BRITISH TELECOM INTO GLOBAL NETWORKING

London-based British Telecommunications PLC landed center stage last month with a report that the company had big plans for a global network for the transmission of voice, data and video to multinational corporations.

According to The Wall Street Journal, development of the project is already under way with four multi-million dollar hubs to be installed in London, New York, Frankfurt and Sydney by the end of 1993. The article details a plan for an installation of 32 hubs and 20 switching centers to be completed by 2002.

The national business daily based its information on four internal BT documents acquired by the paper from persons close to the company.

This global network would allow British Telecom to install and operate a communications network for large international corporations. These networks will facilitate internal communications, such as dialing a colleague’s extension, even when that colleague is overseas.

In addition, it will be able to provide video teleconferencing and high-speed data lines. Transmissions would reportedly be 5–15 percent cheaper than current international-switched telephone calls.

Many companies find it more convenient, as well as less expensive, to have their communications systems operated by external companies. In the U.S., many large corporations maintain leased lines between major centers, allowing for simplified switching of calls and data between offices spread across the continent. BT’s plan would create similar services on a global scale.

BT is neither confirming nor denying the reported operation. “We’re not talking about that right now,” said David Callisch, a spokesperson in BT’s San Jose, CA, office. “As a matter of fact, we’re looking into the source of the leak.”

Although companies such as AT&T, Sprint, MCI and other international telecommunication companies have been working on similar global networks, the reported BT plan is the most ambitious project to date.

The road to becoming a ubiquitous international network supplier will probably not be a smooth one, however. BT, or any other company setting its sights on such an international market, must first win over national regulatory bodies. In Europe, the European Community has brought down many of the borders that once separated European markets. Still, one has to wonder if the European governments that maintain close ties to their national telecommunications companies would allow a foreign company to take such a potentially sizable chunk of their telecommunications market. U.S. hurdles are no less daunting. The current deregulatory mood of the FCC does not guarantee an easy passage into U.S. markets by a foreign telecommunications giant.

INTERACTIVE COMIC BOOKS FROM DARK VISION INTERACTIVE

Multimedia producer Total Vision, of Santa Monica, CA, and comic book publisher Dark Horse Comics, of Milwaukie, OR, are joining forces to develop interactive multimedia titles based on theatrical motion pictures and their corresponding comic book characters.

Dark Horse Comics, which is the third largest comic book publisher in the U.S., has created an extremely successful comic book series based on the Alien movies as well as the Schwarzenegger hit, Predator. The company has a strong relationship with a number of film companies that have granted the comic book rights, including interactive comics, to the Indiana Jones movies and Terminator. Dark Horse also boasts its own film production company, Dark Horse Entertainment, so it should not be at a loss for characters and stories to bring to the new company.

The new venture, called Dark Vision Interactive, will develop 10 titles during the next two years. The first, based on Alien, will be released in the summer of 1993, and will cost between $50 and $75. Also in the works are Predator and Concrete, which is not an action/adventure title, but is based on a comic book series with broad-based appeal. Each title is expected to cost between $500,000 and $1 million.

The theatrical film of Concrete, currently in preproduction, is being produced by Largo Entertainment and Dark Horse Entertainment. The interactive title will combine animation with video footage from the movie.

The goal of Dark Vision is to create interactive titles that are based in cinematic techniques, not games. While there will certainly be game elements in the titles, the focus will be on characters and storylines. Each title will have multiple story lines that are determined by the user. In Alien, for example, the user would be able to follow either of two main characters. However, the actions that you direct with one character may affect what happens to the other. The user would be able to switch between characters during the session.

According to Michael Howse, managing director of Total Vision, interactive multimedia today suffers from a lack of “products with real story lines. Good stories drive an awful lot of people to the movies and it will drive people to interactive software as well.”

The interactive comics, with 3d graphics and high-quality digital audio, will initially be available for CD-I as well as Macintosh and MPC CD-ROMs. According to Howse, the company is experimenting with the CD-based game formats from Sega and Nintendo, but aren’t yet sure it those devices can handle the high-quality graphics that are integral to the programs.

“Technically we can do a lot of things. We have to work out the creative issues,” says Howse. “That’s what we’re doing.”

ONE BIG, HAPPY FAMILY

In a flurry of purchases and stock swaps during a two-month period, Gain Technology purchased Santa Fe Interactive, after which Gain was purchased by database vendor, Sybase. The three companies have pooled their resources in order to offer a family of tools for the creation of, and access to, huge multimedia databases.

Santa Fe Interactive, which will now be called Gain Interactive, creates interactive business systems for corporate customers like American Express and Dow Chemical. Santa Fe is a custom developer, creating applications with whichever tools might be appropriate for the task, be it prototyping, training or design.

Gain Technology is the developer of the high-end GainMomentum object-oriented multimedia system software. Its products enable the creation of large-scale corporate applications, such as the interface for massive databases running on Sun Sparcstations and, soon, other Unix workstations. The company’s specialty has been the capability to easily incorporate rich media types in these applications. GainMomentum, for example, is being used by Matsushita for the development of interactive high-definition programming. (For more information on the Gain/Matsushita agreement, see Vol. 1, No. 7, p. 17.)

Sybase is the maker of one of the most popular relational database management systems. As is normally the case with such systems, Sybase has focused its energies on enabling customers to create fast, system-wide databases, but has focused little on the end-user. Sybase users have commented that the interface tools that accompany the Sybase system are not very good.

The front end, or user interface for such databases, is usually created with a third party’s design and interface tools.

One issue facing multimedia producers is how to distribute libraries of digital information to end users. Since the amount of data is so high, it would clog most PC-based systems. An integrated authoring system, built around a high-powered Unix workstation, could make such development easier.

Applications already under development include workstations for government intelligence operations, which would put at the researcher’s fingertips the full databases, real-time data feeds (from satellites, for example) as well as live video from war scenes and CNN. Such applications are also being developed for the financial services industry.

(NOT) AN IBM PDA

IBM will demonstrate “mobile computing technologies” for use in laptop and notebook computers and personal digital assistants, or pdas, at Comdex in November.

“IBM will not be showing a device, we’ll be showing mobile computing solutions,” Tara Sexton, spokesperson for IBM’s Personal Systems Division, said. “Pdas are a nascent market right now. It [the company's Comdex presentation] will be a technology demonstration of mobile computing, including laptops, notebooks and pdas. But it’s not just pdas. We’re looking at it from a much broader angle than that. It’s about mobile computing technologies.”

IBM representatives, while not very comfortable talking about what is still in development, made it very clear that these are not consumer technologies, but mainline business tools, which is consistent with IBM’s perspective on most computer applications. Its multimedia efforts are also directed toward business solutions, not consumer players.

Apple has recently begun to redirect its efforts at marketing the Newton PDA technology to business circles as well. While it was introduced at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Apple chairman John Sculley’s latest comments portrayed the Newton as the mobile end of a business computer network, and felt that the CES introduction served to misplace the primary function of the device. IBM seems determined not to make that mistake.