These days, push technology is hyped so much that information professionals are quick to dismiss it. That's because most discussions focus on mass-market services filled with broad-interest news, sports and weather information. Services such as PointCast, which popularized this view of push, have been embraced by consumers. But faced with unpredictable revenue streams, many push vendors have shifted away from general consumers to focus on the corporate market.

But does push technology make any sense for business? Viewed solely as a mechanism to distribute broad-interest news, the answer is a reluctant, No. This form of push service can be a potentially dangerous drain on time, attention and network bandwidth. If news is so important, why not just put a television on every person's desk and tune in to CNN or MSNBC? What push services offer in terms of information is not new. Firms that need time-sensitive news know that it has been available for years from live news feeds, stock services and cable television.

Though this sounds like we're pooh-poohing push as well, we're not. In fact, we shouldn't dismiss push technology merely because it's presently cloaked in the guise of consumer-oriented news. There are many good ideas behind push; when applied appropriately, it can be used to solve business problems.

As Web users go through the same evolution, the motivations behind push are obvious. First-time Web users are literally overwhelmed with choices as they cheerfully surf to find out what's behind the next link. Over time, users begin to use directory or search services. Once users begin to find interesting sites, bookmarking usually results in a site being checked on a consistent basis. Now comes the push. Why go look for things or recheck a site all the time when it can be pushed to you?

Improving Efficiency
The pain involved in pulling something off the Web is only compounded by the slow nature of some sites. Wouldn't it be nice if a site were right there, precached on the drive and ready to browse? Many popular push products attempt to improve efficiency by doing just this-downloading information to a user's system in a scheduled fashion so it can be rapidly viewed. Not exactly true to their name, push products are typically set up to poll information sources, including Web sites, at regular intervals and pull down the information. Some vendors, such as StarBurst Communications (www.starburstcom.com), are developing true push using technology such as IP multicast, but it will be a while before this really takes off.

Other motivations for push include distribution of time-sensitive information, change alerts and business-model improvements. By its very nature, some information, such as stock quotes or trouble tickets in a technical support system, is time critical. Web sites don't communicate this type of information well because changes aren't obvious. Even with "What's New"-style facilities, Webmasters are still stuck waiting for people to go to a site and notice a change. Pushing alerts to the user, either in the form of E-mail or the change itself, would certainly improve the effectiveness of Web-based information distribution.

Last but not least, push is motivated by money. Many Web sites, particularly those based upon the advertising model, have a hard time making money because audiences aren't consistent or well understood. Push solutions are useful because they help guarantee readership level and provide mechanisms to understand information usage better.

Push Problems
Critics of push, especially network managers, complain about bandwidth use as a primary problem. With push, a network can get bombarded by an avalanche of articles and binary files simultaneously-delivered sometimes to thousands of desktops-which can create considerable network traffic congestion. There are solutions to this bandwidth crunch, though. Caching proxy servers, for example, as well as multicast solutions, will likely alleviate many of the bandwidth problems of push and allow it to scale.

But the persistent problem with push is not bandwidth, it's culture. As it stands, the culture of push doesn't always sit well with corporate IS managers. In this day of information overload, keeping the attention of information workers is hard enough without animated banners walking across people's desktops alerting them to changes in their human-resources page.

Many push technologies are intrusive, relying on some form of interrupt to get the user's attention. Interrupts in current push technologies include E-mail messages, system beeps, alerts, animated icons and flashes, scrolling information tickers and screen savers. Interrupts can be turned off, but then push starts to seem like E-mailed or precached Web pages. Though interrupts can take a user's focus away from the task at hand, the real problem is that they're too frequent and generally unscheduled. Scheduled interrupts twice a day, plus emergency information, makes sense, but this level of control isn't always available.

Another aspect of push culture that limits its use within corporate networks is that users often don't feel in control. Though one gets the sense that push clients do what they want, push encourages a centralized or massaged approach to information. Employees don't necessarily want or need a group in the corporation to say, "We know what you need. Here are the six channels filled with messages you can use." Though push makes sense for some important messages, knowledge workers are often required to mine information out of vast data sources and draw conclusions or simply just to find information. Push can't address these tasks.

