The WAVE Report on Digital Media
3D --- Media Creation --- Shared Space
---Published by 4th Wave, Inc.---
Issue #0306------------------3/7/03

 

The WAVE Report is Searchable on

http://www.3dlinks.com
http://www.wave-report.com

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0306.1 Hot Topics

0306.2 Story of the Issue

0306.3 3D

0306.4 Wireless

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0306.1 Hot Topics

***5 Japanese Co.s Form Consortium to Create 3D Stereographic
Display Market
(March 4)

Five major Japanese companies have collaborated to form The 3D
Consortium, to encourage the growth and development of a market
for 3D applications and products. The consortium's objective is
to enhance the potential market for three dimensional images
through the development and expansion of I/O devices for 3D
stereographic displays, development and distribution of 3D
content, and by promoting the commercial use of this new
technology in a wide variety of application areas.

The five steering members of the Consortium are
- Itochu Corporation, Tokyo;
- NTT DATA Corporation, Tokyo;
- Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd., Osaka;
- Sharp Corporation, Osaka; and
- Sony Corporation, Tokyo.

Compared to conventional planar (2D) displays, stereographic (3D)
displays are capable of realistically depicting the third
dimension--depth--in an image. A variety of applications are
envisioned in fields such industrial design including CAD
(computer aided design), medical, educational, entertainment,
advertising, broadcasting, electronic books, and more. The
Consortium estimates this market in Japan has the potential to
reach 3 trillion yen in annual sales revenue by 2008.

Last September, Sharp Corporation and Sharp Laboratories of
Europe, Ltd. announced the development of an LCD capable of
displaying 3D images without the use of special glasses. This LCD
is switched electrically between 2D viewing and 3D viewing. Sharp
is currently employing its 3D LCD technology in a mobile phone.
In addition, Sharp will introduce 3D PC related products later
this year.

Consortium members believe this groundbreaking technology will
open up new worlds of video imaging that will provide a realistic
sense of depth and presence never before possible. In addition to
the five steering members, the 3D Consortium is comprised of over
60 standard members, including hardware manufacturers, software
vendors, content vendors, content providers, system integrators,
video production houses, broadcasters, academic organizations and
other interested parties.

Subcommittees are being established within the Consortium to
discuss specific issues such as devising image formats
appropriate to various applications and I/O devices and
developing guidelines and authoring tools for creating content.
The Consortium will expand its efforts globally into various
fields, and plans to aggressively promote educational activities
to encourage the widespread application and expansion of 3D. The
ultimate goal is to generate an unprecedented new industry and
market for 3D technology.

The Consortium Business Office is located at
Digi-Book Japan Inc., 1-3-6 Nishi-Kanda, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo,
Japan.
Tel: +81-3-5283-8640.
E-mail: jimmukyoku@3dc.gr.jp.

Inquiries from companies and organizations in the U.S. interested
in participating in the Consortium for the purpose of expanding
the market for 3D can be directed to:

Ian Thompson
Sharp Laboratories of Europe Ltd
Edmund Halley Road
Oxford Science Park
Oxford, 0X4 4GB, UK
Tel: +44 (0)1865 747711
Fax: +44 (0)1865 747717
Email: ian.thompson@sharp.co.uk

***Project JXTA Passes 1 Million Downloads, Releases Version 2.0
(March 4)

Sun Microsystems, Inc. today announced that more than one million
developers have downloaded Project JXTA from the Sun Web site.
JXTA is an open source, standards-based, peer-to-peer technology
that supports collaboration and communication on any networked
device. The JXTA community is releasing version 2.0 now. Sun also
announced that the National Association of Realtors and the
National Association of Convenience Stores are implementing JXTA-
based applications and that InView Software and Internet Access
Methods have released commercial products based on JXTA.

Sun stated that this milestone highlights the mounting adoption
of JXTA for peer-to-peer application and service deployment. The
open source community of more than 12,700 members has evolved
Project JXTA into an open set of XML-based protocols for creating
peer-to-peer style network computing applications and services.
JXTA Version 2.0 will offer enhanced scalability and performance.

InView Software and Internet Access Methods are part of a range
of companies that are expected to release commercial products
that leverage the collaborative strengths of the JXTA platform
this year.

InView Software developed its Momentum application using JXTA
technology as its peer-to-peer communications infrastructure
layer. Momentum enables file sharing and collaboration between
users on the Solaris Operating Environment, Linux and Windows
workstations. Users create workspaces containing files that they
would like to share, and then invite other users to join that
workspace. Momentum users can work collaboratively on documents
such as drawings, charts, or timelines.

Internet Access Methods built IAM-Developing, a collaborative
Java Integrated Development Environment (IDE), using JXTA
technology. IAM- Developing works across multiple plaforms. The
product enables multiple developers to work securely on the same
piece of source code, and see modifications made by others in
real time across corporate firewalls.

