video.

Also in release 2.0, video generated by VivoActive Producer can be streamed from Web sites using Progressive Networks' RMA (real media architecture); Microsoft's NetShow, or Netscape's Live Media, in addition to standard Web servers.

To save time in the video production process, VivoActive Producer will add plug-in integration with the Adobe Premier video editing product, according to Zaballos.

Vivo also plans to add support for Informix Universal Server database, and to comply with standards such as OpenDoc, OCX, and ONE for further integration with outside video production and Web authoring tools.

VideoActive Producer runs on Windows NT and Power Macintosh platforms. Video Player operates as both a Netscape Navigator plug-in and an ActiveX control for Internet Explorer. Vivo expects to release a beta demo version of VivoActive 2.0 early in the new year, with a commercial edition targeted for later in the first quarter. VivoActive Producer 2.0 will be priced at US$995.

Contact:
Vivo Software, Tel: 617-899-8900.
Sites using VivoActive-based video streaming:
ABC, Web site: http://www.abc.com
Cafe Noir, Web site: http://mindspring.com/pjcom/cafenoir.htm
Fine Line Films, Web site: http://www.flf.com

IBM to hold user/inventor Web dialogs IBM revealed that early this year, its AlphaWorks online "laboratory" for Internet technologies will add an online forum for direct dialog between end users and IBM inventors.

Andrew Morbitzer, AlphaWorks' manager for Advanced Internet Technology, said that, with about 25 percent of its huge research budget dedicated to the Internet, IBM is a hotbed for Internet development.

IBM launched the AlphaWorks Web site last August, mainly as a way of letting other companies and members of the general public try out hot new Internet technologies still in the development stages at IBM, Morbitzer said.

Since then, he reported, about 20 new Internet technologies have been offered for free download from AlphaWorks, 12 of them Java-based. Four of these have already evolved into IBM products, while two others have been licensed by other vendors. In both cases this is twice as many as IBM initially anticipated.

The technology referred to as Shock Absorber on the AlphaWorks site has since developed into Network Dispatcher, IBM's newly unveiled software product for increasing the number of hits that can be handled by a Web site through load balancing among multiple servers.

Network Dispatcher is the first in a family of products from IBM that is likely to include about nine members all together.

Another new technology first previewed on AlphaWorks has become NetRexx, a new development tool, also rolled out at Internet World, which is designed to let legions of IBM developers already conversant with the Rexx programming language employ Rexx for writing Java applications.

Likewise, IBM VideoCharger Server for AIX, a new real-time audio and video server for intranets and the Internet, also made its pre-product debut on AlphaWorks.

Other technologies that first came into public view via IBM's AlphaWorks Web site include Bamba, a new streaming video software offering, and Class Authoring Tool (CAT), for Internet development.

AlphaWorks has a private side as well, said Morbitzer. Behind IBM's firewalls, Internet researchers and developers have been carrying out private brainstorming sessions on ideas for converting IBM's Internet products.

Starting in the first quarter of next year, he added, IBM will open up the AlphaWorks dialogs, through a new threaded discussion group designed to let end users communicate their comments, suggestions, likes and dislikes, with direct feedback from the IBM researchers themselves.

Contact: AlphaWorks,
Web site: http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com.

Sun and allies ready JavaBeans tools With completion of the JavaBeans technology for cross-platform interoperability targeted for 1997, Sun Microsystems and its partners are now readying a final JavaBeans application programming interface (API), seven application development tools supporting the API, and bridges to three other component architectures: OpenDoc, Microsoft's ActiveX, and Netscape's LiveConnect.

"JavaBeans is a complete technology which we hope to finish up next year," said Gina Centoni, product line manager for JavaBeans.

IBM rolled out its second development tool on the JavaBeans plate, a product known as Applet Author. Sun's JavaSoft and multi-vendor collaborators first introduced JavaBeans in May, and an API was announced in October.

