New service discovery port expands mobile technology reach

 

HIGHLAND, UT, April 3, 2000—The Salutation Consortium , a non-profit corporation focused on providing technologies that improve information exchange among multiple and different devices, will be releasing a Java version of their Salutation-Lite service discovery protocol in May 2000. Beta code is currently available for Consortium members.

The port was completed by graduate students at the University of Colorado at Denver, under the direction of associate professor of electrical engineering, Tamal Bose.

Service discovery protocols enable network devices, applications, and services to seek out and find other complementary network devices, applications, and services needed to properly complete specified tasks.

Salutation- Lite is royalty free and offered on an open source model to encourage use and further development of software and hardware developers of the next-generation of portable, handheld and palm-sized PCs. With this release, Salutation-Lite is now offered in three implementations. First, it runs on WinTel platforms and Windows®CE over IrDA (Infrared Data Association). Second, it runs on WinTel platforms over the Ethernet. Third, the WinTel over Ethernet code now has been ported to Java. In addition to Java, ports to other common operating systems for handheld devices are planned for later this year.

The Java version uses Remote Method Invocation (RMI) to implement a client/server distributed Salutation-Lite application. The communication between a

remote object client and server is implemented in a series of layers.

“We recognize the significance of an independent service discovery protocol in the mobile marketplace, and we were anxious to work with the Salutation Consortium,” said Tamal Bose. “We look forward to working with them again in the future.”

“The Salutation Consortium is poised to address the ever-changing mobile landscape through intelligent communication,” said Robert Pascoe, president of the Salutation Consortium. “Our service discovery model truly links the disparate protocols in the industry.” Pascoe further noted that the Java release, coupled with Salutation’s ability to locate and load device drivers and executables, provides a non-proprietary model of Jini.   “Salutation has demonstrated the ability to converge on the functionality of other important service discovery protocols in an open, royalty free offering,

 

Availability

Salutation-Lite is currently available to Consortium members free of charge by download from the Consortium website at www.salutation.org . The Java version will be available in May.

 

 

Salutation Service Discovery                    

Salutation technology provides instantaneous and seamless connection among devices independent of operating system, hardware platform or communications protocol. This provides for a single-service discovery implementation across devices, applications and services.

The Salutation Lite architecture offers a Find and Bind solution for small-footprint devices. It helps users to locate and detect Salutation-enabled devices, exchange functional capabilities and locate required services. Mobile users can then perform the services they require such as printing, faxing or sending audio messages directly from their handheld device via their infrared port, for example.

Consortium members and non-members have produced a range of implementations. Ricoh, Canon and Fuji-Xerox are shipping multi-function products. Murata and Mita are shipping fax devices. IBM has enabled Notes Domino through its NuOffice offering. XtraWorX has developed a Windows enabler, allowing locally attached devices to appear Salutation-enabled to a network. Others have developed document management offerings based on the Salutation Architecture. There are also developer toolkits available from IBM and others.

 

 

The Salutation Consortium is a non-profit corporation that promotes and distributes, royalty-free, the Salutation Architecture, a service discovery and session management protocol developed by leading information technology companies.   It is an open standard independent of operating system, communications protocol or hardware platform.

Member companies include America Online, Axis Communications, Canon Inc., Continental Automated Buildings Association, Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd., Fujitsu Limited, Granite Systems, Hewlett-Packard Company, Hitachi, Ltd., Infrared Data Association, International Business Machines, Konica Corp., Kyocera Mita Corp., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co.,Ltd., MicroBurst, Inc., Mitsubishi Electric Corp., Murata Machinery, Ltd., Oki Data Corp., Pistachio, Inc., Ricoh Company, Ltd., Seiko Epson Corp., Sharp Corporation, TRG Products, Inc., Toshiba TEC, USA Technologies, Inc., WalletWare, Inc., and Xerox Corp. Academic members include, Tamal Bose, University of Colorado; Stephen Reiss, Brown University; Tomohiro Takagi, Meiji University; Professor Wenching Liou, National Chengchi University in Taipei, Taiwan; Dr. Roger deBry, Utah Valley State College; Golden G. Richard III , University of New Orleans; Kaspar Helldén , Linköping University in Sweden; and Heath Westover, University of Washington.