That means push can't replace the pull-style culture and may not be useful in all businesses. In a time-sensitive, interrupt-driven workplace, push might be very useful, but it probably isn't such a new idea to that environment, either. Custom network broadcast solutions and plain old E-mail have provided many of the benefits of push for years.

But is there a need for push on the network? In many cases, yes-particularly when it doesn't clash with corporate culture. For example, pushing software upgrades to users' desktops really makes sense. It spares IS workers from manually installing software or hoping users will find an updated Web page and download the latest patch themselves.

Given a potential business need for push, do any of the current popular push players provide worthy solutions? To test the waters, we evaluated five of the most popular business push solutions: BackWeb Technologies' BackWeb, Marimba Inc.'s Castanet, Intermind Corp.'s Communicator, Wayfarer Communications Inc.'s Incisa and PointCast Inc.'s I-Server.

PointCast I-Server
Many people are familiar with the PointCast Network (www.pointcast.com), which accesses an impressive content feed ranging from stock information to daily horoscopes and continuously displays it on users' screens. Much of the information provided on the PointCast Network (PCN) is useful to both business and personal users. Recent content enhancements include SEC filing information from EDGAR Online and CMP's own TechWeb.

Accessing the network requires a PointCast client, which runs on Macintosh and Windows 3.x, 95 and NT. System requirements are reasonable, with 10 megabytes of disk space and 8 megabytes to 16 megabytes of RAM. Because of the content offered and its ease of use, many corporate users have downloaded the client. Some network administrators, however, have a major complaint with the PointCast service: Numerous clients accessing news information could result in serious bandwidth loss on the network.

The company's recently released PointCast I-Server 1.2 has been positioned to address bandwidth demands and most other complaints. I-Server requires an Intel Pentium-class machine with Windows NT Server 3.51 or 4.0, although it will run on NT Workstation version 4.0. Disk-space requirements are reasonable, with a suggested minimum of 10 megabytes for the server and enough extra free space for PCN articles. Under version 1.0, I-Server required Microsoft Internet Information Server. The recent release is independent of specific Web server software, and may even point to remote files on other Web servers.

Installation of I-Server is relatively quick and painless. The server must be registered with PointCast, and a key must be installed on the system for activation. Once it is installed, its basic administration is easy; the server includes a Windows-based management tool and a second administration tool in the form of Java applets on a Web page. The Java applets are a significant improvement over the previous HTML frame-based version.

I-Server addresses the excessive bandwidth concerns by caching the PCN information content locally. Internal PointCast users are then redirected to the local I-Server by one of two methods: automatic redirection by network address or manual redirection by editing a configuration file. Using the Web-based administration tool, you can register single IP addresses for redirection, including a proxy server or a range of IP addresses in the form of a Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) block. PointCast's main data center will then broadcast this change to clients from the redirected range within 24 hours.

Version 1.2 of I-Server provides a corporate PCN client that will use domain name service (DNS) to look up an internal I-Server if it is named PCNISERVER. For immediate redirection with a DNS entry, you must resort to manual specification of the I-Server address by modifying a file in each client's directory. Automatic redirection in either form is preferable when possible, since it catches users who self-install the PointCast client and eliminates their ability to bypass I-Server's proxy facilities. Once I-Server is installed, maintaining it is relatively trouble-free. The administration tool provides plenty of log file tools and reporting systems.

Beyond improving bandwidth use, I-Server now provides content customization in the form of a corporate channel. Only one corporate channel can be set up, though it may contain a number of groups on subjects of your choice. Each group can contain numerous articles. Adding groups and articles is fairly simple using Java applets in a Web page.

Since the actual underlying technology of the articles is plain HTML with most Netscape extensions, you can use traditional HTML tools to create articles and point to them with the article-creation tool. In addition to groups and articles, the scrolling news-flash ticker can display important announcements along the bottom of the PointCast client. Further customization includes the addition of a static GIF to the ad logo and a screen saver. But it is impossible to use other forms of multimedia such as Shockwave or to distribute binary applications with the PointCast I-Server technology.

