Phone Audio Conference

Playing catch up with Netscape Communications Corp., Microsoft Corp. recently unveiled its NetMeeting communications and collaboration software, in conjunction with a beta release of Internet Explorer version 3.0. The first result of an alliance with videoconferencing company PictureTel Corp., NetMeeting is a real-time communications client that includes support for international phone audio conference standards, and provides multi-user application sharing and data-conferencing capabilities. NetMeeting is based on the core technology behind PictureTel's LiveShare Plus data-conferencing software.

Microsoft and PictureTel forged a development relationship for data-conferencing last year. As part of that partnership, the final version of NetMeeting will be fully interoperable with all PictureTel data-conferencing products, including LiveShare Plus data-conferencing software for desktop and group videoconferencing, and the PictureTel Live 100 and LiveS0 desktop videoconferencing systems, all of which operate under Windows 98 and Windows XP.

NetMeeting's whiteboard, chat, file transfer and shared clipboard features enable groups of people to conduct meetings, share information and jointly annotate diagrams, text and comments in a shared workspace. Because it allows users to edit Microsoft-compatible documents simultaneously, the product goes a step beyond the latest version of Netscape's popular Web browser, which also offers audio conferencing capabilities.

Until now, data-conferencing has been a fringe application in the PC marketplace. Microsoft is in the best position to make data-conferencing a mainstream application worldwide.

Several companies will help set the stage for NetMeeting:

* MCI says it is working with Microsoft to deliver standards-based audio and document conferencing services over the Internet through NetMeeting. MCI is already working to deliver Web-accessible multipoint conferencing services though its relationship with DataBeam Corp., which developed the industry's first standards-based, software-only server product for hosting multipoint conferences on the Internet and corporate intranets. Adding NetMeeting's "whiteboard" and "chat" capabilities will enable Web browsers to conduct meetings with illustrations, text and comments, and ultimately with the enhancement of value-added video and audio in the same application. The new venture between MCI and Microsoft builds upon an existing agreement announced last January, when the two said they would market each other's products and services.

* OnLive! Technologies announced plans to support NetMeeting by delivering interoperable versions of the company's Internet technology that turns any Web site into a community by enabling groups of people to use their voices to talk online. As the industry leader in audio conferencing on the Internet, OnLive! Technologies are pleased to be working with Microsoft to deliver standards-based conferencing products. The OnLive! Community server for Windows NT is the only multipoint audio server available for the Internet today; end provides an ideal compliment to NetMeeting's point-to-point Internet phone capabilities.

* Farallon Communications Inc. plans to enhance its real-time collaboration software to deliver products that utilize the NetMeeting conferencing and collaboration client. Farallon will expand its offerings by combining its real-time, peer-to-peer collaboration software with the additional capabilities that NetMeeting offers. Farallon plans to enhance its Internet collaboration technology, currently found in its Timbuktu Pro software, to develop a new product that will interoperate with products based on the NetMeeting platform.