[Editor's Note: This new summary of Netscape's platform strategy is an update to the previous Netscape strategy white paper, "Crossware: Applications for the Networked Enterprise," prepared by Marc and his team in June 1997 for the Netscape Developers Conference. To keep up to date on Netscape's platform strategy and Marc's vision for the Internet and Netscape, be sure to see the resources listed at the end of this article.]
 

Netscape's vision comprises one seamless network that links people and businesses together by extending corporate intranets to everyone your company does business with -- consumers, business customers, prospects, suppliers, distributors, partners, consultants, and contractors. These systems are referred to as extranets.

An extranet provides three primary benefits:
 

• Saves you money and expands your business.  By conducting business with your partners, suppliers, and customers over an extranet, you can significantly lower transaction costs.  Also, you can conduct business 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all over the world.
• Strengthens your customer relationships. With new types of Internet-based services, you can engage customers in a direct interactive relationship that results in their getting precisely what they want when they want it.
• Speeds the process of bringing successful products and services to market. Automating collaboration with business partners lets you gain competitive advantage by saving time and improving productivity. For example, a product design company could take its entire product design process online. Partners and customers are drawn into the process, removing the traditional communication barriers that prevent rapid, market-centered product design and creation.

Extranets extend your internal systems out to your customers and partners. There are five key challenges to successfully building and deploying extranet applications:

• Cross-platform support. You have little or no control over the hardware, operating systems, and operating system versions used by your customers or partner. Your extranet applications must be able to run on the systems they already have in place. It's critical that the extranet applications be able to run anywhere.
• Enterprise connectivity. Extending your internal systems to your customers, partners, and suppliers begins with connecting your legacy systems with the network.  Many of these systems reside on large mainframe and Unix servers, or rely on mainstream database systems such as Oracle, Informix, and Sybase. It's critical that you have the tools for tapping into these systems in order to rapidly build and deploy extranet applications.
• Scalability. As you open your system to partners and customers, the number of people using it can easily rise from hundreds of users to thousands, even millions, making scalability a key requirement. A successful system requires application services that can scale the performance of the system to meet peak demand needs.
• Security. When you open your key business systems via an extranet, it's entirely appropriate to be concerned with security. Absolute control over who can access the system, and what they can do and see, is an absolute prerequisite to deploying an extranet application.
• Deployability. Deploying an extranet application is not like deploying a conventional application. You can't rely on a systems administrator to install an extranet application, as its users will be located at other companies around the world. The number of its users can also preclude deployment assistance by any centralized resource. For the first time, the Internet provides a standard infrastructure that can enable deployment of applications on the scale required for extranet applications.

The Netscape ONE (Open Networking Environment) platform is designed to make it easy to build, deploy, and manage intranet, extranet and Internet applications. The Netscape ONE platform is optimized to support a very powerful applications model and provides a set of services in the form of building blocks which can be used to rapidly construct these applications.

The Netscape ONE Application Model

Netscape provides a suite of tools and a deployment platform that are designed to address the requirements of intranet, extranet, and Internet applications. The tools and services support the following simple, yet powerful application model:

• Drag and drop JavaBean components onto a web page
• Wire together the components into an application with JavaScript
• Deploy the web application simply by publishing the web page to a web server

Three key languages support this application model:

• Java - the programming language for the Internet
• JavaScript - the scripting language for the Internet
• Dynamic HTML - the content and layout description language for the Internet

All three language support the "write once, run anywhere" requirement that is so critical to Internet and extranet applications.

NETSCAPE ONE SERVICES

Netscape ONE Services are the set of services that Netscape and its partners provide as the building blocks for developing powerful intranet, extranet, and Internet applications. Many of these services are available today from Netscape as JavaBeans components. Many more JavaBeans components will become available as Netscape continues to expose the functionality of the Communicator client and SuiteSpot server suites as JavaBeans. Netscape ONE JavaBeans enable developers to leverage existing software code to build applications using the following services:

Content Management

• Publishing Services - publishing, version control, access control of documents
• Workflow Services - document-based routing
• Search Services - document programmatic search and search agents
• Messaging Services - sending and receiving documents

• User Authentication Services - certificate-based security services to control who can access what data
• Location Independence Services - provides the ability to support roaming use, preferences management
• Centralized Administration Services - user management, group administration
• Application Management Services - single point application administration, configuration, and monitoring

• Directory Services - centralized access to common user and organizational data
• Database Connectivity Services - native connectivity to existing Oracle, Sybase, Informix, and SQL Server databases
• Transaction Management Services - request brokering, state and session management, dynamic load balancing, application partitioning, and transaction management across heterogeneous data sources
• Legacy Connectivity Services - connectivity to mainframe data and applications

The Netscape ONE application model and Internet services enable you to easily write the next generation of extranet applications. These applications, which extend your reach to business partners, suppliers and customers can cut your costs, increase customer satisfaction, and reduce time to market. Netscape is committed to providing you with the most powerful, scalable, robust, and ease-to-use platform for rapidly building and deploying these applications.

FURTHER RESOURCES

• Marc Andreessen's TechVision column
• Netscape ONE Technologies area within DevEdge Online

Thanks to Marty Cagan and the Netscape ONE platform team for their help preparing this article.

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Related Readings:

• Frequently Asked Questions: Find the answers to your questions on Internet technologies.
• Documentation: A library of technical information.
• Developer Central: Collections of developer resources organized by Internet technology areas.

Any sample code included above is provided for your use on an "AS IS" basis, under the Netscape License Agreement - Terms of Use