Though its use of HTML suggests an open-ended approach to customization, the PointCast environment is actually rather limiting. With only one channel available, you must rely on groups to break up content areas. Groups do not provide reasonable selection criteria and provide little flexibility for organizations with numerous content areas. More troublesome is the fact that you can't control the public channels available, leaving users free to focus on the numerous channels that provide basketball scores rather than corporate information.

According to PointCast, "In the future, PointCast will address control issues for IT managers." As it ships today, the product puts the focus on the PointCast-provided content over the corporate provided information. This is a serious drawback to the system. It's obvious that with an advertising-oriented business model, PointCast wants its content to be seen on your intranet, exposing the commonly commercialized nature of push technologies.

Despite suffering from some content and control problems, I-Server is a powerful and easy way to administer information broadcasting technology. Although it's not geared toward binary distribution, and its current focus on PCN content may cause unwanted distraction, the introduction of PointCast Connections, combined with the forthcoming new version of the client and server and PointCast's relationship with Microsoft, may help I-Server provide a completely customizable environment. If this happens, I-Server will become the product to beat in the enterprise information-oriented push market.

Marimba's Castanet
Often mistakenly compared with information-oriented push services such as PointCast's, Marimba's Castanet pales in relation to other push solutions. Its short games and gimmicky applications may be popular, but otherwise Castanet performs poorly in the consumer arena. Channels such as DiscoRama just can't compete against TechWeb or Reuters transmissions. But this isn't really an important issue, since the Castanet model is not about content aggregation. It's about software distribution, a genuinely useful business application of push technologies.

MIS managers would love to distribute patches or programs around a network automatically. Castanet provides many of the basic features to do this, but don't run out and install a Castanet server to manage the installation and update of Office 97 across your corporate network. Castanet can only distribute software as Java applets or applications, Bongo Presentations, Java-wrapped Shockwave files and HTML collections. Marimba promises that a future version will allow any form of binary-even platform-specific C++ applications-to be transmitted within the Castanet environment. What makes the Castanet solution more than a synchronized form of FTP is that update of subscribed channels is performed efficiently with incremental updates.

Installation is handled by the Tuner application. Updates can be scheduled automatically behind the scenes. Unfortunately, Castanet currently lacks any obvious form of personalization, making it difficult to customize updates based on user profiles.

Castanet technology is geared toward the distribution of large binary files, which makes network usage a potential problem. A proxy server that can provide caching services and Internet access to Transmitters (Castanet servers) to a network behind a firewall was recently made available in prerelease form. Marimba also promises a repeater that will mirror heavily used Transmitters.

The Transmitter, the core server component of Marimba's push technology, currently runs on Windows 95, NT 4.0 and Solaris 2.x-based systems. The Transmitter's requirements are minimal: approximately 16 megabytes of memory and 10 megabytes of disk space. Installation of the Transmitter is simple. Setup only requires setting a directory, the system IP address or domain name, the port to run the server on and a password/allowed-hosts list for channel updates. Once the Transmitter is running, there is little left to configure.

Though performance can be changed, there are no tools to monitor the system or process log files. The Transmitter is so simple it doesn't need many utilities, but its lack of log analysis tools shows a lack of polish. The rough edges are more apparent when things don't run smoothly. On the test system, a problem occurred on launch. The system issued a recording of a man saying "beep" and the cryptic message, "Create Process." The Help button produced no useful information.

Preparing content for distribution via Castanet is easy, once it's been created. Making channel content might require the user to code in Java, create a Shockwave application and wrap it in a Java applet, gather HTML files or use Marimba's Bongo interface development tool. Bongo, a handy visual interface builder for Java applications, lets users create simple, presentation-style applications rapidly using a variety of interface widgets.

Java animation tools such as Liquid Motion Pro (www.dimensionx.com) might appeal to Castanet channel developers.

