Well, at least Microsoft Corp and Netscape Communications Corp agree that both corporate intranets and the Internet are getting overcrowded and somebody better do something before the entire information superhighway looks like the Los Angeles freeway at rush hour. Our sister publication ClieNT Server News hears that both have signed up as founding sponsors of the IP Multicast Initiative, a group formed to promote the Internet Engineering Task Force’s multicast standards, a scheme for everyone on a network to tap into the same data stream, eliminating multiple bandwidth-gobbling point- to-point connections. Stardust Laboratories is managing the effort, which was put together by Precept Software Inc CEO Judy Estrin. Among the 16 founding companies, a melange of big names in software, hardware and networking, are 3Com, Bay Networks, Cabletron, Cisco Systems, FTP Software, HP, Intel, SGI, StarBurst Communications, Sun, Vivo Software, White Pine Software and Xerox PARC.
