BackWeb ready for UK 'push'

BackWeb is aiming to be the first 'push' content delivery service when it announces a UK version of its eponymous software at the Internet World exhibition held May 22-24 at Kensington Olympia in London.

The San Jose, California firm is currently setting up a European office in Amsterdam and seeking to appoint a UK country manager in anticipation of attracting partners with UK-specific content.

According to Jo Ann Sager, director of corporate strategy, BackWeb is a "content-agnostic" service with a wide smear of content from about 50 providers from the Wall Street Journal through McAfee Associates to General Motors and many much smaller operations. Content providers can push content to appear as screen flashes, screensavers or wallpaper. Windows 95, NT and Windows 3.x clients are available, with a Macintosh version to come.

BackWeb claims to be a lower bandwidth solution than rivals by delivering content through its Polite Agent during connection idle time. Users can also tailor content. "I can get my own customised version of the Wall Street Journal for Jo Sager," said Sager. "If it's only changes to the information users are getting, that's going to get boring pretty quickly."