Intelligent Systems Report € April € 1996 € Volume 13 € No. 4

Microsoft, Netscape put intelligence on the Web

By David Blanchard
Editor

It was only a matter of time: The two leading Internet software providers -- Netscape and Microsoft -- have embraced intelligent agent technology to enhance their World Wide Web offerings. Given the labyrinthine complexity of navigating the Web, users are increasingly demanding intelligent on-line guidance, which is exactly what agents are best at. Intelligent agents, at their simplest, are software protocols that perform trial-and-error searching procedures by navigating through computer networks to perform tasks for their users. Deciding that there's no better time than right now to jump on the agents bandwagon, both Microsoft and Netscape are leveraging the very same search and retrieval engine: the Topic family of intelligent agents, developed by Verity Inc. (Mountain View, Calif.).

As part of an agreement with software giant Microsoft Corp. (Redmond, Wash.), Verity will develop a suite of search servers for Microsoft BackOffice, enabling access to enterprise information from the Microsoft Exchange client and the Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft's answer to Netscape Navigator. Verity's TopicSearch for Microsoft Exchange will provide an integrated information retrieval solution, allowing users to quickly find relevant information in the Exchange environment and beyond. TopicSearch supports a client/server architecture and offers search access to Microsoft Exchange mail and public folders, the Microsoft Internet Information Server, Windows NT Server and SQL Server.

In addition to TopicSearch, Verity has also introduced a suite of groupware applications for Microsoft Exchange:

• TopicTeam, an electronic conferencing application which enables distributed workgroups to access and share information in a collaborative, modulated environment;
  
  
• TopicWeb Organizer, a Web page tracking and management application that provides a structured environment to track and manage Internet/intranet Web pages; and
  
  
• TopicNewscast, a real-time news component that enables searching through news items.
  
  
• TopicTeam and TopicWeb Organizer were developed in cooperation with UK-based Insite, a company Verity is negotiating with to acquire; TopicNewscast was developed with WavePhore (see sidebar).

Not to be outdone, Netscape Communications Corp. (Mountain View, Calif.), vendor of the leading Web browser, plans to embed Verity's TopicSearch technology in its Netscape Enterprise Server software, a so-called "industrial strength" Web server with advanced features for publishing live content on corporate networks and the Internet. As a result, Webmasters using Netscape Enterprise Server will have access to intelligent agent-based search and retrieval functionality.

Besides TopicSearch, the Netscape Enterprise Server will also include Verity's TopicAccess and TopicAgent Server applications. TopicAccess permits the search of documents stored in a variety of data sources, while TopicAgent Server deploys agents throughout a Web-based system.

Netscape's server supports Sun Microsystems' Java and JavaScript programming languages, which enable the creation, delivery and management of live applications and content. And as we reported last month, Netscape is also supporting the Virtual Reality Markup Language (VRML) standard with its new Live3D extensions (see ISR, March 1996).