About Project JXTA

JXTA is an open, generalized peer-to-peer platform that allows
any connected device on the network to communicate and
collaborate. Sun Microsystems developed and released JXTA to the
open source community in April 2001. JXTA can be applied across
multiple platforms including the Java 2 Platform, Standard
Edition (J2SE), Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition (J2ME), C
language, and others. Any device on the network including cell
phones, two-way pagers, electronic sensors, PDAs, desktop
computers and servers, can be connected using JXTA.

Sun's technical consulting arm, Sun Professional Services, is
helping organizations leverage JXTA to deliver services to the
Web, and to engineer architectures to support pervasive access.

http://www.jxta.org
http://sun.com
http://www.inviewsoftware.com

***VIA Acquires Wireless Communications Design Center in Sweden
(March 5)

VIA Technologies, Inc, a developer of silicon chip technologies
and PC platform solutions, today announced that it has acquired
the wireless applications design center co-established with
Swedish microelectronics institute Acreo in May 2001.

Located in Lund, Sweden, the VIA wireless design center is
dedicated to radio frequency (RF) technology design, adding
wireless system application R&D capabilities to VIA's silicon and
platform product portfolio.

Acreo is a Swedish research institute working with contract
research and development to provide microelectronics and optics
solutions. Its technological areas include Integrated Circuit
Design, Microelectronic Process Technologies, Optical Components
and Systems, Interconnect and Packaging Technologies, Robust
Electronics, Sensor Technologies, Visual Interfaces and SME
Services.

Acreo works in system-on-package (SoP) technology, and has added
strategic competence over the last few years in the area of
system-on-chip (SoC) design for wireless applications. Acreo has
facilities in Stockholm/Kista, Norrkoping, Lund and Hudiksvall in
Sweden. The department of System Level Integration is located in
Norrkoping and Lund.

VIA Technologies, Inc. is a developer of PC core logic chipsets,
microprocessors, and multimedia, communications, optical media
and networking chips. VIA products include VIA Apollo core logic
chipsets for the full range of PC platforms, and VIA C3
processors for value PCs and Internet appliances, as well as
developing solutions for the PC platform through its VPSD
Business Unit. Its customers include OEMs, mainboard
manufacturers, and system integrators. VIA is headquartered in
Taipei, Taiwan, with branch offices in the US, China and Europe.

http://www.via.com.tw
http://www.acreo.se


0306.2 Story of the Issue

***IM Planet Spring 2003
February 24 - 25, 2003
by James Sneeringer

Boston, MA

Instant messaging has fully arrived as an enterprise industry.
With statistics like 84% of US enterprises that have IM usage, it
is an application that any company with a network cannot ignore.
At a minimum, IT departments will want overlay solutions to
understand its effects on network usage and security, and HR
departments will want to ensure that its use falls within company
policies. But for many vendors, including Microsoft, IM goes way
beyond instant text messaging. With its RTC server, Microsoft
sees IM as the bridge to a communication system of the future
with highly integrated voice, video, text, presence, and
applications. Lotus recently announced that it would be tightly
integrating its Sametime IM application with its Websphere
server. And in many sessions, numerous companies discussed the
possibilities for using IM for applications communication.

The term of IM has been re-defined, from the traditional IM
paradigm of the buddy list, presence, and text conversation
window, to a general term for any combination of real-time
messaging with presence status. Presence, really, is the key
attribute of IM, and what distinguishes it from similar
technologies like SMS. The result is that IM is coming to be
considered as a logical transport layer, capable of pushing
dynamic status changes messages to a client in real time.

At this point every enterprise needs to ask itself several
questions. The first is, to what extent, and for what, is IM
being used by my employees? The second is, what do I want to do
with it? As a communication technology, it can be difficult to
quantify the ROI on IM usage, beyond several vertical
applications such as customer call escalation, or brokerage
communications. But as several people pointed out, it might be
unfair to ask IT departments to justify the cost of a basic IM
management overlay. After all, they didn't install the IM
clients; the employees did. Even if the company wishes to stop
all usage it will cost money to do so. And for financial and
health care companies, and the accounting departments of public
companies, there may be a regulatory requirement for logging of
all IM usage, for an audit trail.

At a higher level is the question of the company's long-term
communication strategy. IM is one of several technologies
impacting enterprise communications, including WLAN, mobile data,
and voice over IP. Microsoft sees IM as an integral part of the
converged enterprise communications of the future, and the
standard of SIP as the way to get there. But for many companies,
the cost of a full enterprise IM solutions such as Lotus Sametime
or Microsoft's RTC server cannot be justified. These companies
will be looking more to leverage the free public IM networks,
either with a management overlay from companies such as IMLogic
or Akonix, or an enterprise solution from one of the networks
themselves, such as AOL or Yahoo.

