Investing in innovation

In an effort to promote innovation in development, Sun Microsystems Inc. announced last week a $200 million investment fund that will benefit companies that develop products, markets, and services based on Sun technology and platforms. Sun says it plans to partner with leading venture capital firms and banks to identify investment opportunities in companies promoting the next generation of the Internet. 

The Sun Equity Investment Portfolio looks to help companies capitalize on the ever-increasing opportunities that exist in Internet business. As a provider of products, technologies, and services for the Internet, Sun will use its market access and industry knowledge to help promote the success of its portfolio companies. "Tying a financial commitment from Sun with our knowledge of the marketplace allows us to fuel a family of tomorrow's Internet businesses, with Sun technology at the foundation," said Michael E. Lehman, Sun's vice president of corporate resources and chief financial officer.

More information on the Sun investment fund will be available in the next 30 days at the company's Web site.

Outsourcing and e-commerce showers

The forecast...high chance of  e-commerce and outsourcing in the federal government, according to a new INPUT study, "Federal Information Systems and Services Market Forecast, 1999-2004." INPUT -- an IT market research and marketing services firm -- predicts that increasing demand for outsourcing and e-commerce-related activities will be the driving force behind growth in the federal IT market over the next five years.

The study forecasts that federal spending on electronic commerce will rise 10 percent and spending on outsourcing will increase six percent by 2004. The federal market overall for IT products and services will reach US$34 billion in that time, the study says.

Congress used to pressure agencies to limit the use of contractors for functions it considered governmental management, according to INPUT. After much downsizing in recent years, however, Congress is now urging federal workers to focus on mission-related activities and outsource technology implementation and management to the vendor community, the report says. There is also a push from the administration for government to conduct its business electronically by 2003, according to the study, which has led to an outcropping of e-commerce initiatives within federal government.

Copies of the market forecast are available at the INPUT Web site.

Decisions, decisions

Lumina Decision Systems hopes application developers and corporate IT groups will decide in favor of their new tool, Analytical Decision Engine 2.0. ADE 2.0 allows developers to incorporate Lumina's Analytica 2.0 Decision Support software into custom applications and Web sites.

"In today's competitive and fast-paced world, we often have to assimilate mountains of data and make crucial decisions on the fly. With ADE 2.0, companies can offer their employees or customers the ability to use a familiar application... to create thousands of  'what if' scenarios and  use this information to make complex decisions," said Thomas Tomasetti, CEO of Lumina.

This new tool can aid analytic and computational capacity in application areas such as e-commerce, financial and sales forecasting, corporate strategy, and artificial intelligence, Lumina says. ADE was the core technology used by Ask Jeeves to provide the natural-language answering services in its Shopping Advisor, for example.

ADE 2.0 is available as an ActiveX automaton server and it runs on Window NT 4.0 or later. You can download the product now at a special introductory price of  US$1,995, which includes a copy of Analytica Enterprise Edition 2.0.

The eyes have it

You spend hours looking at a computer screen, so it's important to make sure your eyes -- and your monitor -- are in good shape. Mitsubishi Display Product's new "Monitor" Your Eyes campaign offers free software programs to test your eyes at your monitor and to test the monitor itself, the company says.

Mitsubishi has worked with Dr. Ray Soneria (of DisplayMate fame) and optometrist Dr. Jeffrey Anshel, from Corporate Vision Consulting, to develop the two pieces of testing software. Soneria helped to tailor a novice version of DisplayMate -- a professional testing software for display products -- for the Mitsubishi program. It offers test patterns that check the basics of computer monitor performance.

Dr. Anshel's Eye-CEE eye testing software program helps test for any symptoms of Computer Vision Syndrome. CVS results from extended viewing of a video display terminal, according to healthcare professionals. 

The free software is available in limited quantity on disks from Mitsubishi and is also available for download from a "Monitor" Your Eyes Web site. Each disk contains a simple set of instructions and testing patterns, says Mitsubishi. The Web site also includes tips on how to best set up your workstation for maximum performance and health. The site will be regularly updated  throughout the campaign with additional tips for eye and monitor well-being.

You sure do have a nice configure

Looking to speed up and simplify the process of configuring and deploying PCs? Check out Epsilon Squared Inc.'s DeployRite 2.0, a tool that works in conjunction with disk imaging tools by separating application images from the operating system disk image. Separating the images saves both time and disk space, Epsilon Squared says, because the application images can then be used with a number of different hardware and operating system images.

DeployRite monitors changes made to a PC during installation of one or more applications. The tool then creates an application image -- called the InstallKit -- which contains all the files, folders, and other information necessary to clone those installation processes to other PCs. Users have the option of selecting multiple application images to be applied in a single session.

DeployRite allows customers to fully customize and configure installed applications before the creation of the InstallKit. It also includes an easy-to-use control panel and wizard to assist with the installation of applications and creation of InstallKits, says Epsilon Squared.

DeployRite is expected to be available in November 1999 for Windows NT, 95, 98, and 2000.

Samurai Palm

The latest sword unsheathed by Palm: CodeWarrior for the Palm Computing platform, Release 6. The latest version of the development tools package features kits for developing wireless, Web-enabled, Palm VII-connected organizer applications, as well as tools for Japanese language applications and UIs.

According to Palm, the newest version of CodeWarrior features updates to the Constructor user interface tool for creating Japanese application UIs; new printing libraries from Symbol Technologies; and two toolkits. One toolkit is used for developing applications to directly access Internet data through Web clipping technology on the Palm VII organizer. The other provides application programming interfaces for Japanese application development.

Release 6 of CodeWarrior is now available through Palm Computing at www.palm.com/prodsoft.html and is priced at US$369. Special pricing is available for qualified students. Palm will be mailing free upgrades to registered users of Release 5.