Castanet's heavy emphasis on Java might tempt potential channel publishers to build traditional HTML Web pages for distribution. Unfortunately, the Castanet Tuner deals with HTML channels in an awkward way, requiring the browser to use a Transmitter as a proxy server-something many users may not be willing to do. Marimba promises that Castanet-delivered HTML pages will be handled better in the future, which seems likely given Castanet's position in Netscape Communications' push strategy.

Once content is created, making a channel available requires that the content be prepared with the Publish tool provided with the Transmitter. Using the Publish tool, a user defines the type of channel (Applet, Application, HTML or Presentation), the channel's name, its update frequency and a variety of metainformation (author information, content summaries, etc.). The Publish tool then takes the content, prepares it and moves it to the Transmitter, making it available to Tuners.

When one uses the Publish tool, a glaring problem with the Transmitter becomes apparent: There is very little in the way of channel security. Though users can't modify channel contents, any channel can be accessed if the server is network-reachable and the channel name is known.

The only form of channel security available is "security by obscurity," as it is possible to hide a channel's name. Marimba promises password protection and other forms of security in future releases.

Finally, Castanet requires end users to install a Tuner on their systems. The Tuner currently runs on Windows 95, NT 4.0, Macintosh PowerPC and Solaris 2.x systems. There are also unofficial ports of the Tuner on FreeBSD, Linux, SGI Irix 6.2 and Solaris x86, making Marimba's Castanet the most crossed platform of the current push crop. Castanet's system requirements are minimal, typically requiring about 16 megabytes of RAM and 10 megabytes of available disk space for the Tuner.

Downloaded content, however, may be very large, so 50 megabytes is a more reasonable assumption for disk-space requirements. The Tuner itself is a relatively simple program that monitors, downloads, runs and manages content and programs available in Castanet-based channels. Like most push technologies, the Tuner performs a scheduled poll and pull of content.

All in all, Marimba's Castanet technology is highly innovative. It probably will have many uses once certain features are added, particularly support for non-Java binaries and smoother support of HTML. When Netscape eventually incorporates Castanet into its Netcaster, many of these issues probably will be addressed, making the technology more popular. As it stands, Castanet still has some serious rough edges, particularly in the security arena. Castanet is probably not appropriate for corporations looking at push unless there is a concurrent heavy investment in Java.

BackWeb
BackWeb, from BackWeb Technologies, is a powerful push broadcasting system that offers a great degree of flexibility and personalization on both the server and client sides. The server software allows individual content providers to run and administer their own channels, with versions available for Solaris 2.x (Sparc and Intel) or Windows NT 3.51 and 4.0.

Both platforms require a minimum of 32 megabytes of RAM (64 megabytes recommended) and 10 megabytes of disk space for the software, plus varying storage requirements based on content needs. The BackWeb server requires use of default HTTP port 80 and may conflict with Web servers using this port, requiring reconfiguration to run both types of servers on a single machine.

The server can be managed with a separate BackWeb Console client that runs on Windows 95 and NT and controls and monitors server operations, providing a facility to manage content in a database of InfoPaks. These are the file collections broadcast from channels as content to clients. Content in InfoPaks can consist of a variety of formats: standard graphic, sound and multimedia files as well as Java applets, HTML files or even binary executables for software distribution.

Unlike Castanet, BackWeb can distribute any form of binary but does not necessarily install the files as Castanet does. BackWeb provides the BALI Editor (BackWeb Authoring Language Interface) authoring tool to sequence animations and multimedia with a scripting language that can be used to control user interaction, such as launching Web sites based on mouse-click events. To build powerful services behind its push technology, BackWeb provides extensibility and integration with other server-side systems by offering a programmable Server API, as well as a BackWeb software development kit (SDK).

For content management and targeting, BackWeb offers much flexibility and control. Personalization is definitely a strong feature, with its ability to deliver tailored content based on both channel- owner and end-user preferences. Preferences can range from software and hardware capabilities, such as video resolution, to channel registration information, stored only on the client for privacy concerns. Channel owners can define powerful segmentation rules on InfoPaks to customize delivery of content to specific clients meeting selected criteria and also assign priorities to different InfoPaks.

