Sun Offers Free PC Interoperability in Data Collaboration to Workstation Customers With Web Access

Business Wire, July 8, 1998

PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 8, 1998--

SunForum(TM) Suite Enables Real-time Interoperability with

Applications and an Electronic Whiteboard Running on Workstations

or PCs

Sun Microsystems, Inc. today announced its SunForum(TM) suite of data conferencing tools designed to improve productivity in workgroup data collaboration and allowing users to interact with colleagues working in either the Solaris(TM) operating environment, Microsoft Windows, Apple Macintosh or with any operating system that has a data conferencing program that meets International Telecommunications Union (ITU) T.120 standards.

The SunForum tool suite consists of a shared electronic whiteboard application for simultaneous data collaboration, a shared application program for sequential data collaboration, a file transfer utility, a chat utility and a shared clipboard. Sun(TM) Ultra(TM) workstation customers using the new suite will be able to interoperate with UNIX(R), PC and Macintosh systems in a heterogeneous environment. Users will also be able to take advantage of the suite's support for all data conferencing products that meet ITU T.120 standards to read, write and edit shared documents. The SunForum suite of tools can be downloaded at no charge from the Web.

"Within two hours of working with SunForum, I was sold," said Jim Vuccolo, senior engineer at Raytheon Systems Company. "SunForum enabled us to do things we could not do with other data collaboration tools. In addition to being able to hold multiple conferences simultaneously, our UNIX guys could actually work online with the PC folks. I see dramatic potential for increasing productivity within my group."

SunForum tools increase efficiency of work and facilitates collaboration between offices. Telecommuters, satellite offices, and even employees within the same office will now be able to review and make changes to the same document, regardless of whether they are working on a PC, Macintosh or a UNIX workstation, as long as they are running the SunForum program or a T.120 data conferencing application. For example, if people in four locations want to review a spreadsheet, or prepare a presentation, instead of flying to one location or faxing the spreadsheet, they simply run the SunForum application on their Ultra workstation, then grant control of their active spreadsheet, presentation application (or just about any other active productivity tool) to any (or multiple) T.128-compliant conference participant. SunForum application users can also take control of other applications not running on their Ultra workstation and make changes in real time, should another T.128 conference participant grant control of his or her active application. Changes are made while other meeting participants are watching.

"The ability to collaborate across platforms and around the world is essential, particularly in time-critical, highly competitive, and global decision-making situations," said Genelle Trader, senior director of marketing for workstation products at Sun Microsystems, Inc. "Our SunForum suite enables Ultra workstation users to collaborate in real-time, quickly and effectively, unrestricted by the application or platform."

SunForum shared application lets multiple users interact with a live application, viewing the same content on their workstation screens, wherever they may be. The application host determines whether to share control (collaborate) or provide view-only access to a program. Remote users participating in the conference need to be running the SunForum application, Microsoft NetMeeting, PictureTel's LiveShare Plus, or another T.128-based shared application utility; however, the application being shared, whether it is Microsoft Word or Adobe Photoshop, does not need to be loaded on each system that participates in the online meeting. As soon as the conference host changes to "collaborate" mode, each participant can use the cursor to make changes as if the document was loaded on his or her own system. SunForum tool suite users are able to share and take control of Microsoft Windows-based applications running on PCs using any T.128-based shared application. The suite's chat utility enables SunForum product customers to communicate ideas effectively to others even in low-bandwidth situations.

The SunForum whiteboard application provides a common desktop conference board in which a user can "snap" any text or graphics displayed on their monitor and make changes using annotation tools, or personalized pens or highlighters. Different colors on the whiteboard enable all participants to distinguish who made the changes. Because the shared whiteboard application is NetMeeting compliant, any Ultra workstation customer with the SunForum suite of tools is able to share a common whiteboard with any other electronic whiteboard that is NetMeeting-compliant. The file transfer utility and shared clipboard applications in SunForum tool suite enable Sun customers using the application to receive non-native files and transfer files to Sun and non-Sun users who are T.127-compliant. Sun users using the SunForum product also are able to "cut and paste" from various utilities and applications onto other shared applications, whiteboard or X-based applications.