The InterMedia Market: Dynamic, Interactive Multimedia in the Corporate
Environment
E-mail. Graphical presentations. Database applications. Documentation.
Video databases. Mixed media content. The Internet. Electronic commerce.
The corporate intranet.
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Corporations today are faced with the challenge of how to incorporate the
onslaught of new mixed media datatypes within their current IT
infrastructure, including the connections that everyone wants to the
Internet and the worldwide web. Mixed media presents an exciting
opportunity to bring existing applications alive, to make them dynamic.
New middleware solutions are arising that allow companies to integrate all
of these disparate applications and make them available across the network
to users at their desktops, locally or at remote sites. Mixed media then
becomes a powerful, collaborative ally. We call this new, dynamic
environment the InterMedia market.
InterMedia combines
existing applications with new, dynamic datatypes. It consists of three
major application/content areas:
- Mixed media content includes audio, video, animation, graphics, text -- a
company's current database, word processing and document applications, as
well as graphics and new multimedia-based applications incorporating audio
and video.
- Collaborative applications -- including groupware, e-mail,
file sharing.
- Internet and intranet services.
Many of these applications and content areas have been in existence for
some time, including groupware, e-mail, and the Internet. But they, along
with new multimedia applications, exist primarily as disparate functions
within the corporate environment. A viable InterMedia solution needs to
support all of these datatypes -- current text-based applications as well
as new multimedia content, such as animation, graphics, audio/video -- and
integrate them into a cohesive environment available to employees
throughout the corporation, as well as, possibly, directly to external
audiences over the Internet.
The DirecPC mixed media delivery product, in conjunction with Starlight
software, provides a solution that combines this mixed media panoply in an
interactive, collaborative environment. This environment spans the
corporate communications network both internally (intranet and LAN) and
externally (Internet and WAN).
Interactivity is the key. Where these three content areas intersect, we
have interactivity. Interactivity is the key to InterMedia. Interactivity
becomes the crucial middleware that ties these functions together and
makes them collaborative and viable in the corporate environment.
Interactivity is the mechanism that: enlivens existing applications with
dynamic multimedia; brings video immediately to your desktop through your
Netscape browser/viewer; opens the door to exciting new online
transactions for electronic commerce, etc.
A New Dynamic, Interactive Electronic World.
InterMedia opens up an entirely new area of opportunity for information
service providers to create and deliver new dynamic, interactive
applications and services that take advantage of this new cohesive,
collaborative environment. Information service providers have an
opportunity to maximize use of mixed media content on worldwide web sites,
and create new multimedia-based applications for the Internet. This
solution gives users the ability to interact directly with the vendor,
bypassing the usual intermediaries, or middlemen, that have been in place
to help reach an intended audience. Content providers now have a direct
route to reach their ultimate audience
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