IBM RELATED NEWS & PRESS RELEASES



IBM PREPARES TO SHIP OS/2 THIN-CLIENT PACKAGE

"I think IBM has a winner here," said Colin Mahony, an analyst at the Yankee Group, in Boston. "There is a need out there. The question is, will it be limited by OS/2."

The OS/2 aspect is not a problem for David Knight, assistant vice president of Trustmark National Bank, in Jackson, Miss.

"This is the first product that really addresses the need for thin clients in a way that fits our needs here," Knight said. "We're a big OS/2 shop. We like OS/2 as a platform. A lot of banks do. We are going to take a close look at using this."

WorkSpace on Demand requires OS/2 Warp Server on the server side and an Intel-based PC or diskless workstation on the client side.

With the package, administrators can determine what access users have, what applications they can run, and the functionality of those applications. Because all of this is tied to a log-on, and everything resides on the server, users have the same desktop and applications when they switch desks or a terminal is replaced.

"This gives a company the ability to take the first step toward network computing while protecting their investment and providing a 100-percent pure Java environment," said John Albee, IBM's OS/2 Warp program manager.

IBM, in Armonk, N.Y., can be reached at (914) 765-1900 or http://www.software.ibm.com.

- Steven E. Brier
InfoWorld Electric
November 6, 1997

LOTUS TO DELIVER eSUITE PRODUCTIVITY APPS

November 4, 1997 - Lotus Development yesterday unveiled pricing and a host of partners for eSuite, its long-awaited line of Java-based personal productivity applets, formerly code-named Kona.

The company's eSuite WorkPlace, which consists of applets for E-mail, spreadsheet, word processing, calendaring, and other uses, will be priced at $49 per client for high-volume customers when released in January. Lotus also introduced eSuite DevPack, a Java developer's toolkit scheduled to ship in the first quarter for $1,495.

Much of the anti-Microsoft vendor community is rallying around eSuite. Lotus parent IBM will ship eSuite with its Network Station 1000 line of network computers. Sun Microsystems promised to deliver eSuite on the Sun JavaStation NC, while Oracle will ship the applets with its NCs and InterOffice backoffice applications.

The eSuite applets, which are launched from within a browser or from a PC file manager, were showcased by Lotus using Netscape Communications' Navigator browser. Lotus didn't say whether Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser can also support the applets.

While Lotus president Jeff Papows said he expects eSuite to cannibalize the company's own SmartSuite office applications suite to some degree, he added: "Microsoft is obviously the suite share leader. They have a lot more to lose than we do."

- Karen M. Carrillo
INFORMATION WEEK Daily