BackWeb also provides scheduling capabilities for timely content delivery and the ability to launch InfoPaks at later dates once stored on the client. BackWeb also features content versioning with mechanisms to expire InfoPaks on clients as new updates are made available. Channel owners can also designate fixed sources of new information, such as frequently updated Web sites to enable automatic content generation for broadcast to clients at scheduled times. A BackWeb Proxy Server product can address the issue of bandwidth consumption. The tracking and reporting capabilities integrated into the BackWeb server provide detailed statistics on channel activity and end-user interactions with content.

The BackWeb client is free, available for Windows 95 and NT and the Mac operating system. It's designed to take an unobtrusive role on the user's system with BackWeb's Polite Agent Technology. System requirements for both platforms are 16 megabytes of RAM and 4 megabytes of disk space, with approximately 6 megabytes of disk space for each registered channel, although the user can adjust this. Users can specify channel names in the client or browse and register for channels on a directory. Notification of channel updates can take the form of screen savers, wallpaper or Flashes.

Flashes are pop-up animations that appear and disappear, giving users the option of clicking to access additional content. New updates to channels are downloaded transparently in the background while Internet activity on a machine is idle. Flashes can notify users of new software updates and offer the option of installation. Other features include incremental downloading of channel updates across multiple sessions, along with automatic file compression from server to client. Users can also specify and limit the amount of disk space channel content consumes. By default, the BackWeb client uses UDP (User Datagram Protocol), with an option of HTTP for users behind firewalls.

BackWeb can be deployed on the Net, as well as privately on corporate intranets and extranets. An impressive array of public channels is now available, along with some interesting partnerships. Channels include CBS SportsLine, CMP's TechWeb, PC Quote, The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition and The Weather Channel. Yahoo! maintains a BackWeb Channel Guide listing of available channels.

Also noteworthy are BackWeb's relationships with software vendors for automatic software distribution and updates. These include McAfee Associates Inc., which broadcasts monthly updates of its VirusScan antivirus software, and Diamond Multimedia, which provides modem drivers and other software updates.

BackWeb bills itself as a technically open system that is also capable of supporting a variety of business models, including advertising, direct marketing and subscriptions. Features such as the ability to limit a specific number of InfoPak broadcasts on a particular channel support certain advertising models as well. The company's own business model is not tied into its current content offerings.

Future directions include an important relationship with Microsoft and its designation as a Premium Partner on the Internet Explorer 4.0 Desktop. This offers the potential to expand the BackWeb user base greatly.

As part of the agreement, BackWeb will offer a client specifically designed to take advantage of the features of Internet Explorer 4.0, including Web-site subscriptions and Dynamic HTML. BackWeb also will support Microsoft's Channel Definition Format (CDF) and continue to provide a server offering that has broader functionality beyond the specifications of the CDF protocol. Additionally, BackWeb recently announced planned support of IP Multicast.

BackWeb is a robust and flexible push solution that comes at a relatively high cost. The server starts at $10,500 with higher licensing fees based on traffic and subscriber volumes. With two clear roles as a content/channel provider and a software distribution tool, the software fulfills uses similar to I-Server and Castanet.

The company says it is making solid inroads in the intranet market with customers such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Fidelity Investments. Although its server software and authoring tools are proprietary and may have a steep learning curve, its support for a variety of content standards and Internet Explorer 4.0 and CDF will help its viability as a high-end contender.

Intermind Communicator
Having established itself as the most popular push technology for the self-publisher, Intermind Corp. has been blessed with a growing selection of more than 200 channels, including well-known media outlets such as PBS and niche efforts such as the Model Railroading Home page. This wide variety is made possible by the sheer simplicity of the technology.

Intermind Communicator (currently at version 1.52) is a helper application that works with Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Netscape's Navigator. Unlike BackWeb, Castanet, I-Server and most push solutions, Communicator does not require a special channel viewer; all activity takes place within the browser window.

