ELECTRONIC COMMERCE UPDATE

July/August€1996

Microsoft Gains Partners in Push for Internet Standard

Data General Corp. (Westboro, Mass.), Digital Equipment Corp. (Maynard, Mass.), Intel Corp. (Santa Clara, Calif.), Intergraph Corp. (Austin, Texas) and Network Appliance Inc. (Mountain View, Calif.) have joined with Microsoft Corp. (Redmond, Wash.) to announce support for a remote collaborative file-sharing technology called the Common Internet File System (CIFS), which is based on standards in use on millions of PCs on corporate intranets.

The Common Internet File System is an enhanced version of the native file-sharing technology used in the Microsoft MS-DOS, Windows and Windows NT operating systems, as well as IBM's OS/2 operating system. CIFS is also widely available on many UNIX systems. The system enables computer users to open and share remote files directly on the Internet, expanding the Internet's ability to support interactive computing.

CIFS technology provides reliable, direct read and write access to files stored on remote computers without first requiring users to download or copy the files to a local machine, as done today on the Internet with protocols such as file transfer protocol (FTP). Because CIFS is based on existing standards, users will be able to use thousands of existing applications over the Internet as well as integrate them with browser applications designed for the World Wide Web.

The proposed Common Internet File System protocol runs over TCP/IP and is an enhanced version of the open, cross-platform protocol for distributed file sharing called Server Message Block (SMB). The SMB protocol is the standard way that millions of PC users already share files across corporate intranets and is the native file-sharing protocol in Windows 95, Windows NT and OS/2.
The SMB protocol is an open technology widely available on UNIX, VMSTM and other platforms.
The proposed CIFS protocol has been enhanced over previous versions of the SMB protocol in ways that make it well suited for use on the Internet. CIFS, for example, supports the Internet's Domain Name Service (DNS) for address resolution. The protocol runs optimally over slow-speed dial-up lines, helping improve performance for the vast numbers of users today who access the Internet using a modem.
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