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Communicator comes with a client for reading news and an HTML authoring module. There are no surprises here. If you are familiar with Navigator Gold, you will not see much difference. The Professional Edition comes with Netscape Calendar client that requires a commitment to Netscape Calendar Server (see "Netscape Calendar Server 1.0 Rocks and Rolls," March 1, page 46). Also included is IBM Host On-Demand, a Java application written by IBM that allows access to 3270 hosts under the TN3270 emulation. Another feature in the Professional Edition is AutoAdmin, which provides the "l ower cost of ownership" that seems to be the solution to all networking questions. It minimizes the deployment costs of Communicator by providing a set of tools that let administrators centrally control and administer client configurations and software distribution.

Netcaster Netscape is upping the ante in the browser war with Netcaster (not yet available, but part of a future beta release). The latest buzzword in Web lingo is push, and Netcaster capitalizes on that. It works with Channel Finder to let you subscribe to a customizable collection of information channels (such as ABC News or CNNfn). Once you set up your schedules for delivering information from various channel p roviders, such information is delivered directly to your local hard disk in the background. You can view the information offline or request immediate updates.

A component that complements push delivery technology, Webtop is similar to the Active Desktop, which is part of Microsoft's Internet Explorer 4. It turns your entire computer screen into a borderless Web page. The channel can be viewed using the Webtop, and you can display any Web page as a Webtop. The technology needs some fine-tuning, though, as the Webtop takes over your entire screen barring access to your icons. The other option is to display your channels through Navigator just like any other Web page. The complete process is configurable, and you can allocate the amount of disk space for each channel and the frequency of updates. Netcaster eliminates the need for a separate product to enable offline browsing. More important, you can use it in a corporate setting to push important announcements and information to employees at their desks. A c reative corporation can probably capitalize on this technology to smooth internal communication among departments.

The integration of SuiteSpot servers with Communicator 4 lets corporations set up a powerful and flexible intranet messaging system. The overall offering can compete with Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange. The support for new dynamic HTML features lets you create attractive pages that may not require lots of network bandwidth. The resulting page looks impressive and requires little coding.

Ahmad Abualsamid is a server systems engineer at Epic Systems Corp. and a doctoral student at University of Wisconsin-Madison. He can be reached at sami@maf.wisc.edu