In a teleconference in October, officials described the JavaBeans API as an "architecture and platform neutral" environment aimed at letting developers use a wide range of tools to create Java-based components that will run across multiple operating systems (OSes).

End users, in turn, will be able to "snap together" the JavaBeans components within containers (also known as forms, pages, frames, and shells) to produce custom applications, the JavaSoft executives said.

Centoni told reporters at Internet World that developers could start working on JavaBeans applications right away with the use of the Java Development Kit (JDK) 1.0.2, a software development kit conforming to the emerging JavaBeans specification.

She said JavaBeans takes advantages of many of the built-in strengths of Java, such as support for a lightweight run time, for example.

According to Centoni, Sun is now working on a bridge to Microsoft's ActiveX, with expected delivery in the first quarter of this year. Meanwhile, IBM and Apple are creating a bridge between JavaBeans and OpenDoc, and Netscape is preparing a bridge to its LiveConnect object environment.

For distributed applications, JavaBeans are designed to interoperate with object connectivity technologies such as CORBA IDL (common object request broker architecture), RMI (resource manager interface), and Sun's own Joe.

Centoni said Sun and its partners have by now rolled out seven tools supporting JavaBeans, including two tools each from SunSoft and IBM, and one product apiece for Symantec, Borland, and Penumbra Software. The tools are targeted at developers across a wide range of programming experience.

The newly announced AppletAuthor joins VisualAge for Java among JavaBeans development tools from IBM, Centoni said. Like Symantec's Visual Cafe, AppletAuthor will come with a variety of pre-built JavaBeans components. AppletAuthor's bundled JavaBeans will include: animations, sounds, links to other Web pages, special effects, form fields such as buttons, lists, and labels, and IDBC database access.

Visual Cafe, on the other hand, provides professional developers with a library of 56 JavaBeans, ranging from databases to forms, windows, and controls, Centoni said.

Contact:
Borland, Web site: http://www.borland.com
IBM, Web site: http://www.software.ibm.com
Penumbra, Web site: http://www.PenumbraSoftware.com
Sun, Web site: http://www.sun.com
Symantec, Web site: http://www.symantec.com .

DEC introduces AltaVista Web/corporate directory Digital Equipment Corp. has introduced AltaVista Directory '97, a corporate directory combining features like phonetic search and bulk loading with user access from a wide range of Internet and corporate mail systems. The new directory software is now available on a free 30-day trial basis as a free download from the Web (see contacts).

Bob Lehmenkuler, marketing manager of Digital's OnSite Information Products, maintained that the new product, part of the AltaVista software line, lets administrators set up directories with hundreds of thousands of entries in only a few hours, a process that might otherwise take days.

Administrators, he said, can create centralized enterprise-wide directories by pouring data into the new AltaVista directory software directly from any of a variety of multi-vendor mail systems, supporting protocols that include mail application programming interface (MAPI), ph, Finger, and lightweight directory access protocol (LDAP). Digital also plans to add support in the future for directory access protocol (DAP), Lehmenkuler revealed.

In addition, end users can access AltaVista Directory '97 directories from mail clients for any of these protocols, as well as from standard World Wide Web browsers, Lehmenkuler said.

The new search capability is also useful for other kinds of situations in which you have some information on a person, but not as many facts as you need, Lehmenkuler noted. Entering information for any field, such as first name or state, for instance, will bring up directory listings for all employees listed who meet that particular criterion.

Administrators can also include employee photos with the directory listings, along with uniform resource locator (URL) links to Web pages, Lehmenkuler said. A human resources department might create personal home pages for all employees, with direct links from the directory, he suggested.

The new AltaVista directory software can also be purchased from value-added resellers (VARs), Internet service providers, catalogs, and direct from Digital. Pricing for the product ranges from US$495 to US$3,995.

Contact:
Digital Equipment Corp.,
Web site: http://altavista.software.digital.com

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