Another competitor coming up.
Ray
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From Client-Server News
CSN 242-01
Another Young Lion Wants To Cut Its Teeth On Multiuser NT
TekCentric Corporation, a brand new contender in the
multiuser NT arena, is about to take on Citrix and beat New
Moon to market.
TekCentric says its 14-man R&D staff has built a multiuser
system called WinCentric that it's ready to sell now that can
install in three minutes flat and run on any NT/95/3.x
client. Not only that, it also runs inside Netscape Navigator
and Internet Explorer, on MS-DOS and as a thin client on
terminals (ahem, non-Java-based NCs). It's still testing
WinCentric on Navigator and IE running on Unix, an
architecture that will turn any Unix box into a Windows
terminal. Once Hydra is ready WinCentric will simply plug
into Microsoft's multiuser engine. A Unix version of the
WinCentric server currently under development will let any
Windows box run server-based Unix apps.
WinCentric uses a proprietary protocol called Remote
Presentation Protocol (RPP) that's described as similar to
X.11 but requiring much lower bandwidth. It sends screen
commands using techniques similar to New Moon's, creating
what TekCentric calls a "true" window on the desktop. It says
its implementation is technically "more elegant" than New
Moon's. Both companies' approach contrasts sharply to Citrix,
which uses a high-bandwidth signal to paint screens in a
static window.
The 18-month-old company is currently putting together the
last key pieces before its debut: launch money and the
marketing staff needed to have a shot at succeeding.
It's already recruited industry veteran Charles Lejsek,
currently president of InfoImaging Technologies Inc, who's
going to leave that job at the end of the month to become
TekCentric's president and COO. Lejsek co-founded terminal
pioneer Link Technologies, which was eventually gobbled up by
Wyse. One of his first tasks will be to start madly
recruiting marketing talent. The goal is to grow total staff
to 38 by July 15.
Lejsek's already involved in raising the $4.5 million the
company's looking for to fund its product launch. Reached at
his desk at InfoImaging, Lejsek says TekCentric is more
interested in strategic partners than VCs, and is already
deep in talks with both a major ISV and a hardware OEM. He
declined to say who.
The choice of partners could be critical. Lejsek's marketing
plan includes convincing large ISVs to build WinCentric into
their offerings so they can offer customers pre-packaged
multiuser systems. Lejsek uses PeopleSoft as an example of
the type of partner he has targeted. Not, he insists, because
the company's talking to PeopleSoft but simply because
PeopleSoft is located not far from TekCentric.
He also envisions OEMs pre-installing WinCentric to offer
large corporate packages of NT servers and Windows terminals.
The marketing plan calls for enticing resellers with
unusually attractive margins in the 55%-60% range. End user
prices have been set at $1,995 per server with a five-user
license, plus $895 for each additional five users.
TekCentric's been operating on cash from CEO and co-founder
Mir Ali, who's making his money from Amir Technology Labs
Inc, ATL makes thin clients it calls Network Computers though
they're actually boxes designed to access NT and Unix
servers, not Java-based NCs. The ATL brand is best known in
Europe. In the US its widgets are resold by Boundless, among
others. ATL has a modified version of its NetTerminal line
ready to roll with a WinCentric client written to the
proprietary embedded OS in NetTerminals. That brings to mind
some interesting possibilities since Boundless is a Citrix
licensee - in good part, it's said, because there's no other
alternative.
TekCentric is amazed that it's coming to market at the same
time as Hydra and pICAsso but realizes it must overcome
Citrix' market lead and installed base. WinCentric product
manager Wajid Fiaz has been nervously looking over his
shoulder at New Moon for a year now and is surprised that
it's not on the market yet. After repeated delays, New Moon's
release of its LiftOff product is supposed to be imminent
(CSN No 234).
Fiaz said WinCentric would run right now only on an Intel
server with NT 4.0, 200MHz or higher chip, 64MB of RAM plus
8MB-12MB per user depending on the applications being run.
RPP works over TCP/IP, IPX or NetBEUI. The Windows clients
have been tested on NT/95, the Win98 beta and Win3.11.
There's also a client for MS-DOS 6.x or greater, but an 80386
or higher CPU is needed. The Netscape plug-in requires
Navigator 2.0 or higher, the ActiveX control version IE 3.02
or later. For administrative tasks the WinCentric control
console can be accessed and run from any client or server on
the network. |
