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Staging Presence

Before establishing my first collaborative session with Presence-AR Adapter for Excel, I had to set up two server-side components: a directory server and a SQL Server database populated with Presence-AR Adapter's tables. The Presence-AR Directory Server, a Java applet that runs on a Unix or Microsoft Windows box, manages collaborative sessions and presents a list of available sessions to Presence-AR Adapter users.

Presence-AR Adapter for Excel requires SQL Server 2000 to host the Advanced Reality databases. These databases track the changes made during a collaborative session and the permissions defined for a session. For instance, I defined a range of cells that participants could modify during a session -- and these permissions were stored in a SQL table during a collaborative session.

Once those components are in place, your end users need both a Java Virtual Machine (I used version 1.3.1) and the Presence-AR Adapter. One advantage of working with a small, new company like Advanced Reality is that it may be more responsive to customer requests. I suggested two changes to the installation: a utility to preconfigure the client prior to deploying it for a "hands-off" installation on the client side, and a distribution that doesn't include JVM 1.3.1, which bulks up the distribution to 9 MB from 3 MB. This last issue can cause a real bottleneck if you have slow links between your sites.

Within a couple of days I had my wish-list items in hand along with the company's assurance that these changes would be in the final product as well. Admittedly, a reviewer may get a different response than other users, but I've generally found new firms with new products more flexible than more established companies.

Alpha and Omega

Installing Presence-AR Adapter for Excel adds two new buttons to the Excel interface: "Begin Collaboration" and "End Collaboration." It couldn't be easier. With these buttons your users can create, join, leave and end collaborative sessions. Presence-AR Adapter is designed to fail over to other participants automatically should the session initiator drop out.

On the client side, Presence-AR Adapter uses Java applets and XML files for configuration information, making it platform-independent -- at least in theory. The shrink-wrapped version is for Microsoft Windows users, but Advanced Reality has designed Presence-AR Adapter as a platform-independent environment from the ground up, so developing adapters for multiple platforms should be a simple undertaking for the company or for your own development staff.

Because it's data-centric, Presence-AR Adapter is application-independent and fast, fast, fast. I tested Presence-AR Adapter over a cable-modem link between two PCs running Excel. Because no graphical information was transmitted or replicated between the machines -- only changed data is shared -- even slow links felt as fast as local processes.

This isn't application sharing, which can get bogged down even over fast links -- it's data sharing.

The difference is noticeable and very appealing when compared with application-sharing environments I've used, including eRoom Digital Workplace (see "Sharing Is Daring"). The speed is especially impressive when you consider that all the data traveling across the network is SSL-encrypted.

Crossing Apps

Did I mention that Presence-AR Adapter is application-independent? If you're using Excel and your colleague is using Lotus 1-2-3, you can still collaborate as long as each side has the two Presence-AR Adapter pieces required -- a collaborative representation of the type of data each application uses and a bidirectional adapter to translate events in the application into modifications to the data representation. Advanced Reality says it will release an Adapter SDK later so you can develop your own adapters and will develop custom adapters for customers for a price.

If you're looking for a collaboration environment for Excel users, Presence-AR for Excel is worth a close look. And if you're looking for platform and application independence as well as the ability to develop collaborative adapters for your own applications, Presence-AR is on a very short list indeed.

Ron Anderson is Network Computing's lab director. Before joining the staff, he managed IT in various capacities at Syracuse University and the Veteran's Administration. Send your comments on this article to him at randerson@nwc.com.