Gateway and AOL team on net appliances 
Excite@Home gets into the DSL rhythm 
EchoStar invests in satellite Net service 
Lukewarm welcome for wireless Net IPO 
Internet explodes in Latin America, but only for elite 
Cambridge start-up aims to build interactive crowds 
Consortium to announce HomePlug progress 
eLoyalty integrates its customer loyalty tools wih Lucent solution 
Coin-sized memory storage device will sell for pocket change 
VoIP version 2 arrives 
Bluetooth gear could take years 
Microsoft move may spark Japan cable shake-up 
IBM takes aim at Oracle 
Wireless LANs finally gathering steam 
The state of cable telephony 
Microsoft ruling puts Linux show in limelight 

If you want a simple, fast, and relatively cheap way to access the Internet from any room in your house, Gateway and America Online are preparing some non-PC products that just might interest you.  The companies announced at Internet World Wednesday three new Linux-based Gateway Internet appliances that will feature "Instant AOL," a slim version of AOL's client software. Gateway will offer a countertop unit, a wireless Web pad, and a desktop appliance, each priced at under $500, says John Spelich, Gateway's director of corporate communications.

The countertop unit will go well in the kitchen or family room, mounted and stationary. It will use a flat-panel touch screen and a wireless keyboard, and could ship by the end of the year.  Gateway won't say which wireless standard the device will use, and the Web pad won't be available until 2001.  The desktop appliance will look similar to a desktop PC, with a standard CRT-type monitor, keyboard, and mouse. It's larger than the other two devices, will cost the least of all three, and should arrive late this year.  Each device will ship with a modem and an Ethernet port (to support a broadband connection). Each will also have some built-in home network connectivity, he says.

However, none of the units will contain a hard drive. Gateway won't say what type of processor they will use, but Spelich didn't rule out the possibility of Transmeta's new chips.  It's important to understand that each product is a true Internet appliance, Spelich says. That means they won't offer the same functionality as a basic PC. If you want to run a spreadsheet program, you should buy a Gateway PC, he says.  Their function is Internet access--fast and simple, the way people want it, he says.

Excite@Home gets into the DSL rhythm
Source: CNet

In a departure for high-speed Internet access provider Excite@Home, which is known for its cable industry affiliations, the company announced a partnership on April 11th to offer its consumer online service over high-speed telephone lines.  Excite@Home has signed a deal with Rhythms NetConnections, a wholesale provider of high-speed digital subscriber lines (DSL), giving it access to more than 15 million homes served by Rhythms.  The deal will enable Excite@Home to deliver its Web content to residential customers not equipped with cable modems. The company, which has access to about 60 million U.S. homes via deals with AT&T, Cox Communications, Comcast and other major cable companies, believes the Rhythms alliance will allow it to reach more than two-thirds of U.S. households.

Previously, Excite@Home offered DSL service to business customers through its @Work unit, which has a partnership with Rhythms competitor NorthPoint Communications.  The new strategy was first announced in January, although it was lost among news of Excite@Home's first-ever profit and a change in executive leadership. The move allows Excite@Home to broaden its potential customer base while giving Rhythms a major resale partner.

Some analysts question whether Excite@Home will be able to keep DSL service costs in line with its $40-a-month cable service. DSL providers such as Rhythms and Covad Communications must lease spare phone lines from the Baby Bells, driving costs higher. Recent legislation has aimed to keep DSL costs lower.

Gilat-To-Home plans to provide consumer, two-way satellite, broadband Internet service later this year through a single small dish, which also will be capable of receiving up to 500 channels of DISH network satellite television programming, EchoStar said.  Under the terms of the agreement, EchoStar said it will distribute the Gilat-To-Home broadband satellite Internet service powered by MSN along with DISH Network satellite TV service through its more than 23,000 retailers nationwide. DISH Network customers will have the opportunity to purchase "always on" access to the Internet with an MSN-Gilat-To-Home cobranded portal.

Lukewarm welcome for wireless Net IPO
Source: Cnet

Investors may have had their fill of wireless industry public offerings this week as shares of GoAmerica remained flat following the wireless Internet firm's first day of trading as a public company today.  Stock in GoAmerica remained unchanged at $16 after its first day of trading on a heavy volume of more than 20 million shares. Shares traded as high as $18 and as low as $15.  GoAmerica, a wireless Internet service provider that provides wireless phone access to email and Web applications for business and mobile professionals, closed the day with a valuation of $754 million. The company offered 10 million shares at $16 a piece.

Many analysts forecast hundreds of millions of Internet-enabled cell phones and handheld devices will be in use in the near future. Coupled with high-speed wireless networks that are on the horizon, a whole new market for mobile technologies and wireless e-commerce could be set to explode.  Some analysts believe a rash of wireless Internet start-ups will attempt to go public this year in order to gain credibility among a sea of much larger providers.