Themes

There are several themes that became evident during the
conference:

Tension Between Enterprise Solutions Based on the Public
Networks, and Private, Internal IM Servers

This was on display in the first two sessions, with the
Yahoo and IBM/Lotus reps taking the two respective sides in
the debates. In two consecutive sessions they traded
comments and debated the two approaches hotly. In general it
seems likely that large enterprises are more likely to go
with a full internal system like Sametime, while smaller
companies will be attracted to the price savings associated
with public network solutions.

IM enterprise solutions based on the public networks exist
on a range, from a simple security, management, and logging
overlay to existing public IM use, to a custom enterprise
solution from a big networks (AOL, Yahoo, MSN) that hooks
into the enterprise directory server. In most cases the
overlays are provided by 3rd parties such as IMLogic or
Akonix. These consist of a server that sits on the network
between the users and the Internet, monitoring and
controlling IM use. For many companies this is the next step
after discovering how wide-spread IM use is in their
organization.

Both Yahoo and AOL sat on the panel of the 3rd session of
the day, and both have enterprise solutions, although Yahoo
was by far the most vocal in pushing theirs (and the concept
of public IM enterprise solutions in general). Their public
IM enterprise solution is based on their network, with
authentication of the user taking place on the Yahoo
servers. The enterprise piece is providing the ability to
local IT to secure, manage, and log (if desired) the IM.
AOL's enterprise solutions provide an option to base
authentication on the local directory, essentially
"trusting" any IM user who is authenticated by that domain.

IBM/Lotus was pushing Sametime, with a completely different
view of enterprise IM. In this view, the enterprise deploys
Sametime for robust internal IM and collaboration. If they
want to communicate with a partner or customer, they can
negotiate and set up a connection between their internal
networks, based on SIP/SIMPLE standards, which like MS, IBM
is pushing hard. The rep could not stop talking about it.
For IBM/Lotus, enterprise IM is basically internal, and the
technical standard of SIP/SIMPLE will allow their customers
to set up connections to other enterprise networks if they
desire. The concept of free access to public networks is
only barely considered, with a connection to the AIM network
that (according to some on the show floor) is barely
implemented. Microsoft seems to be firmly in this camp,
although Windows Messenger is based on SIP/SIMPLE, and
interfaces with MSN.

The Need for IM to Fit Into Existing Corporate Policies and IT.

Everyone agreed that a stock brokerage cannot have one of
its brokers communicating with customers under the screen
name "studbroker22." Yet, the brokerage firm who discovered
this screen name could not even match it to a specific
broker. If IM use is to become a legitimate part of business
communications it must submit itself to the same constraints
that exist on other communications. These include:

Naming convention

Like e-mail, enterprise IM needs a naming convention.
This is to make identity clear, and provide more
professional interactions. Most solutions seem to lean
toward using the e-mail address as the screen name. For
public IM solutions, the use of the domain identifier
creates a possible revenue stream--the public network
charges to provide the domain as part of the screen
name. This may or may not be hooked into the private
enterprise directory.

Authentication

Hand in hand with naming convention is the ability to
trust that the person behind the screen name is who
they claim to be. Authentication is either hosted by a
public network (such as Yahoo) and provided for a fee
to enterprise users, or the enterprise IM solution
hooks directly into the internal authentication scheme.
IBM/Lotus emphasizes the selling point that their
solution (unlike Yahoo) does not double-charge for
authentication. AOL has a solution that can "trust" the
enterprise authenticated users for a particular domain.

Virus

Companies pay a lot of money for virus protection
software and services. Ideally the IM system will be
able to hook into the existing security framework.

Content filtering

A brokerage must be able to search outgoing content for
the words "guaranteed return," to protect themselves.
In addition, many e-mail systems filter for
inappropriate or harassing content. This must be
available on IM as well.

Disclaimers

Automated legal disclaimers are an important part of
many corporate e-mails. IM needs that ability as well.

Encryption

Standard IM travels as clear text. Like e-mail, some
enterprises have a requirement for encryption of this
text, to protect data while in transit.

Spam

IM spam is possibly even more intrusive than e-mail
spam, since it can pop-up on the desktop without
opening it yourself. This is a downside to using public
networks for enterprise IM, according to IBM. But,
Yahoo said to watch for an announcement on this from
them soon.

Logging

Logging is a regulatory compliance issue for financial
service companies, and some healthcare providers. The
paper trail must be preserved for audits. In addition,
there may be a requirement of ALL public companies to
preserve some traffic, due to the Sarbanes/Oxley bill
that makes CFOs directly responsible for the accuracy
of their books. However, IBM stated that for many of
their customers logging does not even make the top 10
list of desired features. In some cases, they adamantly
do NOT want to log unless required to by law.

There is also a personal component--allowing
individuals to store conversations locally. Most
clients already provide this.

