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SNEAK PREVIEWS

Ride The Internet On Mustang's Horse Of A Different Color

by Scott Koegler

What do you get when you cross a mustang with a wildcat? By combining BBS software and a Web server, Mustang Software puts a pretty face on an old workhorse. Wildcat! 5 can be installed on either a Windows95 or Windows NT server, and it makes the BBS look like an Internet server by implementing its functionality in an HTML interface. I looked at the Internet Connectivity Package, which lets the BBS act like an Internet system. It enables you to connect inbound and outbound users to the Internet. To help you set up your Internet site and configure your system, SoftQuad's HotMetal Pro 2.0 is packaged with the server software and includes Wildca t!'s file and chat capabilities. The Internet Connectivity Package also provides application plug-ins, so Netscape and Microsoft Internet Explorer users can access the Mustang components.

This migration from BBS to intranet server seems a natural transition for Wildcat!, since it brings the features that make BBSes so popular and functional into the corporate setting. These features include strong, private messaging capabilities, such as threaded messages, real-time conferencing, file sharing and e-mail. To make the transition and to take advantage of Internet connectivity, Mustang decided to build its own client browser software to avoid the cost of licensing a browser to the client. Of course, since that decision was made, Internet Explorer has become a no-cost ite m for Windows95 users and Macintosh.

Wildcat! 5 is a robust and enhanced Web site server. But in a world with increasing competition in Web servers, Wildcat! 5 needs to provide a few extra goodies to be seen as a viable alte rnative. It isn't clear whether the five included applications are different enough from their standard counterparts like FTP, Internet relay chat, e-mail and newsgroups, to convince administrators to pay a per-user license fee and use a required browser. Mustang is recruiting independent software developers to build add-on applications that will boost the value of their server. They hope to see the fruits of these partnerships soon in the form of vertical and horizontal applications built on its wcCODE application language. I think Mustang needs to provide additional, compelling applications to effectively fend off the competition and set Wildcat! apart from the standard Web server.

Giddyup and Go Installation Wildcat! 5 was delivered on a CD-ROM. I installed it on my Win95 system in about 10 minutes simply by selecting the "Install Wildcat!5" icon. I then installed the Wildcat! Navigator browser from the same CD onto the same machine, which was also a simple task. I brought up the server and answered a few configuration questions but let the system assume default values for most of the options, including security, file location and the selection of applications installed. Wildcat!'s user configuration and server administration are Windows-based applications. They are a welcome change from the sometimes quirky but always different BBS administration tools that systems operators live and breathe by. I minimized the server to the activity tray at the bottom of the Win95 desktop where it stayed out of the way. I added the optional Internet Connectivity Package, making it available to external Internet users, as well as internal users on the LAN via their TCP/IP connection.

Wildcat! 5 is designed to look and run like an Internet server and provide BBS-s tyle privacy and facilities. It does a good job of providing a Mosaic-style front end with its freely distributable Navigator software. What sets Wildcat! Navigator apart from Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator are five plug-in modules included with the package. (The plug-ins are also available as downloadable extensions to work with Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator.) Since most people on the Internet already have either package, they should stick with them to stay current with mainstream browser extensions. For strict intranet access by a closed group/company, using Mustang's browser eliminates the need to purchase another broswer and keeps overall costs down. The Messaging Client includes an e-mail editor/address book/spellchecker, and provides access to e-mail and Wildcat! Conferences. The File Client uses a Windows95 explorer-style interface so you can download files stored on the Wildcat! server. A Transfer Client enables bidirectional file transfer using Windows Wizards to simplify the process. The Who's Online Client lets you locate and communicate with other users, while the Chat Client perpetuates the traditional BBS chat forums in a Windows-type interface.

Clients Ride Full-Speed Ahead! I tried out these clients by logging onto Mustang's server. All performed smoothly and were very intuitive. The load on to the server at the time might equate to that of a small intranet. Running the Who's Online application showed 73 users.

An element in Wildcat!'s favor is the direct migration path from Win95 to NT. As the activity and demand on your intranet increases, a simple upgrade from single-processor Win95 to multiprocessor NT can provide the increased performance necessary to meet your demands. Wildcat! scales in multiprocessor environments. On the other hand, Wildcat!5 is sold on a user-count basis. You can give away as many copies of Navigator as you like, but the number of simultaneous users is regulated by your server license, which maxes out at 256.

One of t he advantages of BBSes is their inherent ability to track who its users are and what they do. Though this ability doesn't extend to unregistered browsers on the Internet, you can extract usage and demographic informat ion for all registered intranet users with Mustang's wcREPORTS add-on. Also not included, but promised for delivery this year, are Wildcat!'s add-on modules that include Wildcat! Open Database Connectivity (wcODBC), which links databases to Web-based applications for accessing databases through ODBC calls; IRC for connecting Wildcat! to Internet Relay Chat capabilities with gateways to BBS chat rooms; Network News Transport Protocol (NNTP) for supporting Internet news groups; and wcSUBSCRIBE and wcBILLING that let sys ops turn their systems into profit centers.

Scott Koegler can be reached at 76424.1345@compuserve.com. His book, Multisite Systems Integration, deals with system and management issues in distributed NetWare and Unix environments.

Wildcat! 5 for Windows95/NT
Starts at $249 (two-user system).
Available: Now.
Mustang Software,
(800) 999-9619. http://www.mustang.com


Wildcat! 5 server runs under Win95 and provides multitasking. All the management applications shown here (Line Monitor, the Queues display, an ASCII local login screen and the Menu Management screen) were active while the BBS was running.


Updated July 8, 1996

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