Right now, this application is only available for Windows 3.1, 95 and NT. The Macintosh version of the product, which recently entered controlled beta, should be available in public beta soon. The Unix version is promised for Solaris within the next few months. The actual client application requires 16 megabytes of RAM and around 15 megabytes of disk space. An appealing aspect of Communicator is that little extra disk space is needed for downloaded channels.

Once the Intermind Communicator client is installed, users can subscribe to any channel available. Intermind maintains a global directory of channels where Intermind publishers can promote their channels freely. Subscribed channels download headlines from a channel with links to outside sites or actual Web pages. The downloaded information is cached to the local system, allowing the user to browse some content offline. In this sense, Intermind Communicator is little more than an automated page downloading facility for offline browsing, with a modicum of channel ideas added. Products such as WebWhacker from the ForeFront Group (www.ffg.com) or automated bookmark checking tools (featured in forthcoming versions of Navigator and Internet Explorer) provide many of the same services. Communicator does, however, provide many feedback mechanisms and statistics about readership that downloading tools don't report.

Regardless of the depth of the push model, the flexibility provided by Intermind is unparalleled in current push offerings. Though some solutions, such as I-Server, allow a corporate channel, Intermind Communicator allows unlimited channels and does not require outside content to be downloaded. Building channels for Intermind Communicator couldn't be easier. The Web page that serves as the main interface for Communicator provides a Publish button. From this page, the publisher defines the name of the channel, a description of the channel's content, an icon to use for the channel, a URL for more information, a URL for archived messages to the channel and the frequency at which the channel should be polled. Like most push technologies, Intermind Communicator provides a scheduled pull of information. After the channel is created, messages can be added. Messages in the channel take the form of downloaded HTML Web pages, which the company calls HTML postcards, or links to external Web pages. Once a channel has been created and updated, it's built and saved in the form of a .CON file, which then must be uploaded to a server.

Intermind's most interesting aspect is that it requires only a standard Web server. After modifying a Web server by adding a MIME type to support the .CON files, a server is ready to deliver channel information. Uploading the .CON file and providing a link to that file from a Web page are all that's necessary. Push facilities can be added to a corporate Web site by adding a Subscribe button.

Because Intermind doesn't require a special sever, it doesn't address bandwidth issues the same way as other push solutions. Intermind optimizes bandwidth utilization by not downloading a large amount of information in the first place, with channel sizes weighing in at around 10 kilobytes. Intermind's president, Matt Highsmith, quips that, "War and Peace isn't sent to the desktop. Rather, users are alerted to go and access the data where it resides. This idea makes the network dramatically more efficient and puts the user more in control."

Of course, a publisher could attempt to push much more than a mere link or push a link that ends up having a user access a Shockwave-laden page. This would blow away any benefit of the small channel size. Intermind plans on using Tibco Inc.'s (www.tibco.com) real-time push technology in future versions as one way to get around the bandwidth issues of large pushed files. Intermind does support channel password protection, a feature not supported across some other push solutions. Relying on a Web server for distribution also means that Communicator will work well behind a firewall. The Dynamic Publisher option, sold separately, can provide hooks into a database for automatic channel update when information is modified. This feature could make Communicator very useful within the enterprise.

By the end of the summer, Intermind promises a second-generation version of the product with numerous extensions. The most notable of these changes will be dynamic profiling-storage of individual profiles, which will help choose topics or channels of interest to the user and help administrators control who gets what content. Negotiated delivery will be another key attribute of the new release. This will allow users and publishers to select which content should go down to the desktop and which should stay on the server. Last but not least, the next version will support binary distribution, putting it in competition with BackWeb and Castanet to distribute software within an intranet.

Intermind is one of the simplest push solutions available. It's perfect for corporations looking to try out the idea of push beyond mailing lists. The product is browser-centric, extremely easy to use and completely open. It's so open that Intermind will even produce a custom OEM version with a different user interface for the price of some high-end push solutions.

