Also at the Internetworld press conference, which was attended by
Newsbytes, and in the series of briefing sessions, IBM unveiled:
an upcoming MVS mainframe-based Internet server; WebConnection
for OS/400; a Web-based content service known as Health Village;
three "Plug-N-Publish" toolkits for IBM's infoMarket
"superdistribution" platform; and pacts to publish content from
29 information and technology providers on infoMarket, including
Newsbytes, Associated Press, and Kodak.
IBM's new "Cryptolope" technology is designed to let content
owners affiliated with InfoMarket control intellectual property
rights over copyrighted information, as well as pricing and
presentation of online materials, said John R. Patrick, VP of
Internet applications for IBM, speaking at the press conference,
which was attended by Newsbytes.
Also during the press conference, Patrick disclosed that, beyond
the upcoming Health Village, IBM expects to develop Web-based
information services for about a dozen other vertical markets,
including finance.
IBM and Lotus' co-developed "Spike" technology will combine Lotus
Notes and InterNotes with IBM's secure Internet servers and
gateway software for linking IBM's DB2 databases to the Web,
according to John Landry, chief technology officer for Lotus,
another speaker at the press event. In an interview with
Newsbytes after the press conference, Landry said that "Spike"
will ship next year.
IBM's Cryptolope combines the ideas of "encryption" and
"envelopes," elaborated John Crigler, VP and managing director of
InfoMarket, in a briefing session for Newsbytes.
The Cryptolopes will allow publishers to send documents to users
in a sealed container that can include information such as an
abstract of the information in the package, the size of the file,
its owner, any coupons or other promotions associated with the
content, and conditions for use and pricing, Newsbytes was told.
For example, a publisher might charge one price for downloading
an article, and a higher fee for printing the document.
Generally, the recipient will then purchase the package, although
it will also be possible for the publisher to "pay" the user for
reading the document, he added. The user will then
"transparently" obtain a private key to open the document, and
the key will only allow the content to be used in accordance with
the agreed upon terms.
Also during the briefing, IBM's Kathy Kincaid pointed out that
IBM is well suited to Internet-based activities, due to the
company's long experience with network security.
In a related announcement at the show in Boston, IBM and about 20
other members of the Information Industry Association announced
the formation of the Electronics Rights Management (ERM) Group.
Some of the other members of the group, such as Folio Corp., are
also developing new technologies similar in intent to IBM's
Cryptolopes, noted IBM's Pamela Weedon, in an interview with
Newsbytes.
IBM's upcoming mainframe-based Internet Connection Server for MVS
will be based on the System/390 Parallel Enterprise Server,
reported George Walsh, program director for MVS systems, in
another meeting at the show. The System/390's use of threaded
transaction programming allows easy scalability from very small
applications to "global Internet services," he contended.
The System/390 also provides security, privacy and the ability to
separate Web- from non-Web applications through a logical
partitioning capability, according to Walsh. To prevent Internet
vandals from interfering with "mission critical" data in other
partitions of the secure mainframe server, the Web partition can
be given read only access.
During another meeting with Newsbytes, Michael A. Odierna, AS/400
Internet product consultant, said that the new WebConnection for
OS/400 will integrate the AS/400 operating system with a Web HTTP
Server that will equip IBM's AS/400 "business computers" for use
as Internet servers.
WebConnection will provide Web access to existing AS/400 DB2
files, he asserted. The product, he added, will also permit
access to AS/400 applications through an HTML (hypertext markup
language) driver, allowing applications developed natively on OS/400
to use OS/2 Warp's Web Explorer and other HTML-compliant browsers
as clients. Customers will be able to monitor activities for numbers
of hits.
Crigler told Newsbytes that IBM's new Plug-and-Publish toolkits
for infoMarket will include the Client Toolkit, for customizing
Web browsers and building "branded storefronts" for publishers;
the Interface Toolkit, for creating interfaces to corporate
databases and data warehouses; and the Services Toolkits, for
adding language translation, protocol conversion, and data
filtering enhancements, and for customizing how InfoMarket search
results appear on the user's desktop.
The toolkits allow for so much customization that "the recipient
of an InfoMarket document doesn't even need to know that it's an
InfoMarket document," Crigler maintained. IBM is also developing
a new capability for InfoMarket, called newsTicker, that will run
information such as current news headlines across the screen, he
revealed.
(Jacqueline Emigh/19951101/Reader Contact: IBM, 914-765-1900;
Press Contact: Technology Solutions for IBM, 212-696-2000)
Iworld - IBM & Lotus' Web Products/Plans/Partners 11/01/95
IBM is
currently developing a new encryption technology called
"Cryptolopes" for Internet security, and is also collaborating
with Lotus on a new Notes/World Wide Web server integration
technology, code-named "Spike" and slated for release in 1996, IBM
and Lotus officials revealed, during a press conference and series
of meetings with Newsbytes at Internetworld Boston '95.
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