But still, Yoshio Utsumi warned, "Latin America and the Caribbean are in danger of being left behind in the New Economy," referring to sectors like telecommunications, the media and the Internet.  He pointed out that only 2.7 percent of the region's population owns a computer that is used to access the Internet and that growth in that area is sluggish. Four years ago, 2 percent of the population owned Internet-linked computers. The number of people living in the region is around 500 million.

"It's growing but not fast enough to narrow the gap with the North," Utsumi said in a reference to industrialized countries as a whole.  While Latin Americans are increasingly using the Internet, computer and telephone line penetration will have to grow for all sectors of society to gain access to the Web, he added.

Another key stumbling block is the development of an Internet backbone in the region that would eliminate the need to rely on U.S. networks for international connections at much higher prices.  On an optimistic note, Utsumi said soaring growth of cellular phones could help make the Internet and basic telephone services available to a bigger percentage of the population at a much faster pace.

Scott Newnam, 27, co-founder and president of the firm, said Goldpocket.com's product, EventMatrix, consists of software and an infrastructure that would allow, for example, millions of people to vote at a single Web site within one hour.  "For the first time ever on the Internet, we're going to enable millions of people to participate in real time on Web-based events on a single Web site,'' Newnam told Reuters.  The firm, based in Cambridge, Mass., said it has raised more than $50 million this year.

Consortium to announce HomePlug progress
Source: Digitalmass

A consortium of some of the technology industry's heaviest hitters is expected to announce an effort that eventually would allow consumers to connect their appliances to the Internet through ordinary electrical outlets.  The technology is called HomePlug and is being tested at the Chelmsford laboratories of Cisco Systems Inc. It is being heralded by its backers as a novel and inexpensive way for consumers to bring the Internet to the plethora of gadgets anticipated to flood the average home.

The idea is to take advantage of the electrical outlets that already exist in abundance in virtually every American home rather than rely on the far fewer numbers of phone jacks or cable outlets to connect everything from televisions and toasters to stereos and personal computers to the Internet. Once plugged in, the devices also will ''talk'' to one another, so consumers, for example, can turn on the coffee maker with their PC.

Alberto Mantovani, president of HomePlug, said the ability to use existing power lines is especially attractive in countries outside the United States, where the ratio of phone jacks to electrical outlets is much lower. In the United States, the average house has 40 electrical plugs and 3.5 phone jacks. In other countries, the average is 30 power plugs and 1.5 phone jacks.

HomePlug will not actually provide Internet service; companies such as America Online and Bell Atlantic will continue to sell Internet access. Rather, HomePlug creates a way for multiple gadgets and computers to share that Internet connection without having to wire everything to a central modem.  The market for home networking is potentially immense. More than 30 million homes, roughly 30 percent of all US households, will have more than one computer by the end of the year, Hunt said.

HomePlug, the recently formed alliance, acknowledged the shortcoming and is trying to change that by coming up with a de facto standard that the entire industry will stick to.  Another challenge facing the group is the aggressive timeline that it has given itself. HomePlug members say they will agree on a final set of standards by October and have products on store shelves by the end of the year or early 2001.

eLoyalty integrates its customer loyalty tools wih Lucent solution
Source: iLocus

eLoyalty, the electronic Customer Relationship Management (eCRM) services company, has announced an alliance with Lucent's Enterprise Networks Group to integrate VoIP capability in its new eCRM offering.  The new service leverages Lucent's DEFINITY IP Solutions, providing support for multimedia solutions in both a local and wide area network infrastructure, enabling multi-channel integration across the contact center.  Use of this solution will help contact center representatives answer customer questions, having a full history of their customers' accounts, potential cross-selling opportunities and customer reports immediately.  

eLoyalty is the business/management consulting and systems integration organization focused on building customer loyalty.  The company delivers the technologies and business practices that span a spectrum of operations including the Internet, call centers, marketing channels, sales force optimization, customer service, and field service and logistics.

Coin-sized memory storage device will sell for pocket change
Source: Spectrum

The portable computer memory market got a new player when DataPlay Inc, Boulder, Colo., announced on 3 April that it would introduce a coin-sized optical storage device that can store and record as much as 500 megabytes of data. With its large memory and small size, its creators envision its use in the next generation of portable devices, including digital cameras, music players, and personal digital assistants. DataPlay noted that low cost is a major advantage of its disks, as they could sell for as little as $5. By comparison, flash memory often costs as much as $200 for 64 megabytes. But industry analysts suggest that this still may not be enough to persuade electronics manufacturers to switch from the familiar form factors (DVDs, floppy disks, and flash memory cartridges).

