SAN JOSE, Calif., Sept. 11, 1997--The Salutation Consortium today issued a Request for Information (RFI) seeking bids for the development of a Salutation Port-of-Entry. Application developers can incorporate Salutation Port-of-Entry software into Windows products to represent an application's capabilities to other applications, devices, and services via the Salutation Protocols.
The Salutation Port-of-Entry will provide a consistent user interface and basic set of interactions with network peripherals, without requiring software manufacturers to develop Salutation-specific technology. It will supply a Windows configurator for representing the application to other Salutation-enabled products. The Port-of-Entry lets the end user specify and control which local resources can accept network queries from other Salutation-enabled devices, applications, and services.
The Salutation Architecture is a protocol for locating and controlling computers, consumer
devices, and office equipment across the Internet or a company intranet. It allows an application
to send a network query to locate a device, application or service, allowing maximum possible
use of the characteristics discovered.
The RFI is posted on the Salutation website at www.salutation.org/ussalute/poerfi.htm.
"The Salutation Port-of-Entry is a key part of the campaign to attract and support application developers with the tools to add new value features to their products. It will speed the time-to-market for new applications that take advantage of the Salutation Architecture. The Port-of-Entry will provide application and service providers a broader Salutation implementation base," said Robert F. Pecora, managing director of the Salutation Consortium.
The RFI details the minimum requirements for the Port-of-Entry and a test scenario to verify that the minimum functions are met. In addition, developers responding to the RFI are asked to specify additional functionality to the Port-of-Entry, the business model to be followed for use and distribution of the resulting product, and a schedule for delivery and support.
According to Pecora, the Consortium will evaluate responses to the RFI based on both the technical solution and the business model proposed. The Consortium will consider funding a portion of the development effort and will showcase the successful solution at COMDEX/Fall '97.
Response to the RFI should be in the form of a high-level product design specification and the associated business proposal. The specification should include product description and prerequisites, the development environment and test schedule, and predicted reliability. Functional options in addition to minimum requirements are encouraged.
The Salutation Architecture was created to solve the problems of service discovery and
utilization among a broad set of appliances and equipment in an environment of widespread
connectivity and mobility. The architecture provides a standard method for applications,
services, and devices to find out the capabilities of other applications, services, and devices, to
search applications, services or devices for a particular capability, and to request and establish
interoperable sessions with other applications, series, or devices.
The Salutation Consortium has published an open specification that enables an application to locate a particular resource on a network through a broadcast query. The specification is independent of network transport, hardware platform, and operating system software and supports standard Internet and other message formats.
The Salutation Consortium is a non-profit corporation with member organizations in the United States, Europe, and Japan. Member companies include APTi, Axis Communications, Brother, Canon, Casio, Cisco, Eastman Kodak, Fuji Xerox, Fujitsu, Hewlett Packard, Hitachi, Integrated Systems, IBM, Iwatsu, Justsystem, Kobe Steel, Komatsu, Konica, Lexmark, Matsushita, Microware Systems, Minolta, Mita, Mitsubishi, Murata (Muratec), Novell, Oki Data, Ricoh, Rios Systems, Sanyo, Seiko Epson, Sharp, Sun Microsystems, Toshiba, WhetStone, and Xerox.
Information about the Salutation Architecture is available on the Consortium's web site (http://www.salutation.org).