FRAMINGHAM (09-15-95) - Next week, Netscape Communications Corp. will unveil a multimedia Web browser as well as a new suite of Web server management and publishing tools.
The Netscape Navigator 2.0 browser, out in beta next week, lets users access Web links using an integral Multi-purpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) mail package and drop in multimedia files such as GIF or JPEG images. By integrating the Web and mail functions, users do not have to switch back and forth between applications.
A number of multimedia document types, such as Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF), are being used to add audio, video and images to home pages created using the Web's simple text-based HyperText Mark-up Language (HTML). But remote users cannot take advantage of these home pages unless they have specific client software for the task.
Navigator 2.0, which supports about a dozen multimedia object types -- including Adobe PDF, Macromedia Directory File, Novell Inc. Envoy, Apple Computer Inc. Quicktime, Intel Corp. Indeo and Progressive Networks Inc. RealAudio -- will be able to handle almost any document type on the Net today.
"In terms of integration with document types, no browser out there comes close to what Netscape is doing," said Steve Franco, an analyst with The Yankee Group. "Netscape is continuing to define the client software market."
Expected to ship next month, Navigator 2.0 will also let users interact with any Web site's interactive Java "applets." Java is the client/server programming language developed by Sun Microsystems Inc. for adding interactive, motion-based content to Web sites.
Navigator will also ship with a scripting language that Netscape Senior Product Manager Len Feldman called "Java Lite."
"Java, like C++, is fairly hard to master," Feldman said. "We wanted to come up with a simpler scripting language like VisualBasic that users can build applications with."
Also from Netscape's cornucopia this week will come Navigator Gold 2.0, which includes all the Navigator 2.0 encrypted electronic mail features plus an authoring tool that lets users create Web text and images in HTML or multimedia document types.
"Gold lets you publish files to any Netscape server," Feldman said.
Two more new products from Netscape -- LiveWire and LiveWire Pro -- are application development tools that encompass all the features of Gold, plus add a Site Manager that lets users create and manage Web sites.
Site Manager lets Web publishers create an Internet storefront, catalog pages or a chat area, and it can analyze pages and links, reorganizing them automatically, Feldman said.
LiveWire Pro includes LiveWire's Site Manager with an added capability that allows publishers to use SQL access database routines to connect Netscape Web sites to Informix Inc., Oracle Corp., Sybase Inc. and Microsoft Corp. databases. The tool overcomes a limitation in current Netscape servers -- the lack of direct database access.
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