---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Florida SunFlash Multimedia: Sun's Directions (2 of 6) SunFLASH Vol 40 #26 April 1992 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 Sun's Multimedia Direction Sun's direction in multimedia centers around the concept of collaborative multimedia - multimedia applied to corporate communication enabling increased group productivity and creativity, faster development of higher quality products, more efficient corporate processes, better customer service. In short Sun intends to provide a competitive advantage by empowering teams with powerful access to and manipulation of information. Collaborative Multimedia Sun defines collaborative multimedia as the combination of multimedia with desktop systems and networking to enable powerful communication systems for groups of people working in teams. Multimedia Multimedia enables people to communicate using integrated media: audio, video, text, graphics, fax, and telephony. The benefit is more powerful communication. The combination of several media often provides richer, more effective communication of information or ideas than a single media such as traditional text-based communication can accomplish. The Desktop The desktop workstation is the new communication center - the individual's connection to the enterprise. Through the desktop the individual can connect with other individuals and with information sources such as documents and databases. The desktop is also the focus for the integration of critical office automation resources such as fax, telephone, answering machine, address file, and so on. It integrates these resources, both into the workstation and with each other. Finally, the multimedia desktop will provide built-in standard multimedia capabilities such as audio, video, telephony and fax. Multimedia functionality will be built-in, both in hardware and in software development platforms as well as standard desktop software. Developers can count on a certain level of multimedia functionality on every desktop. The Network Powerful networking capabilities provide access to people and information across not only the enterprise, but cross-platform and globally as well. People and information must also be accessible when you are not at your desk through portable computing and remote access. For instance, you could call your workstation from a public phone and have important information read to you. Powerful Platform for Powerful Communication The networked multimedia desktop is a prerequisite for collaborative multimedia; powerful communication depends on a powerful platform. This platform must be multimedia-ready, with bundled multimedia technology supported by a multimedia development environment and adherence to standards. Connectivity (networking), speed (workstation performance), multi- tasking, and a client/server architecture are all necessary to enable this level of communication power. Empowering Teams with Information Collaborative multimedia enables new levels of multimedia solutions for individuals, workgroups and corporations as a whole. Personal multimedia solutions provide new ways of delivering information to individuals. Group multimedia involves new ways of working together. Corporate multimedia enables whole new ways of doing business. The more powerful communication that collaborative multimedia enables can provide a real competitive advantage. Collaborative multimedia is much more than just presentations and entertainment: it enables faster development of higher quality products, better customer service, more efficient corporate processes, and increased group productivity and creativity. See the Multimedia on Sun Workstations brochure for examples of how Sun customers are benefitting from multimedia today. Personal Multimedia In the 1990s, information must be accessible in many forms. Personal multimedia involves new ways to deliver information to the individual. Typically the communication is one way - experts create/author the materials, and the individuals view (play back) the materials. Prepared materials, such as presentations or multimedia documents, may be viewed from media (CD- ROM, video disc, VCR) or from on-line files. Examples include employee training, sales presentations, or customer service kiosks. Network access means that the information can be distributed over the network and located away from the individual user. Group Multimedia Group multimedia enables real-time, interactive collaboration among members of a project team, customer service group or other work group. Communication is two-way: team members are both authors and viewers of the shared materials. Functionality includes screen-sharing so team members can view each other's work, shared whiteboard capability enabling interactive mark up of documents, and video conferencing for real-time interactive exchange. Everything you need during your conference is already available from your workstation, ready to be shared. Typical uses of group multimedia would be for collaborative business analysis and decision making, or for concurrent engineering. Corporate Multimedia Corporate multimedia centers around the impact of multimedia on applications that are critical to the nature of the corporation's products or services. Examples are o Collaborative medical diagnosis and treatment in a healthcare facility o Customer service, such as order processing in a manufacturing company o Intercompany cooperation, such as insurance claims settlement Typically these types of applications are developed in-house by MIS departments, or by vertical independent software vendors or system integrators. They are applications that directly affect the bottom line of the business. Sun's 3-Point Multimedia Strategy Sun's multimedia strategy involves: o Delivering multimedia-ready workstations o Providing an open development environment o Forming key strategic partnerships The Multimedia-Ready Workstation Sun workstations are multimedia-ready today. SPARCstations have included voice-quality audio since their introduction in 1989. They also support large screen displays, high-resolution color graphics, and a CD-ROM interface. The multitasking capability of the operating system and extensive networking support are fundamental enabling technologies required for true collaborative multimedia. The OpenWindows V3 multimedia mail tool and Calendar Manager are the first DeskSet applications to begin to address collaborative work and multimedia communications. As time goes by the level of multimedia support bundled in Sun Workstations will increase. Over 100 third-party solutions related to multimedia are available today. These encompass products in the areas of: o Multimedia documents and multimedia mail o Image manipulation and animation o Video hardware and software o Audio and speech recognition o Multimedia presentations and hypermedia o ISDN and fax These third-party products make Sun fully equipped for multimedia. See the Multimedia Portfolio for a complete listing of Sun and third-party products that support multimedia. An Open Development Environment The Sun multimedia platform will provide a unified multimedia programming interface for developers. It will be based on industry standards, and will be cross-platform. Sun participates in a number of key standards organizations: o Interactive Multimedia Association (IMA), which deals with cross-platform multimedia standards o International Standards Organization (ISO) and International Telecommunications Standards Organization (CCITT) which deal with video compression o National ISDN User's Forum (NIU) o CCITT also deals with fax o SPARC International (SPARC compliance definition) o UNIX" International (multimedia team) The standards that Sun is tracking for cross-platform interoperability are in the areas of: o Video o Video and audio compression o Communications o Fax o CD-ROM o Graphics and imaging o File formats o Device control Key Strategic Partnerships Partnerships are critical to the development of Sun's multimedia strategy. Sun is undertaking several types of partnerships: o Technology partnerships. These focus on joint platform development, including joint applications programming interface (API) development, cross-platform development and standards efforts. o Software and hardware developers. These focus on complete solutions including applications software. The goal is to move beyond multimedia- ready to actual multimedia solutions o Customers. The focus is on requirements identification and development of multimedia solutions. Customers provide feedback on the platform work, proof-of-concept for significant solutions and success stories. Sun's Differentiation Sun's collaborative multimedia strategy provides a powerful competitive advantage for corporations. o Multimedia-ready workstations from Sun provide standard multimedia capabilities that will track emerging industry and de facto standards. In addition, an open multimedia development environment will facilitate the development of key multimedia solutions. o Sun's speed, connectivity, multi-tasking capabilities, and client-server architecture provide the infrastructure to support collaborative multimedia. o Sun's multimedia-ready workstations enable corporate-wide solutions that can provide a competitive advantage and positively affect the bottom line.