Another hurdle would be getting content creators, like record and movie companies, to agree to the switch. DataPlay's CEO, Steve Volk, noted that record companies could record several albums on a single disk and sell consumers however many they wanted at the outset. A consumer could activate the others at any time over the Web.
http://www.dataplay.com

VoIP version 2 arrives
Source: Teledotcom

Enterprises are moving beyond VoIP's heralded toll-call savings and using the technology to reduce administrative and personnel costs, and to create strategic voice/data apps that make employees more productive.  Case in point: Software this week will disclose plans to install a VoIP network linking more than 60 offices and 2,500 employees worldwide. While toll bypass was a driving force behind Software's plans, the company also expects to streamline administration by unifying communications on a single network, said Software vice president Jerry Murphy, who is overseeing U.S. deployment of the network.

Similarly, Getronics, the international systems integrator that acquired Wang Global last year, has slashed operational costs by 30 percent in the six months since cutting over its Windows NT-based voice/data network, said John Williams, a vice president at Getronics.  For Getronics, its current success is a stark contrast to earlier experiences in which the company found VoIP "left a lot to be desired," Williams said.

These companies are not alone in embracing the technology; VoIP product sales are skyrocketing. Revenue from VoIP gateway will grow, from $209 million in 1999 to $3.6 billion in 2006, according to Frost & Sullivan. The fact that VoIP installations are being driven by more than reduced long distance bills is no surprise to Frost & Sullivan analyst Pete Dailey, who said ease of administering a unified network and integrated voice-data apps have major appeal to large enterprises.

IT managers' increasing acceptance of VoIP is also being fueled by enhancements in the technology supporting voice-data convergence. The Alcatel OmniPCX 4400 communications system being deployed by Software, for example, supports up to 50,000 users and combines voice packetization and call processing within a single device. In the past, enterprises had to deploy separate devices for each function and products could only serve a few hundred users at a time. Cisco's Architecture for Voice, Video and Integrated Data products being used by Getronics can support up to 100,000 users and offer tight integration with the Cisco routers and switches that are so prevalent in enterprise networks.

The long-promised proliferation of short-range personal-area wireless networks based on the Bluetooth standard could take years, due to the nagging costs of embedding the technology in cellular phones and other mobile devices.  A debate, at the Bluetooth Conference in Geneva, Switzerland centered on the cost of a wireless connection. It started when Roger Gush, marketing manager for Wireless Data Services, of Poole, England, mentioned the $5 figure that the initial members of the Bluetooth Consortium -- Ericsson, IBM, Nokia, and Toshiba -- wanted for a Bluetooth connection. "You run a piconet, connecting up to eight users, and it costs $5," Gush said.

But semiconductor manufacturers here - those entrusted with integrating Bluetooth radio transceivers and link-level controllers -- were divided over whether and how quickly that price could be reached. The concern deepened as the usage models continued to expand from simple point-to-point cable replacements, to wireless Internet ports for laptops in hotels and airports, to shopping-list managers for consumers raiding Costco with their Bluetooth-enabled PDAs. While the requirements of a radio transceiver were relatively fixed, each scenario called for a more complex software stack and faster, more power-hungry controllers.

Though he predicted that Bluetooth add-ons will begin to roll out this year, he said the cost of hardware alone will be in the $20-to-$25 range, meaning that embedded implementations would be limited to laptops for mobile professionals and other high-end devices that could absorb the extra costs of Bluetooth. Though the price of hardware will drop to $15 next year, the cost of application firmware and software will likely keep the cost of implementation in the $20 range.

Bluetooth will not likely be immediately incorporated in cellular handsets, Giusto said, since the margins of handset makers are already considerably stressed. In fact, the cost of Bluetooth is so troubling to handset makers that it will not likely be embedded, but rather would be available in snap-on modules for which users pay extra, predicted Ivar Johansson, director of technical marketing for wireless systems at Infineon Technologies (stock: IFX), of Munich.

Microsoft move may spark Japan cable shake-up
Source: Teledotcom

Microsoft Corp's move to buy a stake in Japan's number-two cable TV firm may spark a shake-up in the promising but underdeveloped market for high-speed Internet access here, analysts say.  Microsoft said last Friday that it was buying a 60 percent stake in Titus Communications Corp from U.S. cable company MediaOne Group Inc., which is merging with U.S. telecommunications giant AT&T Corp., Microsoft's partner in the cable Internet business. A Titus spokeswoman said MediaOne and Microsoft were in talks, but that nothing had been finalised.

