Hi Bernard,
In the upstream message to this post [2950], you noted:
" So we must have either regulation or competition....<delete>.. so
that perhaps the answer will involve what Frank C. was suggesting, which
was to perform the unbundling at the higher levels of the networking
stack.
An unlikely assemblage of vendors is about to take this one step closer to
reality, with yet another alliance, as they attempt to define some of the
networking rules in this new virtual battle zone.
The following is from Stephen Temple concerning the
Open Service Gateway.
Regards, Frank Coluccio
---------------
Fifteen Industry Leaders to Create Standard for
Bringing Internet-Based Services to the Networked Home
Open Service Gateway Specification Will Enable Vast New Business <>
March 2, 1999
REDWOOD SHORES, Calif., March 1 /PRNewswire/
Fifteen leading technology companies today
announced a new alliance to create and maintain the
Open Service Gateway specification, the industry's
first open interface for connecting consumer and
small business appliances with Internet services. The
Open Service Gateway specification will be designed
to provide a common foundation for Internet service
providers (ISPs), network operators and equipment
manufacturers to deliver a wide range of Internet
services to gateway servers running in the home or
remote office.
Alcatel, Cable & Wireless, Electricite de France,
Enron Communications, Ericsson, IBM, Lucent
Technologies, Motorola, Network Computer, Inc.,
Nortel Networks, Oracle Corporation, Philips
Electronics, Sun Microsystems, Sybase, and Toshiba
intend to jointly define the Open Service Gateway
specification to allow the consolidation and
management of voice, data and multimedia
communications to and from the home. The
specification will also be designed to provide secure
wireless or wired links between high-value home
services - such as security, energy management,
emergency healthcare and electronic commerce
services-and the computer systems of external
computer networks and Internet service providers.
With the Open Service Gateway specification,
service providers and software vendors will be able
to depend upon a standardized software environment
for residential, small office/home office and remote
environments. Through this effort, the alliance is
creating standards for the delivery, installation,
deinstallation and management of applications -
opening vast new markets for Internet service and
software developers.
Now, even homes without traditional desktop
computers can look forward to deriving benefit from
Internet connectivity. As consumers see easy access
to a much broader array of home and small office
services -- from home alarm, medical alert, food
service delivery, intercom, telephony services and
others -- demand, just as on the Internet, for these
value-added services will dramatically increase.
By writing to the Open Service Gateway
specification's Java(TM) technology-based
environment, service providers and vendors
traditionally faced with inflexible dedicated systems
development will be able to leverage the
infrastructure of the Internet while drawing from the
resources of the millions of Java software and
Internet developers worldwide.
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