Using IM for Application Communication

Going beyond people to people, this idea uses IM as a real-
time communication service with applications. Because IM is
real-time it is claimed that it can provide relief to call
centers if integrated into help applications, or it can
serve as real-time communication between apps. Presence also
provides opportunity as an application service; in this case
it is abstracted to mean any status that changes over time.
The advantage is the push nature of updating presence at the
distant client.

This has several components:

Using IM for people to communicate with apps

This places an application behind an IM screen name,
that the customer communicates with via text, either
using natural language, commands, or menu prompts
("Enter 1 for General, 2 for Engineering," etc). The
IBM rep put it best--the normal interface would have be
pretty bad to make this attractive. It is not far
removed from text role playing games or negotiating the
Internet from a Unix prompt--no one is going the pass
the Turing test. Because text is so light on bandwidth,
though, this type of app communication may be ideal for
mobile uses.

Using IM for apps to talk to apps

This was the talk of an afternoon session, and to be
honest it sounded like an hour of catch phrases. "Every
enterprise application has a component that would
benefit from real-time interaction"--this point was
raised over and over again. The key seemed to be the
push update nature of IM--one application could send
data as it changed, rather than wait for the other app
to request it on a regular schedule. The session was
full of off-the-cuff ideas but it seemed that few were
selling anything here yet.

Using presence

Presence is just a way of pushing a dynamic state
description out to distant users. For people the
gradations are from online to offline, with different
"away" messages in between. But for applications,
presence can be any state change. Examples during the
day included stock prices, eBay bid prices, weather,
and flight status. In this scenario, the application
sits in the buddy list via a screen name, with the
presence next to it. For example:

Buddy List

-- Friends
--- happyguy43 (At Lunch)
--- studbroker22 (On line)
-- Applications
--- FlightStatusUAL475 (On time)
--- StockPriceAOL (12.45)
--- Weather20817(cloudy 43)

In this buddy list the friends are up top, and the
applications include the status of United Flight 475,
the stock price of AOL, and the weather in zip code
20817.

Standards and the Need for Interoperability

Throughout the conference it was clear, particularly from
session audience questions, that interoperability of IM
solutions is a major issue. Like e-mail and telephone, two
revolutionary communications to which IM was compared by
several presenters, instant messaging users act like both
consumers and employees at the same time. The full impact of
IM cannot be achieved while it is so difficult for consumer
networks to communicate with enterprise systems, and for
different enterprise systems to interoperate with each
other.

The technological and business model sticking point is
presence. Unlike e-mail and the telephone, presence requires
a persistent connectivity between all clients and servers,
to ensure that presence status updates can be pushed out as
needed. Technologically, this means that for ubiquitous
presence, all clients and servers must be able to talk to
each other. And from a business model perspective, there is
little incentive to interoperate when there is no
foreseeable ROI on the effort to do so.

For clients and servers to talk to each other, there must be
standards for the communication protocols. At the IETF
currently, there are two approaches to IM standards: XMPP
(Jabber) and SIP/SIMPLE. Both are nearing approval. The
relative merits of each standard were debated vigorously
(and loudly) during a session on Tuesday entitled "SIP,
SIMPLE, and Jabber: Where Should You Turn?"

Jabber, known by its protocol name XMPP at the IETF, is an
open-source initiative to provide a standard protocol to
produce IM servers and clients that can interoperate. Like
Linux, it is distributed under the General Product License
and its source code is available for download. Like Linux,
there are several commercial vendors devoted to developing
products based on the standard, one of whom, Jabber Inc, was
present at the conference. Frank Cardello estimated that
there were between 6 and 9 other commercial implementations
of Jabber.

Jabber is designed as a protocol for "traditional" IM--the
buddy list/conversation window paradigm. And, as an open
source initiative, it has several member foundations outside
of the IETF whose purpose is the document and administer
extensions to the protocol. As a result, several of the
panel members described Jabber as a "mature" protocol--there
are numerous mechanisms in place to ensure total
interoperability between clients and servers. But, there are
problems with the protocol: it creates a persistently open
TCP port, which limits its ability to work in a mobile
environment, and it has very little vendor support.

SIP, the session initiation protocol, is also at the IETF,
and is also expected to be approved soon. SIP is not an IM
standard, but rather is a protocol for establishing media
sessions between two endpoints on a network. Like Jabber it
is extensible, but unlike Jabber it is not an open source
movement, and therefore extensions to SIP are not published
as they are developed. The result is that it is entirely
possible that two implementations of SIP could be IETF
standard compliant, and yet still not interoperate. For this
reason, SIP was called an "immature" protocol by several of
the panel members. And although Jonathon Rosenberg, CTO of
dynamic soft and author of much of SIP, did an excellent job
addressing many of the issues, it did not change the fact
that IBM and Microsoft SIP servers cannot interoperate.

