Not content with letting us ask the web to proffer us information we really need, everyone’s vying for pole position in the technology that’s going to ‘push’, or broadcast, tons of information out to us, whether we like it or not. The push wars are certainly hotting up between Microsoft Corp and Netscape Communications Inc, and following Netscape’s preview of Netcaster the other day (CI No 3,164), Microsoft announced a series of relationships with content providers, as well as its vision for the next level of ‘managed push’ technologies due with Internet Explorer 4.0 and a partnership with Reuters Holdings Plc’s Tibco Inc. At a webcasting panel presentation in San Francisco yesterday, top information providers said they are developing channels for Internet Explorer, including Dow Jones Markets’, Dun & Bradstreet Corp, First Call Corp, Pointcast Inc, Forbes Magazine, and the Wall Street Journal. The Internet Explorer Administration Kit 4.0 enables systems managers to manage the push content from a central place, and to set up custom corporate Internet Explorer channels, as well as restricting channels to certain users. The company maintains this is the first universal, open, push system that uses existing protocols and standards. It supports the World Wide Web Consortium’s CDF Channel Definition Format. Under the partnership with Tibco, in which Cisco Systems Inc has just taken a stake (CI No 3,166), Tibco said it will use Channel Definition Format for its technology, which it describes as push ‘plumbing’ to support publish-and-subscribe and IP multicast.
