Internet space software

At the beginning of this month, Microsoft made noise at MIX ‘07 about their Silverlight platform designed to bring .NET to the browser at the same time it knocks Adobe’s Flash out of it. Both Silverlight and Flash aim at the rich internet application space — a perceived gap in what users want and what they are getting from their overly light web apps. The idea is that we need more rich interactivity from our browser apps than they give us. But is this just developer fantasy, or does it represent a real end user need? In 2003, Sun technologist Tim Bray observed that “both IT admins and end-users prefer browser-based apps to traditional compiled clients, for everything except content creation. ***

Skype on Thursday released a beta version of its video call feature for Macintosh users, a move designed to bring more people into a Skype community dominated by Windows PCs. Skype for Mac 2.0 is designed to allow Skype users to make free Internet-based video calls to other Skype users who have a Macintosh or Windows system. The company has been working on a Mac video version of its voice over Internet Protocol service for a while, but it was not ready for prime time in July when Skype released the beta of Mac OS X 1.5, a voice-only version of the software. "Our community is made up of both Mac and Windows users," Stefan Oberg, Skype's product management director, said in a statement. ***

Cabletron Systems (CS) and Bay Networks (BAY) added to their remote access arsenals this week, the latest signs that networking vendors are girding for battle with dollar signs in their eyes. Remote access is a general term used to describe the market for hardware that allows remote users to connect to computers. It could be anything from a modem or an expensive concentrator--essentially, a piece of hardware that contains hundreds of modems that users can connect to. The high margins and huge revenue opportunity are found in the concentrator--or remote access platform--space, especially given the stunning growth of interest in the Internet. ***