OREM, Utah Feb. 5, 1996 Caldera Inc., today began shipping the Caldera Network Desktop 1.0, a complete Internet/Intranet networked desktop and server environment built on the now-popular Linux technology the industry's fastest growing World Wide Web server operating system. The Caldera Network Desktop offers a fully graphical environment capable of authoring, navigating and publishing information to the Internet and Intranets. The Caldera Network Desktop is also a NetWare Client and provides client and server access to Microsoft Windows for Workgroups, Windows NT and Windows 95, and all existing UNIX network systems. In addition, Caldera, a Ray Noorda company, has licensed Netscape Navigator , the widely popular client software for enterprise networks and the Internet.
"Everyone is telling corporate IS managers that they need to get their companies interacting with the Internet. But until we shipped this product, no vendor was offering a complete Internet/Intranet authoring and serving platform that was both reliable and affordable," said Bryan Sparks, President of Caldera. "Not only does the Caldera Network Desktop easily automate creation and distribution of information across the network and across the Internet, it allows users to continue to work in their current environments. This is a big benefit to IS managers."
Doug Bateman, Campus IS coordinator & Webmaster for the University of North Texas, concurs. "The Caldera Network Desktop provides the best Internet server and NetWare management solution available in the industry," said Bateman. "Using the CND NetWare Client, I am able to remotely manage all of the functions of the campus-wide information network. The people utilizing the campus networks connected to the Caldera Network Desktop don't even know its helping them publish their documents to the Web."
The Caldera Network Desktop's complete set of protocols and technologies allows customers to interact with all of the Internet's services, including the World Wide Web (WWW), File Transfer Protocol (FTP), Wide Area Information Server (WAIS) and Gopher services. The product's features include a multi-domain Web server / Hyper Text Transport Protocol (HTTP) server, Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP) E-mail, Network News Transport Protocol (NNTP) Usenet News, Network File System (NFS), and dial-in server access via Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) / Serial Line Internet Protocol (SLIP).
In addition to providing enhanced browsing capabilities, the Netscape Navigator World Wide Web browser included in the product allows customers to read Usenet news and e-mail. In the Caldera Network Desktop environment, the Netscape Navigator is also used for viewing on-line help and documentation and for previewing HTML documents before they are publicly served on the Web.
"Netscape has partnered with Caldera in order to provide its navigating technologies to the rapidly-growing market of IS professionals who want to include Linux technologies in commercial computing environments," said Marc Matoza, Western Sales Channel Manager for Netscape. "Caldera shares our philosophy of providing well-designed, commodity-priced Internet products that parallel the industry migration away from high-cost, proprietary systems."
The Caldera Network Desktop is a NetWare Client with full NetWare Directory Services (NDS) support and provides drag and drop administration, client interaction, support for NetWare printing and more. The product is also both a client and server for Windows for Workgroups and all back-end UNIX networking systems.
"Southwest Airlines uses the Caldera Network Desktop to bridge the gap between our NetWare servers and our UNIX machines," said Kerry Schwab, UNIX Systems Administrator for Southwest Airlines. "Southwest also plans to use additional NetWare and Internet functionality currently under development at Caldera."
The Caldera Network Desktop is stocked with the industry's most-demanded features and technologies. Caldera's integration with Windows, DOS and UNIX networking environments allows customers using the Caldera Network Desktop to work in environments they are already familiar with, while using the additional features and services offered by the product.
Caldera has broad peripheral support including CD-ROM drives, network cards, PCMCIA drivers and support, IDE and SCSI controllers, video cards, ISDN and other communication cards, and much more. In addition, to provide X Window System graphical capabilities with high performance and minimal configuration, Caldera has licensed and included Accelerated-X from X Inside, Inc.
"UNIX. Affordable. These two words have never been used in the same sentence before," said Gary Anderson, President of X Inside. "The Caldera Network Desktop is an affordable, robust, reliable desktop with commercial applications ported and working! I've only been waiting 15 years for this to happen."
The product's graphical desktop interface includes drag and drop, extensible file typing, graphical file browsing, program groups, preferences and many more graphical features that simplify organization and use of the desktop and files.
The shipping product's installation process is greatly improved over the process that shipped with the Caldera Network Desktop Previews. The new graphical installation ships on a floppy disk and a CD-ROM and takes around 30 minutes for a complete installation of the Linux operating system and the Caldera Network Desktop. The help-enabled installation includes scripting that prompts the customer, asks minimal questions, interrogates the system hardware, automatically configures the operating system and loads appropriate drivers and modules as needed.
In December 1995, CMP Publications released survey results stating that 43 percent of Value Added Resellers (VARs) polled planned to adopt Internet technologies in 1996. Additionally, Forrester Research, Inc., recently released survey results showing that 50 percent of U.S. companies are evaluating or have current plans to install an Intranet.
To accommodate this growing market demand, Caldera is introducing two partner programs focused on this rapidly growing Information Server market: the Caldera Channel Partner program and the Caldera Independent Vendor Partner program. These programs represent Caldera's initial efforts to build the industry's first Linux VAR channel and the first Internet/Intranet ISV channel. (Request a separate "Caldera Partners" news release.)
Caldera has created a solid foundation on which third-parties can successfully design, develop, distribute or employ services that meet the needs of the expanding market with low product costs for consumers.
The Caldera Internet Office Suite's native applications include: WordPerfect ported to Caldera's platform, NCD Software's Z-mail e-mail package, XESS Software's NExS Spreadsheet, and Metrolink's Executive Motif Libraries. One example of how Caldera has added additional value to these products is the addition of Hyper Text Mark-up Language (HTML) authoring capabilities to WordPerfect ported to Caldera's platform, allowing end users to author and publish information to the Internet and Intranets from Caldera's single platform.
Caldera, Inc., a privately held company established in 1994, empowers the Internet community, developers, OEMs, channel partners, ISVs, industry partners, consultants and end-users to collaborate, innovate, build and deliver meaningful computing alternatives to the business community.
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Caldera is a registered trademark and Network Desktop is a trademark of Caldera, Inc., in the United States. UNIX is a registered trademark of X/Open. NetWare is a registered trademark of Novell, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Windows and Windows NT are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corp. Netscape Communications, the Netscape Communications logo, Netscape, and Netscape Navigator are trademarks of Netscape Communications Corporation.
Netscape
Chris Holten
Public Relations Specialist
(415) 528-2521
chrish@netscape.com
Southwest Airlines
Ed Stewart
Director, Public Relations
(214) 904-4187
University of North Texas
Doug Bateman
Campus IS Coordinator & Webmaster
(817) 565-2568
dbateman@unt.edu
X-Inside
Gary Anderson
President
(303) 298-7478
gary@xinside.com