An interesting point with SIP is that is does not specify a
payload, it simply establishes and manages a connection.
Therefore, it can be used for voice, video, or IM. The full
SIP IM implementation by Microsoft and IBM is SIP/SIMPLE--
SIP with a payload of SIMPLE (Session Initiation protocol
for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions).
SIMPLE is also at the IETF for standard approval, as part of
the SIP working group. But as Maxima Seguineau, CEO of
Antepo, stated, XMPP could just as easily be the IM protocol
carried by SIP. Antepo is currently researching this
standards juxtaposition.

SIP/SIMPLE stands today in a much stronger market position
than Jabber (XMPP), simply because SIP/SIMPLE is supported
and implemented by Microsoft, IBM/Lotus, and AOL, at least
in their 3rd party gateway. Between them MS and Lotus own
about 90% of existing enterprise IM servers deployed today,
and both are built on, and pushing SIP/SIMPLE hard. Zion
Software (see below) stated that they are watching the
standards efforts, including IMPP, SIP/SIMPLE, and Jabber.
But, they acknowledged, if MS and IBM/Lotus can actually
agree on a standard implementation, it will take over, as
with SOAP for Web services.

Technological issues are only part of the interoperability
picture. Until there are business incentives to provide
interoperability, it is unlikely to occur. To IBM, focused
squarely on the enterprise market with Lotus Sametime,
interoperability is a matter of negotiated connections
between the IM servers of two businesses. Over time,
according to this thinking, if enough servers run SIP/SIMPLE
and negotiate interconnectivity, the end result will be
similar to e-mail today: independent e-mail servers
cooperating over SMTP to deliver e-mail to the correct
address.

But for companies like Yahoo, interoperability is a matter
of enterprise servers remaining open to the big 3 public IM
networks. But, that raises the question of interoperability
between those networks--all of whom run on proprietary
protocols. As one presenter put it, there is a "gravity" to
large public networks. Because the current revenue model
centers on advertising, their interest is in growing their
proprietary networks as large as possible, at the expense of
their competitors.

Clearly interoperability is going to be a panel subject at
IM Planet for years to come. Most presenters estimated it
would be solved within 5 years, even if they disagreed how
that would occur.

Europe vs. the US

On Monday I spoke with a Yahoo rep and an IBM/Lotus Sametime
vendor about Europe. Yahoo says--as with most things tech,
Europe is about 12 months behind the US. But, we expect that
the demand will develop over there soon. Yes, SMS is
established but cost structures make it a difficult
proposition for IM interaction or replacement. In Europe the
sender is charged for each SMS message and Yahoo has neither
the billing structure nor desire to provide this money in an
enterprise solution.

-- I asked--in the US, IM adoption is being driven at
the grassroots by young people, who got used to IM as
students. In Europe students use SMS instead. How will
this affect the future growth?

-- Answer--Who knows?

The IBM/Lotus Sametime vendor was Cobra, who makes IM bots
that run on Sametime. They sell worldwide, and reported over
60 resellers for their products in Europe alone. This is
significant because they almost always are sold as an
accessory to Sametime installs. So, this represents over 60
Sametime installers/resellers. But beyond this I could only
get the vaguest statement that IM is hot in Europe too.

Tuesday was far more fruitful, as the Mobile Messaging Track
sessions could not avoid the obvious differences in the US
and European mobile markets. In Europe, SMS is king:

- SMS represents 15% - 20% of operator revenues.
- 45% of the European population uses SMS.
- People surveyed by Jupiter Research use SMS instead
of voice 43% of the time.
- SMS is incorporated into some enterprise solutions.

Some IM vendors such as Antepo have therefore tried to bring
IM to Europe on phones, over the SMS signal. Like other
vendors, Antepo's goal was to recreate the desktop
experience by placing a separate IM application on the
phone. Yet, users did not take to the additional menus and
complications, and in the end SMS use continued to grow,
while IM use stayed at around a 1:1000 ratio to SMS use.
Even SMS games were used 10 times as often as IM. Don
Bergal, VP North America of Antepo, stated that (with the
carrier's help), Antepo came to the conclusion that users
did not want IM over SMS; they just wanted SMS. He suggested
a better solution would be for the carrier to provide an
IM/SMS gateway, where server and IM protocols would reside
and interact with SMS on the phone. But it was not clear
that Antepo was working on this currently.

Frank Cardello, VP of Business Development at Jabber Inc.
(an IM server provider), spoke briefly about his company's
work with companies such as Antepo, France Telecom, Bell
South, and AT&T to interconnect IM with SMS. The success was
"spotty at best." In Europe, SMS has taken off, but in his
words "there are not a lot of communities built around wired
IM that people want to attach to." In the US they faced the
opposite problem, that IM is well established but few people
use SMS. In short, they and others have not had a lot of
success trying to bridge the networks.

