Browser Battles Are Passe, Push Is On Its Way

The shift by Microsoft Corp and Netscape Communications Corp from browser battles to peddling push computing may force some start-ups to revise their business model, executives said.

The newly launched rival systems for updating computers automatically was shown at an industry conference here Wednesday. Some executives, however, see a role for industrial-strength push capabilities, especially for business users.

Push technology automatically routes information, news and other data from publishers to users.

Maureen Fleming, a senior analyst at the research firm Gartner Group, told a Push Technology Summit on the final day of the Internet Showcase conference here that the biggest market for the technology is helping corporations tie together their heterogeneous computing systems. "What you should be doing is solving problems to become rich," she said, urging the audience of push computing and Internet executives to "get out of the box" and look at the issue from a corporate customer's perspective.

She warned that companies not doing this and who focus only on the simplest forms of content delivery risk going out of business. This was a prospect echoed by several other executives.

"Look around you. Look to the right. Look to the left. Nobody's going to be around anymore," predicted Richard Masterson, executive vice president of U.S. Interactive, as he stood in a hall of dozens of demonstration booths where the latest push computing products were on display.

Some expressed fear that Netscape and Microsoft would obliterate the market for dozens of companies aiming to introduce their own versions of push products. (Reuter)

"We're certainly at ground zero, and I don't see where other push vendors really have the space when this becomes such a big play for both companies," one executive said in a question to representatives of the two Internet giants.

Joe Belfiore, group program manager for Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer 4.0 and Mike McCue, Netscape director of advanced client technology said they had no intention of running third parties out of the market.

"Nothing that's being done is (designed) to shut out a lot of these folks," McCue said.

Nonetheless, some executives suggested companies stay on alert for unwanted competition.

"I think they're both friend and foe," said Sandy Goldman, vice president of WavePhore Inc.'s WaveTop consumer group. "You have to work with them."

Airmedia Inc. CEO David Rose said he considered the companies to be "very much friend", and cautioned colleagues not to project overly sinister motives onto them.

Lanacom CEO Tony Davis said his company seeks to support both the rival standards. So do other start-ups like Datachannel.

Richard Schwartz, chairman and chief technology officer of Diffusion, said his company was aimed more at higher-end business applications.

Schwartz said many start-up companies would now have to morph their business plans to accommodate fresh competition.

Other executives warned of the potential for mergers and restructuring to spread in the current environment.

Other companies are working on adding push technology to the infrastructure or plumbing of the Internet.

Vivek Ranadive, CEO of Tibco Inc, which sponsored the push technology portion of the conference, said he distinguishes between consumer push technologies and those used in more hardened, industrial strength applications.

Tibco, a unit of Reuters Holdings Plc, earlier this week added 10 new partners for its time-tested push technologies, which Ranadive said presents "a fundamentally new version of computing."

Reuters chief architect Bill Donner said in a presentation that they will use open standards push technology from Tibco to publish information to customers. (Reuter)