On the other hand, its simplicity also means that it does not offer many features found in the competition. Firms looking for sophisticated content distribution systems may find Communicator little more than a link-update reminder system, but it is an easy way to test the cultural acceptance of push technology within the corporation without significant effort and a huge budget.

Wayfarer's Incisa
Incisa, from Wayfarer Communications Inc., is best at delivering short broadcast messages to end-user desktops. The server software runs on Windows NT 3.51 or 4.0 and requires a 90-megahertz Intel Pentium or greater, with 32 megabytes of RAM (48 megabytes recommended) and a 500-megabyte hard disk (1 gigabyte recommended)

Administrators can configure external feeds from news and information sources administered by Wayfarer, including PR Newswire, Reuters and stock quotes, as well as internal feeds of short messages or messages triggered from database events. Network administrators may need to configure firewalls to allow access to external feeds on port 20020 or optionally configure feeds to use a proxy server. The Incisa Server will run as an application or a manual/automatic NT service. After installation, the first step in configuration is running the Feed Setup, which allows administrators to specify the type of information to be delivered. Selections can be made from external news feeds and tailored to the company's needs. For example, article categories and keywords can be chosen from PR Newswire or specific ticker symbols from stock quotes. This capability makes Incisa stand out from other push products that offer little, if any, control over the specific content broadcast from different channels to users.

In this sense, the product allows administrators to offer some level of information filtering and personalization to end users within a company, avoiding the all-or-nothing delivery approach. Additional parameters can be set to indicate how messages are displayed with variables for message hold time, lifetime and maximum impressions. For corporate information, a Reporter Feed has similar configurations, as well as message version numbering and broadcast time ranges. The Reporter Feed broadcasts messages entered by the Incisa Reporter-Administrator tool.

The Reporter-Administrator tool is used to create new messages and control the flow of information to users. It allows users, groups and categories of information with different feeds to be created and managed. All users of the Incisa Desktop must log in and be authenticated to receive messages. Three types of users exist: basic users who receive messages, Reporter users who manage and create messages, and administrators. Groups can be created to target messages to different departments and types of staff members on an intranet.

Messages are categorized by type, which correspond to different types of graphical displays users see. The different display formats are supposed to allow for recognition of different message types by users. This animation-style messaging supports the interrupt-driven nature of the product, which makes it well suited for red-alert-type messages, such as notifications in a trouble-ticket system. Optionally, URLs can be associated with messages for expanded information displayed in browsers. For customization beyond the preset animations for different message types, developers can create custom movies with separately licensed copies of Macromedia Director and the Afterburner for Shockwave Xtra.

The Incisa Desktop Client runs on Windows 95 and NT and only receives targeted messages based on Administrator settings. As mentioned, messages are delivered as "movies" with different themes. On initial login, users are prompted with a list of categories they can join based on their group settings. The client retains a message queue that the user can use to delete, play or turn message categories on or off.

A company can realize the maximum benefit of Incisa when the product is used to broadcast timely messages from a company's existing information systems. This is accomplished by using DataBridge Feeds. The DataBridge consists of database tables that are updated when certain events occur on a company's internal applications. Data can be triggered from a variety of sources, including legacy systems on mainframes, ODBC-compliant databases or production applications such as PeopleSoft and SAP. This capability enables timely and relevant information from a company's own information assets to be pushed to user desktops. Companies such as Ben & Jerry's use this to display inventory-level information changes. A DataBridge Developer's SDK and a developer's guide to creating DataBridge applications exists, and a Java DataBridge is being made available.

What separates Incisa from much of the competition is that it's specifically targeted as a corporate push product, whereas products such as I-Server provide a consumer channel model that tries to extend itself to corporate environments. As it is a corporate tool, Incisa is the first push product to adopt RSA encryption for secure communications. This makes it unique among other major push products, which largely fail to consider security at all.