The communications cultures of SMS in Europe and IM in the
US are mirrors of each other, and the problem that
interconnectors face is the same--one network has
experienced widespread adoption and the other is barely
noticed. This was illustrated by some online ad revenue
statistics provided by Michael Gartenberg, Research Director
for Jupiter Research:

- Wired online ad revenues
-- US - $6.2 billion
-- Europe - $1.4 billion
- Wireless online ad revenues
-- US - $0.1 billion
-- Europe - $2.5 billion

Frank Cardello pointed out that in Europe, for many users
the experience of the Internet is based on a phone, while in
the US the Internet experience is linked to the
keyboard/video/mouse interface. SMS is beginning to appear
in enterprise applications in Europe, after a groundswell of
popular consumer adoption--just like IM in the US.

WAVE Comments

The great unanswered question remains--what do these
dynamics mean for the development of enterprise IM solutions
in the European market? Based on what we observed at the
conference, an IM solution that succeeds in Europe will have
the following attributes:

Seamless integration with SMS
- SMS is the established king of instant text messaging
in Europe, and IM solutions cannot ignore that.
Rolled out by IT department
- Unlike the US, where 84% of companies report grass-
roots IM usage, an enterprise IM solution in Europe is
much more likely to be a top-down deployment by the IT
department.
Simple interface
- Europeans are used to real-time text messaging
through the simple SMS interface. They may not be as
tolerant of complex interfaces as the US.
Internal server
- Because there are no huge established IM communities,
there is little reason for a company to contract with a
public IM provider such as Yahoo for their enterprise
solution. IM may be more important as one piece of an
internal RTC solution, than for communicating with
partners or vendors.

On the Floor

The expo floor is tiny, 14 booths arranged around dining and food
tables in a hotel ball room. The entire show has a very small
feel to it, and most people seem to know each other. As the
complimentary cocktails flowed from 6 to 7pm on Monday, the Yahoo
booth unveiled a set of rubber-band-powered foam darts and soon
half the room was engaged in an all-out foam dart war. It was
like 1998 all over again--the survivors of the Internet meltdown
reverting to a happier time. If you can't beat a company in the
market place at least you could hit the rep from across the room.

Natural language translators

These are servers that sit between the IM server and the
application that the IM bot accesses. The natural language
servers translate natural language requests into queries
that are sent to the application for processing. They may
provide natural language translation back to the client, as
desired by the host. We spoke with two:

Natural Messaging

This company was presenting with Palm, who just
installed them for internal use, to access a Palm
database of handset specs. Natural Messaging's solution
is based on VoiceXML, a standard for working with
natural language and the subject of a working group at
the W3C. Although developed initially for spoken
natural language, Natural Messaging felt that VoiceXML
was ideal for working with text natural language as
well. Its primary benefits are:
- It is a standard with an active working group.
- As XML it is very extensible.
- Developers can easily work with it to develop
applications.
- It can be extended to include spoken natural
language in the future.

The demo was on the new Palm Tungsten, which resembles
a large Blackberry in form and runs on the AT&T
GPRS/GSM network. It will be introduced in 3 weeks and
sold through the carrier. The Palm implementation used
natural language input with structured output, although
they implied they could do natural language output as
well. It was running on Sametime, and it was not clear
whether that is their specific platform or if it can
run on others.

Sprint is also a partner of Natural Messaging, and like
Palm they have deployed a N.M. server for internal use
and evaluation. Brent Smolinski, Chief Architect at
Natural Messaging, expects that following their
evaluation, Palm and Sprint will begin to develop
customer applications. Natural Messaging is currently
seeking more partners, and appears to be in early an
early business development stage.

ActiveBuddy

This company also provides a natural language
translation server. They claim their service is able to
work with both public and private IM--agnostic. This
can provide both natural language translation of input,
as well as natural output, configurable by the user.
While their primary customer targets are application
developers in the HR and customer service space, they
have developed several demonstration applications that
have proven popular in beta tests.

Zion Software

They have been in business since 1992, and working in the IM
space since 1999. Their enterprise IM solutions include both
integration with the public networks, and a proprietary
protocol IM server, living in both worlds of the dynamic
noted above. Their products include:

JSuperChat
-- This is a Java-based universal IM client, that can
interact with both IM servers such as Sametime or
Zion's JMessageServer, as well as AOL, ICQ, Yahoo, and
MSN. It runs on all Java 2 Standard-enable desktops.
This client is given away ("nobody pays for the
client").

JMessageServer
-- This is an enterprise IM server based on a
proprietary protocol. Zion is interested in the
standards proceedings taking place, but until there is
a clear winner they decided their own protocol would be
most robust. The server includes all standard
enterprise IM features and uses the JSuperChat client.

JBuddy
-- This is an SDK to allow application developers to
hook into one or many of the "Big 4" IM networks
easily. It is available as JBuddySDK for Java
developers, or JBuddy.NET for Windows developers.

Zion sell direct right now, although they are trying to
develop relationships with VARs, integrators, and
consultants. They stated that many have a license and are
setting up reference designs now.

