To All (Jon, you too, as I sent this to you and Joe, Marengi that is)..
A little note from me regarding the "community", "perception", and lack there is of it for NOVELL. Geez, Groupwise gets a PR yesterday, and there is NADA (or just about) in the press. NETSCAPE makes an announcement, and it's like the word came down from GOD!
What's wrong with this picture Jon????? (or any other NOVELL employee lurking here). I dunno, but you must be spending our <g> $20M on some whiz bang PR, cause to-date, I ain't seen it.
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From today's PC Week Online. Gee, nary a mention of Groupwise. Only Notes and Exchange. Hmmmmm.....
Whatta ya' say Joe? Or are we still playing the Rodney Dangerfield routine
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October 15, 1996 2:00 PM ET
Netscape makes bold client
and server moves
By Michael Moeller, Charlie Cooper and Maria Seminerio
NEW YORK -- In a sweeping move to bolster its
presence in the corporate enterprise market, Netscape
Communications Corp. today unveiled its 1997 client
and server strategy with a major focus on E-mail and
groupware capabilities.
At a press conference here in advance of its second
Developer Conference, Netscape unveiled a new
version of its client software, called Netscape
Communicator, as well as six new server software
additions to its SuiteSpot line of server products.
The primary focus of both Communicator and
SuiteSpot 3.0 is groupware, calendaring and E-mail,
with the majority of the underlying technology a result of
Netscape's year-old buyout of Collabra Software Inc.
Netscape's Communicator encompasses Navigator
4.0; Composer, an HTML authoring tool; Messenger,
an E-mail client; Collabra, a group discussion client;
and Conference, a real-time collaboration client. In
addition, Netscape is offering a Professional Edition of
Communicator that will feature Netscape Calendar, a
group calendaring client.
Officials added that Netscape will no longer offer the
Navigator browser separately.
Additions to SuiteSpot 3.0 include Messaging Server
3.0 for E-mail; Collabra Server 1.0 for collaboration
and group discussions; Enterprise Server 3.0, which
includes intelligent agent technology; Proxy Server 2.5;
Calendar Server 1.0, a group calendaring server; and
Media Server 1.0 for streaming audio capabilities.
While Netscape added a raft of offerings on both the
client and server sides, it did little in the way of upping
the price. Netscape Communicator Standard Edition is
priced at $49 (the same as Navigator 3.0), while the
Professional Edition costs $79. SuiteSpot 3.0's price
remained static, with users able to choose any five of
the nine server offerings for $3,995.
"This is more than just more bang for the buck ... this is
more bang, period," said James Barksdale, president
and CEO of Netscape.
US West plans to deploy Netscape's messaging client
and server products through the company by the
beginning of next year, said Barbara Bauer, senior
director of customer service development. Bauer
added that US West's use of Netscape technology for
its intranet has saved the company upward of $10
million.
Also today, Netscape announced for the first time that it
will support a bevy of Microsoft Corp. products and
technologies, including native support for ActiveX
controls, in future versions of Communicator. Marc
Andreessen, Netscape's senior vice president of
technology, said the current version of Communicator
already supports some low-level ActiveX technology,
as well as Common Object Model and OLE.
Netscape also announced plans to integrate several
Windows NT services into both SuiteSpot 3.0 and
future versions of the server software offerings. Some
of the NT services set to be natively supported include
directory services, security services, administration
services and symmetric multiprocessing.
The Mountain View, Calif., company also plans to
integrate Microsoft's SMS (Systems Management
Server) technology -- enabling all Netscape clients and
servers to be managed from within an SMS
environment.
Netscape is eyeing customers using "Microsoft's
legacy development environments and databases,"
company officials said, announcing plans to accelerate
migration to its "open system alternatives" and Sun
Microsystems Inc.'s Java and Java Beans
technologies.
Analysts said the spate of announcements gave
Netscape a stronger hand to play as it battles against
Microsoft in the corporate marketplace.
"This shows Netscape's resilience," said David Smith,
an analyst with Gartner Group Inc., in Stamford, Conn.
"Just when people were ready to count them out, they
take it up a level."
"Based upon the document management capabilities
they showed, it looked good," added Alex Kotlar, an
analyst with DLJ Securities, in New York. "It remains to
be seen whether the products will be in public beta by
the end of the year. But they are in a good position to
be a major player in the intranet."
Netscape officials said Communicator will enter public
beta testing in the next 30 to 60 days. Commercial
availability is slated for the first quarter of next year.
