Netscape has new star on horizon: 'Constellation'

Netscape Communications Corp. today will unveil Netscape Netcaster, a new component of its Communicator client software.

Netcaster, code-named Constellation, will be incorporated as a feature in the next preview release of Communicator, due within a month, said Mike McCue, director of advanced technologies at Netscape.

The moves by Netscape to incorporate Netcaster into Communicator continues the leapfrogging contest currently under way with Microsoft Corp. for being the first to market with a "push" enabled desktop.

Similar to how HTML technologies and advances are used in the fight between Microsoft and Netscape for control of the browser wars, the race to push content to the desktop has the two vendors heading down incompatible, competing paths.

While Netscape is promoting HTML, JavaScript and Java as the technologies for push, Microsoft is enabling push technologies and providers using a new format called CDF (Channel Definition Format), which it submitted as a possible standard to the World Wide Web Consortium earlier this year.

"In the long run, the differences in the push metaphors won't matter," said Rob Enderle, an analyst at Giga Information Group in Santa Clara, Calif. While Enderle said that Netscape's implementation of push was better than Microsoft's, "in the end, it's going to be like Ford and Chevy: The differences will be cosmetic."

Microsoft earlier this month gave user and content providers the first early glimpses of CDF capabilities when it released a Design Preview of Internet Explorer 4.0.

To make CDF possible, Microsoft is relying on new language being created by a working group in the consortium called XML (eXtenisble Markup Language). XML is only used for part of CDF and, according to Microsoft officials, any HTML content can be sent to an IE 4.0 user.

In addition to enabling any form of HTML content to be pushed/received over intranets or the Internet, Netcaster's WebTop feature provides the ability to create a personalized desktop environment where local applications, channels for pushed content and Web sites can be blended together.

Netscape officials said they plan to provide a set of APIs to enable WebTop, which can be customized by anyone from a major Web content provider such as Time Warner to a corporate IS director. WebTop can be launched automatically when users turn their machine on or be launched from within Communicator and run in the background, activated when users access a channel or when they click a small "N" button that will float at the top of their monitor no matter what application they are running.

Netscape is planning to provide a series of templates for Web content providers and for IS managers to create a consistent user interface.

WebTop also has the ability to enable a user to log-in to their WebTop from any computer running Netcaster.

However, a feature originally planned for Netcaster, one that would have enabled users to store and replicate any local file on a Netscape Enterprise Server and then access it from any machine, has been postponed until the next major release of Communicator, code-named Mercury.

Another significant feature is offline viewing of Web sites and channels. Netscape officials said that users will be able to cache Web pages and any channel content to view when not online.

Netscape's Netcaster push technology is based on JavaScript, HTML, HTTP and Java applets. To enable a site to create pushed versions of their content, Netscape will provide an encapsulated collection of JavaScript code that can be added to a Web site in the form of a button that says "subscribe."

When users then click on the button, Netcaster will open a dialogue box and prompt users to set the times and frequency that they want the channel to be updated. Then, behind the scenes, Netcaster and Communicator will automatically connect to the Internet and pull down any new information using HTTP time and day-stamp of the Web site to identify if anything new has been changed.

One of the core technologies making Netcaster possible is work being done by Netscape and Marimba Inc. to embed Marimba's Castanet tuner technology into Communicator. As a result, users of Communicator and Netcaster will be able to receive content created for Marimba's Castanet, as well as use the software distribution capabilities of Castanet.

As part of today's announcement, Netscape will introduce more than 20 different content providers that are going to support Netcaster, including ABC News and CNN. In addition, a number of third-party push software vendors, such as Wayfarer Communications Inc. and Verity Inc., will announce support for Netcaster and will work to enable the Netscape client to work with their systems.

To help users manage the number of channels being created, Netscape also is set to provide a channel finder that will enable users to preview channel content before selecting a channel. Corporate IS managers also will be able to lock down specific channels--limiting them to intranet specific or enterprise type channels.

All of Netcaster's features, including the WebTop environment, can be centrally managed and controlled using Communicator's AutoAdmin features.