The type of content it can deliver is limited to notification messages in small animations, which can act as links to Web pages. Macromedia Director can be used for more elaborate animation messages-for additional investment and Director experience. Although message delivery comes in the form of animations, which suggests the idea of a consumer market, it must be remembered that Incisa is very much a business push product. Still, the product must be considered somewhat proprietary and not an all-encompassing push solution. It's best suited for environments that need to broadcast alert messages or retrieve timely data from corporate information systems.

Push Today
Most of the crop of push solutions on the market today are far from being "killer" business applications. Many of the more general push solutions are still too focused on consumers. A few, frankly, just aren't ready for mission-critical applications. More troublesome still, few people can even provide a motivating reason why push technology is truly useful in business. Animated desktop interruptions alerting workers to press releases can't really be classified as must-have business applications. In information- and time-critical businesses, many existing systems already help automate workflow.

Web-oriented push facilities can easily be added to such applications. For example, Quintus (www.quintus.com), a company that builds help desk and customer support software, is incorporating push features into its offerings. If pushed information is critical to a business, specialized approaches like this or more complete business solutions such as Diffusion's IntraExpress (www.diffusion.com) warrant investigation for internal use.

Investing heavily in external push solutions to reach customers over the Internet might be a bad idea today, in view of the state of the software. And the imminent entry of the major browser vendors' push solutions will mix things up even more. Pushed information, outside of E-mail notifications, has been a missing component of the Web up until recently. Push, however, will certainly not replace traditional Web communication. It may not even be part of most companies' Web plans for some time to come.<

Diffusion Nabs Honorable Mention
It's difficult to issue a Max Award this time around because our push entrants are all very different, not just in terms of how they approach push but also in implementation and feature sets. For this reason, none of our main competitors received an award; in fact, we're awarding only an Honorable Mention to Diffusion's IntraExpress.

Though we weren't able to test IntraExpress in comparison with the rest of the field, it was obvious that only Diffusion has put any serious thought into the best ways to combine push and pull for business users rather than consumers. Though its pricing may seem stratospheric, Diffusion stands well out in front of the rest when it comes to business orientation.

Of those playing on our main field, both I-Server and Castanet show potential. Castanet will be a serious contender should it manage to deliver on everything the company has promised. As it stands, though, too many features are still unrealized.

I-Server could easily have walked away a winner here as well had it not been for our business-oriented focus. As a consumer technology, I-Server rules the roost, but for the moment it seems that's all PointCast Inc. is interested in. Too much of the content remains under PointCast's heavily advertising-centric control, limiting the content's effectiveness as a customized business-information tool. The company has announced a variety of improvements aimed at making I-Server more palatable to business use, but we weren't able to test those in time for this roundup. For now, both I-Server and Castanet will have to wait. 

PRODUCT PROFILES 
BackWeb Technologies 
BackWeb
BackWeb Technologies
2077 Gateway Place, Suite 500
San Jose, Calif. 95110
800-863-0100
www.backweb.com
Pricing: Starting at $10,500, adjusted for usage and traffic up to $100,000 

Marimba 
Castanet
Marimba Inc.
445 Sherman Ave.
Palo Alto, Calif. 94306
415-328-5282
www.marimba.com
Pricing: Transmitter, $1,000-$25,000; Bongo, $495/developer seat 

Intermind 
Intermind Communicator
Intermind Corp.
217 Pine St.
Seattle, Wash. 98101-1500
800-625-6150
www.intermind.com Note: This URL is no longer valid.
Pricing: Extranet pricing, $10,000-$50,000 (including unlimited use, server components and private branding); intranet pricing, $10-$80 per seat 

PointCast 
PointCast I-Server
PointCast Inc.
10101 N. De Anza Blvd.
Cupertino, Calif. 95014
408-253-0894
www.pointcast.com
Pricing: I-Server, $995 per server 

Wayfarer 
Incisa
Wayfarer Communications Inc.
2041 Landings Drive
Mountain View, Calif. 94043
800-300-8559
www.wayfarer.com Note: This URL is no longer valid.
Pricing: $5,000/100 seats 
 


Originally published on WebTrends, Published: May 26, 1997.