Digital Infoworks announces CyberLinks — universal hyperlinking and unified browsing capabilities for 16 and 32 bit MS-Windows desktops

Business Wire, Oct 3, 1996

CINCINNATI--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 3, 1996--In a move designed to meet the needs of corporate Intranet users to access, share and publish existing information stored in non-HTML documents, as well as seamlessly integrate it with information stored in Web servers, Digital InfoWorks Ltd., today announced CyberLinks, its first major Intranet offering that bridges disparate Internet, corporate and personal information spaces.

CyberLinks is a unique software product that allows corporate users to publish documents in their native formats on Intranets or the Internet with live, portable links to related information on corporate Intranets, the global Internet or personal desktops -- from existing non-HTML documents. It provides corporate Intranet users the benefits of Universal Hyperlinking, Intelligent Navigation and Unified Browsing, both in 16-bit and 32-bit Windows environments.

CyberLinks enables the creation of text, button and picture hyperlinks as well as sophisticated "image-maps" in any OLE-enabled document such as Word, Excel, WordPerfect and PowerPoint through simple drag-and-drop techniques. Through the following four objects; CyberText, CyberButton, CyberPicture and CyberMap; organizations can publish common office documents with live hyperlinks, directly on their Web servers without conversion to HTML. Combined with Netscape Navigator(TM) client software or other standards-based browsers and Plug-ins (e.g. Inso, QuickView, and Ncompass), CyberLinks makes existing office documents Intranet-Ready!

Using Netscape Navigator client software and Inso's World Viewer Plug-in, a Word document which contains CyberLinks is displayed with functional hyperlinks (including image-maps) that act in the same manner as an HTML-based web page!

CyberLinks is available in User and Developer Editions. The User Edition provides end users with the ability to create documents with hyperlinks using existing office tools such as WordPerfect, MS-Word, Excel and others.

The Developer Edition enables developers building applications using Visual C , Borland C , Delphi, Visual Basic and other tools, to include hyperlinks (including image maps) in their applications without programming. The run-time version, which is available for free download, enables users to activate the hyperlinks in documents containing CyberLinks objects.

According to Sundar Kadayam, Chief Technical Officer at Digital InfoWorks, "Microsoft Office 97 is supposed to allow publishing of office documents with hyperlinks directly on Intranets without format conversions to HTML. But CyberLinks delivers on these promises today, without requiring corporate users to migrate to Windows 95 and Office 97 (and possibly the future Internet Explorer 4.0 browser/Nashville upgrades)."

CyberLinks offers many benefits to corporate users:

- DIRECT INTRANET PUBLISHING. The installed base of MS-Windows users can directly publish Intranet documents using both 16-bit and 32-bit applications. There is no longer a need to move to Office 97 and Nashville, just to get Universal Hyperlinking capabilities. CyberLinks offers integration of HTML and non-HTML based information across the corporate Intranet with the software you use today.

Netscape Navigator Gold(TM) Plug-ins CyberLinks equals The Complete Intranet Publishing Solution

- ELIMINATION OF FORMAT CONVERSIONS TO HTML. With CyberLinks, users can publish documents directly on their internal Web servers with hyperlinks, and have them appear and operate just as regular HTML pages.

- SUPPORT FOR EVERY MAJOR OLE-ENABLED PRODUCT. CyberLinks empowers the user of any product which follows the OLE standard for embedded objects to create documents (with hyperlinks) that are instantly Intranet-ready! CyberLinks works equally well with products and application suites from any vendor with OLE capability such as Corel, IBM, Lotus and Netscape Navigator.

- SEAMLESS INTEGRATION WITH NETSCAPE NAVIGATOR. CyberLinks is tightly integrated with Netscape Navigator and Netscape Navigator Gold and the client-side Plug-in architecture, to provide the benefits of unified browsing of non- HTML documents with hyperlinks using Netscape Navigator.

- SEAMLESS INTEGRATION WITH MICROSOFT INTERNET EXPLORER 3.0. CyberLinks is fully compatible with Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 and takes advantage of its "Netscape-compatible Plug-in" architecture as well as its native ActiveX/Doc Object architecture. CyberLinks also works with other browsers that do not support Plug-ins, with slightly diminished capabilities.

- NO BROWSER NEEDED. CyberLinks can also operate without Web browsers. Links can be placed in any OLE document and accessed from an OLE enabled application. This permits documents with CyberLinks to be shared electronically with e-mail.

"CyberLinks provides Web-type capabilities and does a better job of leveraging the investments customers have made in LAN and MS-Windows desktops than the solution provided by Microsoft" according to Mahendra Vora, Chairman and CEO of Digital InfoWorks. "With a browser and CyberLinks, all information can go up on the Intranet," he added.