Analysts say the move by Microsoft, which has money to spend to speed up the roll-out of broadband Internet access in Japan, would likely prompt a rationalisation of Japan's cable industry, which is carved up inefficiently into regional entities. Microsoft's partnership with AT&T makes it possible that Titus will eventually integrate its operations with Japan's largest cable company, Jupiter Telecommunications Co, 40 percent of which is owned by Liberty Media Corp, a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T.  Titus is owned 20 percent each by Japan's major electronics maker Toshiba Corp and trading house Itochu Corp, while Jupiter's main shareholders include Sumitomo Corp, a major trading house.

IBM takes aim at Oracle
Source: Wired

IBM Tuesday unveiled the latest version of its database management software, as part of a $1 billion push that takes aim at market leader Oracle Corp.  DB2 Universal Database Version 7 enables dot-coms and large corporations moving their operations online to organize and perform high-speed Internet searches on data gathered from their online transactions and operations.  IBM also introduced a new pricing structure, in which companies providing services over the Web can pay a percentage of the revenues they generate, on a "per subscriber" or a "per transaction" model.  

In the mid-range database marketplace, where this version of the DB2 software would initially be sold, Oracle has an estimated 60 percent market share, with IBM and Microsoft's SQL Server product sharing most of the other 40 percent, according to Mark Shainman, analyst with META Group.

By contrast, IBM dominates the market for database management software for mainframes, or larger computer systems.  Shainman cited the software's so-called in memory database, which makes certain often-used information more readily available to the user and speeds up transactions, as a new twist to the product that could give it an edge.  IBM has made a 5-year, $1 billion investment into the data management software push. DB2 Universal Database Version 7 is currently in testing and will be generally available in the second quarter. Software is one of the fastest-growing, albeit one of the smallest, segments at IBM.

Wireless LANs finally gathering steam
Source: Comsoc

Wireless LANs are becoming more widespread among enterprises following a number of recent developments. The adoption of the 802.11b standard in the fall of last year was a major boost to the industry, marking an increase in data delivery rates from 2 Mbps to 11 Mbps. Large companies such as Intel, Symbol Technologies, and Cisco Systems with its Aironet Wireless buyout are emerging as major industry players. Craig Mathias at the Farpoint Group predicts that with the acceptance of the 802.11b standard, horizontal markets will also take up WLAN systems. He believes that in three years, WLANs will control 10 percent of the overall LAN market. 

Customers, however, are often deterred from choosing WLANs by the high cost, says Luis Alvarez, vice president of operations at Applied Digital Solutions. But as prices fall on WLAN gear, he hopes customers will accept WLAN technology in larger numbers. WLAN cards cost about $200 now, as opposed to $1,400 in 1991, and up to $600 about three or four years ago, says Mathias. Clients are also finding a variety of uses for WLANs. Jeffrey Maynard, chief operating officer at Tribeca Technologies, says that besides businesses, hospitals and historic buildings are good candidates for using WLANs as well as other places where wiring poses a problem. WLANs could also be convenient in airports kiosks or in vending machines, allowing wireless payment methods, says Tim Wenhold, president of Sintaks, a systems integrator. 

The state of cable telephony
Source: Comsoc

While IP-based cable telephony is not yet ready to be introduced commercially, it has great potential. Cable telephony holds a mere 1 percent of the voice market, but has proven to be an attractive service. Cable telephony service could grab as much as 34 percent of the U.S. residential market, according to research conducted for Arthur D. Little. Operators are moving to introduce cable telephony in an effort to grab subscribers before telcos introduce ADSL service. IP-based cable telephony will have to be introduced in order for operators to offer a greater variety of telecom services. An IP-based cable telephony network could allow for services including video telephony with enhanced audio, unified messaging, and value-added services. 

Several developments will be necessary for IP-based cable telephony to move from the trial stage to broad deployment. Two-way plant upgrades, QoS, telephony feature parity, and high network availability are among the necessary features. The most progress seems to have been made with two-way plant upgrades. After such issues are addressed, IP-based cable telephony could begin to experience significant growth by the second half of this year. Billing and operations systems must also be upgraded to allow for such growth. 

 
Microsoft ruling puts Linux show in limelight
Source: ZDii
 
Companies championing the Linux computer operating system as a challenger to Windows are meeting in Montreal this week, hoping last week's antitrust ruling against Microsoft Corp. will revive their flagging stock market fortunes.  A string of Linux heavyweights -- including Corel Corp., Red Hat Inc. and VA Linux Systems Inc. -- will highlight their achievements at Linux Expo 2000, which opens on Monday, wishing, no doubt, that Microsoft's pain will mean a gain for companies that sell Linux open-source software or services.

While Microsoft's Windows NT is a closed, proprietary system, Linux is open source and free. Companies make money by selling Linux services or specialized versions of the system.  Euphoric investors initially could not get enough of Linux companies,  which they viewed as contenders to Microsoft's throne.