IBM RELATED NEWS & PRESS RELEASES



NETSCAPE COMMUNICATOR 4.04 FOR OS/2 WARP: IT'S HERE!

"All things come round to him who will but wait." - Longfellow, Tales of a Wayside Inn, The Student's Tale

After much anticipation, IBM brings some of the best Internet technology to the OS/2 world with the September 30th delivery of Netscape Communicator 4.04 for OS/2 Warp. As the name implies, Netscape Communicator 4.04 is more than just a browser. This complete Internet client for OS/2 Warp 4, Warp Servers and WorkSpace On-Demand offers e-mail, collaboration, news group access and web page creation.

This product facilitates the transition to the network computing model with the support of the latest Java 1.1 versions including the OS/2 Warp Developer's Toolkit for Java 1.1.6 and all previously supported functions such as native OS/2 multimedia plug-ins and support for the 16-bit Windows plug-ins. Users can immediately take advantage of enhanced Web browsing capabilities with Netscape Communicator's support for page features such as HTML 3.2, dynamic HTML, Javascript 1.2 and trusted applets.

IBM is also pleased to announce that this product is available in 18 languages including Polish, Russian, Hungarian, Finnish, Norwegian, Czech, Chinese Traditional and Chinese Simplified.

This product is provided at no charge through Software Choice found at: http://www.software.ibm.com/swchoice/. Netscape Communicator 4.04 for OS/2 Warp -- strong encryption (128 bit) version is also available on Software Choice for the US and Canada. Navigator 2.02 will be supported through Jan 31, 2001. Netscape Communicator 4.04 for OS/2 Warp does not replace Netscape Navigator 2.02 for OS/2 on OS/2 Warp 3 or OS/2 Warp Connect.

For more detailed information on Netscape Communicator 4.04 for OS/2 Warp see http://www.software.ibm.com/os/warp and http://www.software.ibm.com/os/warp/library.

Aurora Status Update

On October 13, 1998, IBM will announce the official name of the next release of OS/2 Warp Server on the Aurora Web site. Shortly thereafter, on October 16, 1998, no more registrations for the beta will be accepted.

However, the Aurora Web site will still remain active with a customer poll. The most recent question posed was: What processor family is predominantly supporting LAN Server and OS/2 Warp Server? The results indicated that more than 90% of the respondents are running Pentium class machines. A new question will be posted approximately every two weeks.

- Timothy Sipples
IBM Network Computing Software
Chicago, IL, USA
via OS/2 WARP FM, Volume 3
September 30, 1998

OS/2's JAVA PERFORMANCE

Are you interested in the best Java(TM) performance?

InfoWorld has just completed testing of a variety of server operating systems and Java virtual machines (JVMs), including a beta version of JDK 1.1.7 with Warp Server SMP. The results?

Well, here's a quote from that report:

"To fill this need, the InfoWorld Test Center built a server-side benchmark capable of accurately exercising these systems. In looking at the results, the good news is that if Java is supposed to be slow, someone forgot to tell IBM, because they are taking performance very much into their own hands and are producing Java virtual machines (JVMs), operating systems, and hardware that seem almost uniquely optimized for server-side Java."

And another:

"What did cause at least a few minor tremors was OS/2, and here a direct comparison is quite valid. Except for the first data point, the OS/2 numbers are two to three times more than the NT numbers, and at least that for only the best Linux numbers. It seems that IBM has done some good work, although the JIT compiler in IBM JDK for OS/2 is still in beta testing and may not be the same when it is released. Changing the garbage collection settings improved performance a little, but not enough to make it worth having to restart your computer to clean it out. No where else did garbage collection make a significant difference either."

Performance matters, and IBM is totally committed to developing high performance Java and web technologies for all its platforms.

Need more information? You can read the entire InfoWorld report on the Internet at http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayTC.pl?/980914analysis.htm.

For more information on IBM's "Aurora" e-business server please visit http://www.software.ibm.com/os/warp/aurora.

- Timothy Sipples
IBM Network Computing Software
Chicago, Illinois
September 15, 1998