MeetingPoint Wins at PC Expo


White Pine's MeetingPoint videoconferencing software won BYTE's Best of Show award at PC Expo. The award recognizes products that are innovative and will have an impact on information technology.

MeetingPoint finally brings standards-based H.323 technology to videoconferencing servers, which will vastly simplify videoconferencing deployment in corporate intranets and through Internet service providers. MeetingPoint also won in the Web/Internet products category.

Other Web/Internet finalists were Interworks Systems' PipeLive, software that offers support agents and customers the ability to interact live, person-to-person, over the Internet, and Lotus's Instant Teamroom, which lets workgroups quickly establish a private workspace outside a corporate firewall on the Web.

Chili Soft's Chili ASP, which allows ActiveServer applications to run on Web servers other than Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS), won as Best Development Software. Finalist was Micro Focus's SoftFactory/2000, a year 200 tool set and methodology.

The winner of Best Applications and Utilities Software was Etak's SkyMap, a complete GPS-guided (Global Positioning System) map and satellite navigation system designed for IBM-compatible hand-held and laptop PCs. The finalists were Visio Maps, a desktop mapping program for Windows 95, and MetaCreations' Kai's Photo Soap, a photo-manipulation program for Windows 95.

Toshiba's 3.8 pound protege 300CT(starts as $3499) features a 133-MHZ Pentium chip and a
panoramic 10.4-inch screen. Finalists were Gateway 2000's Solo 9100, a high-end 8.5-pound
notebook packed with just about everything you need at prices starting at $4200, and Hitachi's
VisionBook Elite, a notebook that has a good balance of power and portability. The Elite costs
about $4999, has a 13.3-inch screen, and weighs 5.15 pounds.

The Systems winner was DeskStation Technology's Ruffian RPX Workstation/Server (starts at
$5995), and Alpha-based system that incorporates some of the hottest technology available,
including a 600-MHZ Alpha 21164 processor. Acer's AcerPower Graphics Workstation Series, a power-packed Pentium II system, and Unisys's Aquanta XR/6 Server, which extends Windows NT to as many as 10 processors, were finalists.

Number Nine Visual Technology's Revolution 3D graphics accelerator ($349) won as Best
Multimedia Hardware for its ground-breaking combination of no-compromise performance and
affordability. Finalist was Elms Systems' Digital Versatile Library and Panorama, which offers on-line digital videodisc (DVD) storage and provides a solution for video-on-demand applications.

Best Peripheral was NEC Technologies' MultiSync LCD 2000, a 20.1-inch flat-panel monitor with a world-class image display. Finalists were Mitsubishi's DJ-1000 digital camera, which features a slim body and a compact flash-memory card, and Sony's CPJ-D500 LCD Data Projector, a laptop-size portable unit.

Best Printer was Epson's Stylus Color 3000, which lets professional graphic artists and digital
photographers produce color proofs and presentations for less than $2000. Finalists were Xerox's Document Centre Series, a family of copiers that you can upgrade for networked printing, scanning, and faxing, and Xerox's DocuPrint C55 Laser Printer, a low-coast, full-featured desktop printer for about $3500.

Multimedia Software winner was MetaCreations' Ray Dream Studio 5, a 3-D design-and-animation tool. Multimedia Software finalists were Info Value Computing's Quick Video Suite, a complete software platform to video-enable the corporate network, and Noise Cancellation Technologies' ClearSpeech PC/COM software, which reduces noise and echo in PC-based applications.

Best Connectivity Solution went to RightFax's Enterprise 5.0, a distributed fax solution that
harnesses the Internet and intranet to save long-distance phone charges. Finalists were TenFour's TFS Gateway release 3, which provides security and connectivity to e-mail administrators and users, and River Run Software's Mail on the Run, a provider of access to e-mail for mobile Windows CE users.