The Latest in Linkage: : Among the...
The Latest in Linkage: : Among the biggest winners in the Internet craze so far are trade show producers. Just ask Mecklermedia Corp., the publishing company that puts on the 3-year-old Internet World exhibition being held this week at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
Tens of thousands of cybernauts are expected to pour into downtown Los Angeles to hear speeches from some of the industry’s top executives, such as Apple Computer Chairman Gilbert Amelio and Progressive Networks founder Rob Glaser, and to view more than 600 exhibits spreading over 15 acres of Convention Center floor space.
Netscape Communications, the company many credit with popularizing the global computer network, will debut what co-founder and chief technologist Marc Andreessen says is the “next wave” of Internet usage: extranets. Extranets are the links between intranets, the internal company computer networks that are based on Internet technology.
According to InfoWorld, a computer industry trade weekly, about 90% of all Fortune 100 companies have or are in the process of building an intranet.
Extranets “should be an even bigger market than intranets,” Andreessen says. “If there are 1,000 intranets out there, then the potential for connections is 1,000 by 1,000.”
Extranets would allow electronic communication between companies that do business with one another. For example, customers could dial into a supplier’s network and determine the status of a product shipment. An important feature of Netscape’s extranet products, which will make their debut during the next year, will be the ability to create “lockout” zones so that sensitive information is kept off-limits to outsiders.
Another product highlight at Internet World is a new version of Macromedia’s Director, a software-building program that includes the ability to create “streaming” video clips that can be viewed at the precise moment of a download. Director 6, Multimedia Producer, will sell for $999.
America Online will exhibit Casablanca, a new version of its electronic information service using “push” technology. The new version of the software automatically dials into AOL and downloads previously requested information to a subscriber’s computer throughout the day. Casablanca will be available sometime this summer.
