New Service Offers Online Upgrades
SAN FRANCISCO — In another example of shrewd entrepreneurs exploiting the Internet’s potential to become the shopping mall of the future, a 5-year-old Santa Monica company has unveiled a new service that will automatically update software over the global computer network.
Called Oil Change, CyberMedia Inc.’s software technology will search the Internet for product upgrades and fixes posted on the network by software vendors. When a computer user logs onto the CyberMedia “site†on the World Wide Web--the multimedia portion of the Internet--Oil Change scans the hard disk drive to determine the software programs on it, and then searches the Internet for any product updates. They are then automatically routed back to the user’s computer.
The cost of the service, which begins in June, will be $70 for the first year.
CyberMedia co-founder and Chief Executive Unni Warrier estimates there are already hundreds of software companies posting product improvements on the Internet. Warrier says CyberMedia will eliminate the need to notify customers who subscribe to the service of any product changes either through costly direct mail or time-consuming electronic mail.
Eventually it could even eliminate the need for costly packaging and expensive-to-support retailers.
The Internet is already prompting important changes in distribution of software. Today, most consumers purchase software from retail stores, where it is displayed in bright packages. Large corporations have tended to buy software directly from vendors, but even then it generally arrives on diskettes, which are then loaded into computers.
Netscape Communications Corp., which makes the most popular software for browsing the Internet, offers complete products on the global network at no charge. Users simply download it onto their computers. Apple Computer Inc. said Monday that it will make pieces of its Copland software, the new operating system for its Macintosh computer, available free over the Internet. When Copland is finally “introduced†in mid-1997, a majority of the code will have already been made available.
“The whole idea of finished version of software--a release 1.0 or 2.0--is eventually going to go away because of the Internet,†says John Warnock, chairman of Adobe Systems Inc. “With the Internet, software will constantly be upgraded.â€
So far, the software vendors have not agreed on how they should be compensated for products made available on the Internet.
