This article appeared in R&D Magazine in November 1996.
Traditionally packaged versions of software--with all their plastic wrap, cardboard boxes, and floppy disks--may soon become collectibles.
Web-based software? Think they're just one of those short-term fads that have occurred over the past 12 months? Think again. They're here to stay, and they just may change the way most software is marketed, distributed, and even used.
They're called by all sorts of names: Web betas, Web toolkits, Web demos, and software-on-the-Web. Of all the products offered for sale over the Internet, only software has seen a big enough response to warrant a change in the traditional supplier-user relationship.
Making software available from a Web site is not unusually difficult from a technical standpoint. "We did have to develop procedures for translating database data into an HTML (hypertext markup language) format on the fly," says Larry French, director of product development at Knight-Ridder Information, Mountain View, Calif. "But keeping track of all the accounting and sales transactions, however, has been the real problem."
Knight-Ridder's KR ScienceBase, available from its Web site, http://www.krinfo.com, is the company's first Web-based software offering. Available since last March, ScienceBase is a software product that provides easy access to published literature through the Internet. It utilizes a simple point-and-click interface with built-in search intelligence. The intelligence is basically a set of queries and the search strategies behind them that allow the user to input only keywords to locate information. No additional search expertise or training is needed.
Knight-Ridder developers worked hard to design ScienceBase so that it wouldn't compete with the company's other database search products, such as Dialog. It's important to recognize that they were designed for two different markets--Dialog for the intensive command-line-type search mechanisms, ScienceBase for simpler, more logical point-and-click search mechanisms.
"For the short time that ScienceBase has been available, we've learned that the scientific community we targeted this product at is more heterogeneous than we first expected," says French. "We released the product, knowing full well that we wouldn't meet everyone's requirements, but the market was even more diverse than we expected.
"The good news is that we found the Internet to be an incredibly open market. We were constantly being offered suggestions on items that could improve our product," says French. "As a result, we've made some revisions that make accessing and browsing our system easier and make our searches and displays more logical."
Knight-Ridder developers are also adding more content and more subject areas to accommodate the diversity of users wanting to acquire ScienceBase's data.
One of the problems that French sees with Web-based software is the rapid pace of technological change. There are few chances to develop standards that software-application companies such as Knight-Ridder can make use of.
Security issues that develop with software downloads is another problem that still needs to be resolved. Security becomes so confused that some organizations now only support unsecure sites--the exact opposite of what should be happening.
This problem arises when Web-based software is encrypted to go through an organization's firewall. The firewall administrators don't know what is in the encrypted packets. So, they'd rather not encrypt and know what it is, instead of encrypting what they don't know.
Developers at MicroPatent, East Haven, Conn., also offer a searchable database capability on the Internet. Their most recently announced Internet offering is a fully scalable version of the entire U.S. Official Gazette (OG), complete with drawings at http://www.micropat.com. MicroPatent earlier announced the availability of 20 years of all U.S. patent images, as well as European and World patent documents on the Web.
MicroPatent is offering a free one-week trial to the OG service through the end of the year to give ample opportunity for user input. In January, MicroPatent will go live with the Internet version within 48 hr of the first issue date.
"The electronic version allows users to find the latest technological information more quickly and download the summary information for distribution," says Judy Hickey, MicroPatent's director of patent development.
Offering Web-based products can be a very efficient marketing tool, according to Morris Samit, president of DSP Development, Cambridge, Mass. DSP is offering a 30-day free trial of its DADiSP data-analysis and signal-processing worksheet.
An earlier offer of a free limited-capability student edition was very successful, and the current program is patterned after the student version. "That a large number of nonstudents were downloading the limited-capability student edition indicated that there was a market for a full-featured product," says Samit. With this full-featured product, users can analyze their own live data for 30 days and make an educated decision as to its usefulness in their work environment.
Even current users of DADiSP may become interested in the Web version because their interest may be piqued through the simultaneous promotion of add-on modules. "A pleasant surprise in the 30-day free trial offer was the immediate response from a number of international researchers," he says. "The global reach of the Internet makes news releases immediately available to most locations in the world."
At the end of the 30-day trial period, users can purchase the product, and an enabling password will be sent to the purchaser. If no purchase is made, the software is automatically rendered inoperable through built in software coding.
The good thing about free limited-time demos is that users self-qualify themselves. The developer saves the cost of informing a large number of prospective customers in the hope that a small number will find the product useful and purchase it. With a Web-site download, there are relatively few costs involved, other than informing users of the existence of their Web-site and inviting them to visit.
When a user and developer finally meet, there is likely to be a more congenial relationship, since neither person is likely to try to overpower the other. Questions asked about the product will also be more relevant, and the replies more efficiently handled.
While some hackers will always find a way to get around the 30-day timing program, "most large companies will not want to risk the liability of downloading illegal software," says Samit.
Software developers at National Instruments, Austin, Texas, have also recently announced products that add Internet capabilities to their company's popular LabVIEW, BridgeVIEW, and Lab Windows/CVI software-development environments. With their Internet Developers Toolkits (IDT), researchers can extend their applications in LabVIEW to display information on the Web, as well as programatically send e-mail or FTP data files.
Users of National Instruments' products can download free beta versions of IDT tools, along with other National software products, such as ComponentWorks. With IDT, users can also create virtual instruments that automatically send e-mail to operators or transfer files to or from an FTP server.
Developers at Visual Numerics, Boulder, Colo., also recently announced the availability of free Web-enabling tools that can be downloaded from VNI's Web site, http://www.vni.com. The Wave-on-Web, or WoW, tools provide extensions for the company's main product, PV-WAVE, in support of GIF, JPEG, HTML, and VRML Internet standards, as well as reading files from a URL. "Researchers are demanding Web-enabled visualization tools," says Margaret Journey, a product marketing manager for Visual Numerics.
One of the main stumbling blocks in this Web-based scenario is the increasingly restrictive environment for Web access that some corporate organizations are imposing. "Their reply is that they need to protect the security of their computer network," says Knight-Ridder's French.
As demand increases and as more software becomes available from Web sites, perhaps some security protocol standards will be established that most organizations will be able to accommodate.
For the time being, many researchers are willing to forego the risks and are downloading beta and original copies of software from World Wide Web sites.
--Tim Studt
Copyright 1996 Cahners Publishing Co.
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