<Thanks for the articles.>
Happy to contribute.
<What happens when Novell releases Wolf Mountain? From what I understand Wolf Mountain will cluster 16 servers and the best products on the market today will cluster 3.>
Previously documented concerns re: network caching notwithstanding, I suspect that Inktomi and others are also working on later generation products.
OTOH, I'm not even sure that Border Manager is going to be IP. Anyone? (I know that Schmidt is calling for the transition, but am just getting up to speed on their transition timeframe.)
<In many of Schmidts' earlier speeches he was constantly making references to the next killer app being bandwidth. Is it possible that
Novell is actually on to something? >
If we don't hear anything sooner, I'll get the chance to ask him at a reception in a few weeks.
Aside, this from the tape:
--------------------
WSJ: Lotus Plans Suite Of Office Software For Network PCs
By Raju Narisetti
Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
NEW YORK -- International Business Machines Corp.'s Lotus software unit is unveiling a set of simplified office-software programs that are aimed primarily at the developing market for stripped-down desktop machines called network computers.
Lotus will announce today that several hardware and software vendors, including Sun Microsystems Inc., Oracle Corp., Novell Inc., Netscape Communications Corp. and America Online Inc., have signed agreements to make the software, eSuite, available to their customers.
The new software is also an attempt by Lotus to expand its relatively small share of an estimated $4 billion market for office suites -- bundled applications such as e-mail, spreadsheets, word processing -- that is dominated by Microsoft Corp.
By putting major development and marketing dollars behind eSuite, IBM is also betting that two nascent technologies in the computer industry will become more mainstream. One is Java, the programming language which eSuite uses, and which is being promoted by Sun to run on any computer. The other is the network computer, a simple device that doesn't have a hard-drive and acts as a desktop terminal connected to a powerful server where all the applications reside. But companies are yet to fully embrace either Java or network computers.
Lotus's eSuite uses little applications called "applets" that are based on Java. A user whose desktop machine is connected to a central computer-server can download a specific applet, be it for a spreadsheet, address book, calendar or word processor, from the server and use it on the desktop.
AOL, for instance, plans to promote eSuite's e-mail applet as a way for its subscribers to check their mail from any computer connected to the Internet without having to use AOL software. Subscribers can go to a World Wide Web site through a Web browser, download the applet and read their mail. This allows AOL to provide a service that some other Internet e-mail providers, such as Hotmail, MailExcite or Yahoomail, already offer to their users.
Lotus, which will start shipping eSuite in the first quarter of 1998, plans to charge companies $49 for each user. An eSuite DevPack, which allows users to create new applications, is being priced at $1,495.
IBM, Armonk, N.Y., acquired Lotus, Cambridge, Mass., for $3.52 billion in 1995.
--------------------
Steve |