Omnipod

This is another company that provides an enterprise IM
solution based on a server and client running a proprietary
protocol. Its product line is called the Professional Online
Desktop (POD) and provides the usual set of monitoring,
logging, and security features. It can also provide
interoperability with both the Big 3 public networks, and
with SIP/SIMPLE, through a gateways on its server.

Cobra Technologies

This software companies creates IM interaction bots for
Lotus Sametime, to allow people to interact with Lotus
applications via IM. They provide a stable of pre-built,
customizable bots, and can develop custom jobs as well (for
those who will pay). The bots use prompting, such as "please
enter a name," to get around the need for natural language
translation. Presence is either online or offline. Pre-built
bots include:

- Calendar Bot -- view other's calendars
- Mail Monitor Bot -- know when you get mail
- Directory Bot -- look up contact info
- Reminder Bot -- set a reminder for yourself
- Lookup Bot -- interact with a Notes database

Cobra is both a developer of the bots, and a Lotus installer
and service provider. They sell the bots primarily as
accessories to a Sametime sale, either by themselves,
working with IBM/Lotus, or through VARs, particularly
overseas. They claim over 60 VARs in Europe.

Motorola - Lexicus Division

Why was Motorola at an IM conference? Because they make an
IM client. Available in either a Java or embedded version,
their IM client resides on a cell phone and uses SMS for the
transport. The key difference between IM over SMS and SMS is
presence--which is available in the IM browser.

Lexicus Division sells to phone manufacturers, who contract
with carriers. The presence and IM connectivity is provided
by the carriers. Charging for the service is up to the
carriers, with both bucket and single-use plans mentioned.
The browser was developed as part of Motorola's membership
in the Wireless Village standards project, so it should be
interoperable between carriers, including presence. Like all
interoperability it is a business question primarily, and it
was unclear if anyone was interoperating.

There were no phone manufacturers at IM Planet--so why is
Motorola there? Because Jupiter asked them too. They came to
the first IM Planet in San Francisco and agreed to come to
this one too. "We're the only major cell phone maker in
North America, and we are here to provide a mobile point of
view."


0306.3 3D

Many announcements have come out of the Game Developer's
Conference, held this week from March 4-8 in San Jose,
California. Here are the GPUs:

***NVIDIA Unveils New GeForceFX GPUs
(March 6)

NVIDIA Corporation, a developer of visual processing solutions,
today introduced its top-to-bottom family of NVIDIA GeForce FX
graphics processing units (GPUs), designed to bring cinematic
computing to all desktop PCs. The NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200, a
value DirectX 9.0-class GPU, and the NVIDIA GeForce FX 5600, a
high-performance DirectX 9.0-class GPU for the mainstream market,
were unveiled today at the Game Developers Conference.

Joining the GeForce FX 5800 GPU, the new GeForce FX mainstream
GPUs are designed to address a range of price and performance
levels, all sharing the same cinematic computing feature set,
including the CineFX architecture with vertex and pixel shaders.
In addition, the GeForce FX family of desktop graphics processors
is supported by the NVIDIA Unified Driver Architecture (UDA)-a
binary-compatible software architecture, designed to guarantee
software compatibility and stability.

The two new additions to the GeForce FX family are:

GeForce FX 5600 GPU
Intended to provide cinematic graphics for the mainstream market,
the GeForce FX 5600 GPU incorporates the full GeForce FX feature
set, including Intellisample 2.0. The GeForce FX 5600 GPUs
deliver 30% more performance at half the price of the GeForce4 Ti
4600, according to NVIDIA.

GeForce FX 5200 GPU
A value DirectX 9.0-class GPU, the GeForce FX 5200 GPU delivers
GeForce FX cinematic computing and performance, features, and
reliability for as low as $79 USD MSRP.

Available in April 2003, the GeForce FX family of cinematic
graphics processors is being offered by a number of add-in-card
partners, including Abit Computer, AOpen, ASUSTeK, BFG
Technologies, Chaintech, Creative, eVGA.com, Gainward, Leadtek
Research, MSI, Palit Microsystems Inc., Pine XFX and PNY
Technologies.

http://www.nvidia.com

***3Dlabs Introduces Wildcat VP990 Pro VPU Card
(March 6)

3Dlabs Inc., Ltd., a developer of professional visual processing,
today announced the new Wildcat VP990 Pro workstation graphics
accelerator at the Game Developers Conference.

Utilizing 3Dlabs' Visual Processing Architecture, the Wildcat
VP990 Pro contains 512 MB of 256-bit of high-speed, onboard
memory, the largest memory configuration currently available on a
workstation graphics accelerator. Yet, 3Dlabs stated that the
board can be installed in any standard AGP 4x or AGP 8x graphics
slot with no unusual power or cooling requirements. The large
onboard physical memory works collaboratively with the Wildcat
VP's virtual memory architecture to cache large amounts of
geometry, texture and pixel data locally onboard. CAD designers
with large models, DCC professionals generating texture-rich
animations, and visual simulation users moving in real-time
though large databases can all significantly benefit from the
massive memory capacity of the Wildcat VP990 Pro, according to
3Dlabs.