Copyright(c) 1996 Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. All rights reserved. Reproduction in
whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Ziff-Davis
Publishing Company is prohibited. PC Week and the PC Week logo are trademarks of
Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. PC Week Online and the PC Week Online logo are
trademarks of Ziff-Davis Publishing Company.
======================
More... (I'm not bothering to straighten out the formatting - you can read it.
October 15, 1996
Netscape steps up to the
corporate plate
By Charles Cooper
For a company that only got into the
business a couple of years ago,
Netscape Communications isn't
acting like a 2-year-old. The company
today provided a cogent reply to
critics who suggested it was in
danger of getting squashed by the
bigger wanna-bes squaring off for a
piece of the action in the corporate
market.
Heading into this week, the most urgent question was
whether Netscape could maintain the technical edge it
once enjoyed over Microsoft. Then there were the
subsidiary--though no less important--questions about
Netscape's ability to arrange the sorts of strategic
partnerships with OEMs and industry resellers that can
make or break a company.
Six months is an eternity in Internet time, but as they
outlined Netscape's 1997 client and server strategy this
morning, officials had every reason to feel confident
about their near-term prospects. The company did not
answer all the questions, but it did offer a sufficiently
compelling story to see it through the near term.
In addition to introducing a juiced-up version of its client
software, now rebaptized as Netscape Communicator,
the company took the wraps off six new server
additions to its SuiteSpot line of products.
Hewing to Netscape's new mantra of "embracing and
integrating" Microsoft platforms and technology,
Communicator supports some low-level ActiveX
technology, as well as Common Object Model and OLE
on Windows 95. The company will also offer more
integration between future versions of its server and
client software and Windows NT, Office and
BackOffice.
"This is just the next big step for us," said Vice
President of Marketing Mike Homer. "People have
overdramatized the browser battle thing with Microsoft.
We've long ago moved on from that."
And for good reason, what with Microsoft giving away
Internet Explorer for free. But Homer and his cohorts
know that the real money is in the enterprise market,
which they will try to storm by offering products that
allow users to build open E-mail and groupware
solutions--even in companies already running
proprietary communications platforms, such as Lotus
Notes.
Presenting itself as a full-fledged messaging vendor,
Netscape is offering a series of modular server
offerings that use open protocols. The company will
argue that it is taking the initiative in offering
standards-based functionality for the enterprise. In
other words, what's good for us will also be good for
you in the long term.
As they made all the right comments about open
standards and scalability, Netscape's senior team took
turns at the bully pulpit to make pointed comparisons
between SuiteSpot and BackOffice, Microsoft
Exchange and Lotus Notes/Domino. But they also quite
sensibly refrained from taking a "my way or the
highway" approach.
Instead, they repeatedly drove home the point that
corporations won't have to rip out their existing
infrastructure to overlay Netscape's products on an
existing Microsoft Mail or Lotus Notes installation.
(Again, embrace and integrate existing investments.)
And then there's the price tag. Netscape is selling a
500-user SuiteSpot installation for $28,950. Compare
that with $36,795 for Notes (desktop), $91,009 for
BackOffice and $139,795 for a full version of Notes.
The company has incorporated a host of nifty features,
including intelligent agents that notify users when data
on their intranet has changed and smart address books
that reach out to directory services to find E-mail
addresses. I long ago discarded the term "killer app"
from my lexicon, but Netscape officials made a
persuasive case for their contention that Web-rich
E-mail and groupware would become key features of
the third wave of Web technology.
But all this was the easy part. The products, slated to
be released into beta over the next 60 days, will only
become available during the first quarter of 1997. In the
meantime, Netscape has to sell its new vision to
corporate America, IBM's prime redoubt.
"Netscape is trying to get into the corporate space, but
if they thought Microsoft gave them a run for their
money when it came to browsers, we're going to give
them a huge run for the money in this market,"
grumbled one IBM executive after hearing about the
day's product announcements.
High ambitions to be sure, but Netscape seems to be
stepping up to the challenge.
Copyright(c) 1996 Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. All rights reserved. Reproduction in
whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Ziff-Davis
Publishing Company is prohibited. PC Week and the PC Week logo are trademarks of
Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. PC Week Online and the PC Week Online logo are
trademarks of Ziff-Davis Publishing Company.
Send mail to PC Week
============================================================================
Don't you guys get TIRED of this stuff. I know I do.
Joe Antol <a very big stockholder with a dwindling equity stake as each day goes by....>
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Joe... monmouth.com (why do I bother typing this stupid URL anyway? Although, I probably get more hits than the NOVELL site. |
