[11257] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
re: MOSAIC
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Larry Walker)
Sun Mar 27 10:50:25 1994
Date: Sat, 26 Mar 94 11:41:33 CST
To: com-priv@psi.com
From: walkerl@iscmed.med.ge.com (Larry Walker)
> Bob Beck <rab@vienna.ssds.com> wrote:
>
>Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Bob Beck and my company, SSDS,
>provides LAN/WAN planning, design, implementation and management services.
>We believe that there is a large body of network users who would like to
>implement applications such as MOSAIC, not only to get to the openly
>available Internet information resources, but as a means of effectively
>managing their own internal information repositories. We have developed
>some unique approaches in this area. Is there any interest in discussing
>this further in this forum?
>
Absolutely! I am currently trying to short-circuit a plan some Marketing
folks have put together: They want to set up a "mechanism" to let us put
information on a system and let customers connect up and browse/retrieve
it. They are all set to go ahead with a plan to deliver this via a
traditional BBS system provided by an X.25 dial-up vendor who shall remain
nameless. I am trying to convince them that this is a self-limiting and
archaic approach, and that they should do it with Mosaic, etc.
The problem I'm having is that people can't uderstand the difference! You
dial up somewhere, you get some menus, you move around until you find what
you want, you transfer it back to your PC. "So what's wrong with a BBS?",
they ask...
I'd like to hear about experiences anyone may have had using these tools
and mechanisms to deliver information services to their customers. With the
news about AT&T's deals with Lotus and Microsoft for public-network Notes
and MHS servers, I greatly fear a proliferation of pseudo-BBS-style
services: Dial here for your mail, there for the marketing info, somewhere
else for <you-name-it>. I don't want to have 127 dial-up numbers and 99
different user interfaces to go about my business. And I _really_ don't
want to inflict that on my customers!
Any thoughts?
Larry
Larry Walker
System Architect email: walkerl@med.ge.com
GE Medical Systems phone: 414.785.8262
P.O. Box 414 / NB-902 fax: 414.785.4331
Milwaukee, WI 53201 dialcomm: 8*322-8262
*** There will be lots of roadkill on the Information Highway. ***
