Now that Cisco Systems and Sun Microsystems have joined the Salutation Consortium, the organization is shaking off its rap as just a bunch of fax and copier companies looking for a way to push office machines into the networked age. The addition of Cisco and Sun reinforces the group's latest plans to put these and emerging devices like Internet appliances over the Internet so users can find any printer, fax or other machine from any network computer (NC), for instance.

But don't read too much into Cisco and Sun's participation, experts warn. Andrew Johnson, a senior industry analyst at Dataquest, says the consortium is still struggling to get its arms around using the Internet for these devices. Bigger news, says Johnson, is the fact that consortium member IBM Corp. has introduced Windows95- and Windows NT-based toolkits for building Salutation-based products, and has unveiled its NetCube for NetFinity 1.0 Web server and browser software in Japan - the first products based on the Salutation technology.

Cisco's stake in the consortium's work is its Internet appliance, the MicroWeb Server. In addition, Mary Hill, managing director of the Salutation Consortium, happens to be business development manager for Cisco's Technology Partners division.

Sun is trying to determine if and how the consortium's work fits with its own work on the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Service Location Protocol, which lets users find Web, directory, file and print servers on an IP network, says David Nelson-Gal, manager of NetCentricity at Sun. The consortium's protocol focuses more on how specific devices like faxes and printers can interoperate with one another over a network, Nelson-Gal says.

But not all major players in the office machine market are sold on the Internet. For instance, Pitney Bowes Fax Systems, which is not a member of the consortium, is studying whether it makes sense to fax over the Internet, says Deborah Sauer, vice president of marketing. People use faxes because they are quick and reliable - two features not always associated with the Internet, or computers.

Source: Network Computing