Accelerating Adoption
of Internet Technologies
Internet Ticketing:
Train Ticketing via Internet
Accelerating Adoption
of Internet Technologies
The Research and Internet divisions of IBM have introduced a new way of getting advanced Internet technologies into the hands of users. Called alphaWorks, the "online laboratory" will make developing technologies available over the World Wide Web to anyone who wishes to pluck them off and experiment with them.
This previewing system gives users the opportunity to try out new Internet technologies from IBM before the company formalizes them as products or services. "AlphaWorks not only provides some of the newest technologies to the Internet community, as easily and rapidly as possible," explains John Patrick, IBM's vice president of Internet technology, "it also offers a chance to practically look over the shoulders of our researchers."
Those peeks should help researchers to target their projects more effectively. "It provides us with a really nice way to get our formative ideas out for general use, to find out what people think about them," declares Stuart Feldman, manager of Internet applications and services at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center.
The approach promises long- and short-term bottom-line benefits for IBM, by rapidly revealing the market potential of promising new Internet technologies. "The purpose is to help IBM decide what technologies to develop into products or services," says Andrew Morbitzer, who oversees alphaWorks for the Internet division. "An even bigger goal is developing a community around the advanced Internet technologies from IBM and gaining mindshare for IBM in the Internet community."
Minimum of bureaucracy
Unlike beta testing, which involves formal business agreements and full support from IBM, alphaWorks will keep bureaucracy to a minimum. "It saves researchers the trouble of having to make all the arrangements themselves," says Feldman.
Several IBM technologies will be available at any time for free downloading from the continually updated Web site. By downloading, with a simple point and click of the mouse, Internet surfers will implicitly agree that they accept the technology only for experimental, noncommercial use. They will also be informed that they are on their own in exploring the technology. IBM will provide no help lines or other support for their experimentation. But the company will inform users about whom to contact for licensing and product sales.
Who is likely to check out the sites? Organizers of alphaWorks expect to
attract a community of "alphanauts" much larger and broader than that
attracted to fresh IBM technologies in the past. Individuals in small businesses that sell Internet products or services represent one sector. IBM expects that some will want to license technologies or sign partnership agreements to develop them. The company also hopes to attract
college-level computer enthusiasts able to suggest creative ways of applying and
extending the nascent technologies.
IBM wants users' reactions to the selected technologies, in the form of both general comments and bug reports. So the alphaWorks site contains the "Community Exchange." This gathering place will give users the chance to exchange ideas about the next generation of Internet technologies, from IBM and elsewhere. Indeed, the company plans eventually to accept alpha-stage technologies from third-party developers on its sites.
Responses to specific technologies could take one of several forms. Immediate enthusiasm from users would prompt IBM to develop the technology into a product or service as quickly as possible. Interest by one or more companies could lead to the licensing of the technology. A technology that languished in alphaWorks without response would plainly require a return to the drawing board. And strongly negative reviews would indicate that a technology is either unmarketable or ahead of its time.
Selection of new technologies
At its launch, alphaWorks featured six technologies. Research, which is expected to account for 90 percent of offerings on the system, developed four of them: Bamba, a superior audio and video streaming technology developed at Watson and the Haifa Research Laboratory; PanoramIX, a Watson technology that permits users to assemble multiple images into seamless 360-degree views; ShockAbsorber, a router from Watson that links servers of different size and balances unpredictable traffic loads; and WBI, pronounced "webby" and standing for Web Browser Intelligence, an Internet "buddy" developed at the Almaden Research Center to help users to personalize and track their Web-surfing activities.
The other two debuting technologies - NetRexx, a scripting language for writing Java applets that runs 30 percent faster than Java, and ADK for Windows 3.1 which will permit users of Windows 3.1 to access Java applications - were developed at the IBM Hursley Laboratory in the United Kingdom. Technologies available on alphaWorks will change quickly, as IBM reacts to the Internet community's response. Morbitzer expects to release one or two a week, and to feature special "theme weeks," devoted to such fields as Java technology.
The company had to take account of two commercial concerns before launching alphaWorks. One involved the potential for theft of technology off the Web. "We're not going to give away something committed to be delivered soon as a product," points out Feldman. The other focused on the prospect that the featured technologies would show competitors where IBM is heading. That doesn't worry Morbitzer. "We have traditionally refused to release a technology until it's available on three platforms in four versions with a 36-page book," he argues. "That meant we were late to market. AlphaWorks reverses that. Putting out the news early makes you the one they build around."
For Further Information:
You can find alphaWorks at http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com
Internet Ticketing: Train Ticketing via Internet
The Swiss Federal Railways and IBM have signed a joint agreement to develop a system for purchasing train tickets over the Internet. According to the current plan, customers will test a prototype system next spring.
The railway company has been providing online schedules and other travel information to Internet users in Switzerland and elsewhere since February. New security protocols for electronic payments, based on the Secure Electronic Transaction (SET) standard, now make it feasible to extend that system to sell tickets online. Scientists from IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center and Zurich Research Laboratories have made significant contributions to that technology (see "Security Makes 'Net Gains," Research, Number 1, 1996).
Experts from Swiss Railways and the Zurich laboratory are developing the architecture of the ticketing system as a first-of-a-kind solution. The key element is a Web server that conducts the dialogue with the online customer, provides continually updated information from the railway company's databases and forwards orders for processing. A link to the financial network, also protected by electronic security, allows the system to check the customer's credit card before confirming an order.
In practice, a customer will select an itinerary from the online timetable and fill in an electronic order form on the screen. The fare will then appear on the screen. The customer will be able to buy the ticket by typing in the number of his or her credit card and confirming the purchase with a mouse click.
Future developments will include payment methods beyond credit cards. By introducing portable, multifunction smart cards that can handle both payment and ticketing, the system will provide passengers with more options. Not only will they be able to select, reserve and pay for their tickets, but they will also be able to obtain the tickets electronically, by downloading and storing on the card. This will permit passengers to dispense with paper tickets. It will also enable vendors to offer combinations of tickets - for train travel to a ski resort and for lifts once there, for example - on the same card.
