Saturday, January 17, 1998

I just read the Netscape/Marimba proposal and am thinking about the value of having a clean XML repository on the client machine. A picture that assembles on the client side of the net connection can be higher level than just a set of files in folders. We want to push around data, not just plain text. Numbers, dates, schedules, lists, outlines, scripts, wp docs and spreadsheets. With the RPC stuff we're building, we put a clever interface on HTTP, the stuff need never make it to a file system on either end of the connection. And then we hook in the content management system and create newsroom systems for managing this kind of content.

More sandbox pieces: "Metadata", "Fractional Horsepower HTTP Servers", XML, Real-World XML, Scripting News in XML, XML+RPC+WEB+ODB+WIN+MAC.

One more thing. It's a short step from viewing the client side as something different from the server side. It gets really interesting when you start thinking about the workstations as peers, each with their own powerful object database (and powerful human beings). This is the vision that Microsoft had with Cairo, Newton with their soups, and General Magic with their intelligent agents. These were good ideas.

Wired: Microsoft on the back-end.

NY Times: Besieged Microsoft is humbled and jittery.

Time: Cloning is the technology of narcissism.

Melbourne Online: Scientists find a tiny fountain of youth.

PC Magazine: A human mouse.

PC also surveys Windows authoring tools. We have to do some PR groundwork here.