Anxious to shake off its image as a content ‘push’ technology company in the style of a Pointcast Inc, Marimba Inc launched version 2.0 of its Castanet application distribution and management suite earlier this month, which it says positions it alone as a provider of software for distributing and managing serious business applications to any device over the internet. Version 2.0, as expected (CI No 3,154) adds server authentication, encryption and application level access control, as well as administrative features that support secure transmissions across any network. Kim Polese, Marimba’s president and chief executive, says Castanet is a fully fledged product that enables companies to distribute major applications, whatever language they may be written in, over the internet. While companies may distribute content along with the applications to exploit the content, such as stock prices along with a portfolio management application, Marimba does not want to be in the business of content aggregation like Pointcast, Polese says. Wherever physical media, such as floppy disks or CD-ROMs would have been used in the past to distribute and deploy enterprise applications, Marimba says Castanet can now be used to distribute the applications over the internet or intranet. It has also added Castanet UpdateNow, which enables applications developed in Java, C, C++ , Visual Basic and other languages, to be self-updating. The recent lawsuit wrangles with Novadigm Inc, in which Novadigm accused Marimba of infringing its patents (CI No 3,234), have appeared to bring the two companies head to head as competitors. Indeed Novadigm last week announced Radia, its first internet- based software distribution product, which will bring it into Marimba’s space (CI No 3,271). However, Polese is keen to point out that Marimba does not meet Novadigm today as a competitor, and stresses that Radia is not due until early next year, whereas Castanet has been shipping for more than a year. As far as the lawsuit is concerned, Marimba’s lawyers say there are no grounds to the claims, and Polese repeats her belief that this is simply a marketing ploy by Novadigm, a tactic which she feels is bad for the whole industry. Castanet 2.0 is available now, but to upgrade to it, users need to own the Castanet Transmitter Server, which costs from 995 pounds.