The memory reserves of the Wildcat VP990 Pro will help drive
high-resolution displays. For example, 9 megapixel displays can
absorb over 100 MB of graphics memory simply driving the screen,
before any geometry or textures are stored and processed.
Enabling high-quality anti-aliasing tends to consume graphics
processing power and memory. The Wildcat VP990 Pro's 512 MB is
intended to provide an extra boost of memory, facilitating anti-
aliasing utilization on a broad spectrum of professional
displays.

The new Wildcat VP990 Pro graphics accelerator is offered in a
price/performance model that supports standard AGP 4x or AGP 8x-
based workstations running Microsoft Windows XP and Windows 2000
operating systems. The Wildcat VP990 Pro has an estimated street
price of US$899 and is slated for worldwide shipment in April
through distributors and systems integrators.

http://www.3dlabs.com

***ATI Announces 3 New RADEON Processors
(March 5)

ATI Technologies Inc., today launched three new visual processors
for desktop PCs: the RADEON 9800 PRO, RADEON 9600 series, and
RADEON 9200 series. The processors are being rapidly adopted by
OEMs, system builders and retail partners.

The RADEON 9800 PRO is designed to compete with the fastest
available PC graphics accelerators. The RADEON 9600 series is a
mid-level accelerator, intended to deliver high-end features and
performance with price tags that appeal to the broader market.
The RADEON 9200 series, designed for the mainstream market, is
intended to match value with performance and features suitable
for today's 3D games.

Gateway, Fujitsu Siemens and NEC are all announcing systems
powered by the new RADEON boards. Gateway has chosen the RADEON
9800 PRO as the GPU in their new 700XL system, which will be
available soon. Fujitsu Siemens has selected the RADEON 9200,
RADEON 9600 and RADEON 9800 products for its Scaleo PCs, and NEC
has chosen RADEON 9200 products for its Packard Bell range and
the RADEON 9800 PRO for the NEC iSelect.

Gaming-focused system integrators have also chosen the new RADEON
products. ABS Computers, Alienware Corp., CyberPower, Falcon
Northwest, iBuyPower, MDG, and Voodoo PC will include RADEON
9800, RADEON 9600 and RADEON 9200 products in their current and
upcoming systems.

ATI and its board partners, which include Connect3D, FIC,
Gigabyte, Hercules, Hightech, PowerColor, Sapphire, Tyan,
Visiontek, Wistron and YUAN, will announce and ship products
based on RADEON 9800, RADEON 9600 and RADEON 9200 technologies
starting this month.

RADEON 9800
Targeting the ultra-high-end/enthusiast segment, the RADEON 9800
products are designed to deliver top performance, features, image
quality and stability, with a 256-bit memory interface and eight
pixel pipelines. Programmable shader engines, full speed, full
floating-point precision, and support for the latest Microsoft
DirectX 9.0 and OpenGL feature sets are intended to ensure games
look great even at high speeds.

RADEON 9600
According to ATI, the RADEON 9600 series brings realism and power
to the performance segment, where customers are looking for
features and performance at a more affordable price. The RADEON
9600 includes full floating point architecture featuring quad
pixel pipes and dual vertex engines, full support for the latest
Microsoft DirectX 9.0 and OpenGL feature sets, and advanced anti-
aliasing and anisotropic filtering technologies. The RADEON 9600
family are the first of ATI's products to be developed using the
130 nanometer production process.

RADEON 9200
Powered by a quad-pipe rendering architecture, the RADEON 9200
includes a performance and image quality-enhancing technologies
including full support for the AGP 8X and Microsoft DirectX 8.1
standards, and streaming video de-blocking capabilities. RADEON
9200 products are intended to offer value, with prices right for
the most price-conscious consumer.

CATALYST
All of ATI's products, including these newest additions, are
supported by CATALYST, ATI's unified suite of software. CATALYST
includes a DirectX 9 driver that is Microsoft Windows Hardware
Quality Labs (WHQL) certified.

http://www.ati.com


0306.4 Wireless

***Cometa and iPass to Work Together on Wi-Fi Networks
(March 3)

Cometa Networks, Inc. and iPass Inc. today announced an agreement
to pursue including Cometa's planned Wi-Fi (802.11) hotspots into
the iPass Global Broadband Roaming Service for enterprise users.
Cometa expects to begin rolling out its Wi-Fi network access in
top U.S. urban markets during the fourth quarter of 2003.

Under the agreement, iPass plans to utilize access to Cometa's
public hotspots for iPass' emerging wireless broadband
connectivity in hundreds of venues in the United States, Asia and
Europe, including airports, hotels, and conference centers.

http://www.cometanetworks.com
http://www.ipass.com

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