Microsoft Pushes Itself Onto NetCaster - Company Business and Marketing

The way you'd hear Microsoft tell it, the company is only looking out for the concerns of Web developers confronted with a diverging set of specifications. But in actuality, Microsoft is doing nothing less than taking a shot at establishing a new industry standard. Adding another wrinkle to the Internet push phenomenon, Microsoft has announced that its Channel Definition Format (CDF) technology will be extended to support Netscape Communication Corp.'s Netcaster.

Back in March, Microsoft proposed its new CDF push technology to the World wide Web Consortium as an open industry standard for publishing Web channels that deliver push content. Microsoft plans to incorporate CDF into its upcoming Internet Explorer V4.0, and has garnered support for CDF from some major content providers and software vendors, including America OnLine Inc. (Dulles, Va.), Pointcast Inc. (Cupertino, Calif.) and CompuServe (Columbus, Ohio).

Not to be outdone, Netscape cannibalized its Constellation cross-platform user interface and turned it into NetCaster, a push component for Netscape's Communicator browser suite. NetCaster was supposed to have shipped with the final mid-June release of Communicator, but Netscape has pushed back the release of NetCaster to give developers more time to work out some bugs and kinks.

Microsoft touts CDF as a superior alternative to Netscape's push-enabled NetCaster because it supposedly provides an increased level of content control. In response, Netscape says that it does not need CDF because it can provide the same push capabilities through Java, JavaScript and HTML.

The new CDF enhancements will enable CDF to function in NetCaster without requiring modification to the NetCaster client. Microsoft says that channel publishers will now be able to author their content once and have it run everywhere. "Developers say that CDF gives them benefits that they can't get from anywhere else. Now, both users and developers don't have to worry about different formats," says Kevin Unangst, Microsoft product manager for Internet Explorer. "The [push] content will degrade gracefully when delivered using the basic Webcrawl functionality offered by NetCaster, plus it can scale up to take advantage of the advanced push capabilities provided by Internet Explorer V4.0." The end result, according to Microsoft, is that users will enjoy broader content choices without having to worry about which browser they need to use.

While the two heavyweights continue to fight and bicker over establishing a push standard, there is no denying that a de facto Internet push standard is needed. Industry analyst firm Zona Research Inc. (Redwood City, Calif.) believes that Microsoft's initiative to make CDF compliant with NetCaster, especially when Netscape did not particularly want CDF, is indicative of Microsoft's determination to push CDF to industry-standard heights. A published statement by Zona says: "From an industry perspective, who proposed CDF is not the point -- a standard is needed to guide push technology to maturity. In this case, Microsoft just happens to be the one behind the wheel at this stage." Zona says that the Microsoft move was necessary not only to Microsoft, but to the industry as a whole.

"If Netscape's not going to endorse [CDF], we're going to take our own steps. It's more important for Microsoft to advance the industry than for Netscape and Microsoft to squabble about it," concludes Microsoft's Unangst.

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