Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Novell (NOVL) dirt cheap, good buy? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: George Papadopoulos who wrote (26763)	4/26/1999 8:16:00 PM
From: fb	Respond to of 42771

George, This may apply? Monday April 26 12:48 AM ET Sun To Unveil Software For Mobile Workers SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Sun Microsystems Inc. (Nasdaq:SUNW - news) Monday will announce new software that will enable mobile workers to reproduce their office desktop on any other computer while they are traveling, using an Internet browser. The software, called i-Planet, creates a virtual workspace by enabling access to a mobile worker's applications, calendars, files and e-mail on their office desktop, from any Internet browser using Sun's Java programming language. Sun said i-Planet will enable users to access any applications running in its Solaris operating system (Sun's version of Unix), Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT - news)'s Windows and Windows NT, NOVEL, INC, (NASDAG: NOVL-NEWS)'S NETWARE and International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM - news)'s MVS mainframe operating environment. ''With i-Planet, all you have to do is access a browser, enter the Web and the appropriate authorized information and you have access to your entire intranet,'' said Stuart Wells, senior vice president of the Sun-Netscape alliance. An intranet is a corporate network that uses Internet technology. In the future, Sun said that i-Planet will also run on personal digital assistants such as the PalmPilot handheld computer and Internet telephones. Sun said i-Planet has been extensively tested by some of its customers and by Sun itself. At Sun, the software is called Sun.Net, where it is used by 10,000 remote Sun employees. Palo Alto, Calif.-based Sun said it is saving $10 million annually in network access charges and support costs. The iPlanet software will be available beginning May 15 and sold through Sun's alliance with Netscape, which is now owned by America Online Inc. (NYSE:AOL - news), and Sun resellers and integrators. Pricing starts at $10,000 for 100 users and $39,995 for 1,000 users. Sun also plans to announce Monday a performance engine, called the Java HotSpot Performance Engine, that will increase the performance of the latest version of the Java programming language, Java 2, by 100 percent. Using Sun's Java language, software developers can write applications once that will run on a variety of computer systems. Sun plans to make these announcements at the Java Enterprise Solutions Symposium (JESS) in Paris Monday. ''Both (announcements) feed into our broad ''dot com'' strategy,'' Greg Papadopoulos, Sun's chief technology officer said, referring to Sun's strategy to provide tools for corporations to become Internet-enabled.

To: George Papadopoulos who wrote (26763)	4/26/1999 9:57:00 PM
From: PJ Strifas	Respond to of 42771

Yiasou George! The simple answer: I don't know. BUT....I'll dig and see what I can come up with. So far, from what I understand about I-Planet (the company), it was acquired by SUNW this past fall. I haven't heard much about it other than some press releases but that doesn't mean much :) Some background: <"Sun's vision of anyone, anytime, anywhere computing is coming together in a viable end-to-end software architecture," said Ed Zander, chief operating officer of Sun Microsystems, Inc. "i-Planet puts another unique software technology in the Sun arsenal that provides remote access to the corporate intranet from any available computer." > This vision of their's plays very nicely into digitalme and the NDS theory of connecting users (people) with resources (everything else). I don't know of any connection with NDS at this time but that doesn't mean it won't happen or can't happen. This entire I-Planet stuff works in the corporate environment where NDS has an 80% penetration in Fortune 100 companies. Basically it's a framework for creating secure access to your company's network from within a Java-enabled browser. <What if you could connect to your data, applications, and services at the office from anywhere through any Internet-connected device? And without the costly and hard-to-manage aspects of modem pools, platform-specific client software, routers, or remote-access servers? What you would have is a personalized desktop, a Webtop, accessible from any JavaTM technology-enabled browser.> I do know that Novell has been working on the same idea for sometime (called NetTop) and we do know that SUNW and NOVL have a very friendly relationship..... Getting back to your question - I'd keep my eye on this one. With Novell's NDS for Solaris hitting its last leg of beta testing, we could see SUNW making a move to make this product (I-Planet) totally directory-enabled. The catch point will be something called LDAP. Remember, SUNW has access to Netscape's products now (through it's deal with AOL). Netscape's Directory server would be their first choice and that's a pure LDAP directory. With NDS running LDAP natively, NDS customers can leverage that investment into I-Planet very easily with LDAP being the common language. I'm going to look into this some more....interesting stuff...again, the main message here is "CONNECTIVITY". Connecting people with what they need (apps, files, lists, etc) so they can be productive. NOVL and SUNW seem to have visions that cover similar sights (if not the same ones at times!). Peter J Strifas