April 16, 1999, PC World
Ad-Hoc Wireless Net Builds Teamwork
With SpanWorks, wireless notebooks share information in free-form "conversations."
by David Essex, special to PC World

April 16, 1999, 10:18 a.m. PT

Software unveiled this week lets mobile-computer users form fluid, ad-hoc workgroups that operate regardless of their individual network protocols and hardware.

Prototype applications that implement SpanWorks' "conversational computing" technology were previewed at the DemoMobile 99 conference this week in San Diego, but they aren't expected to be available until late 1999 or early 2000.

SpanWorks is a joint venture with Toshiba formed to market wireless, face-to-face "desk-area network" technology (known as DAN) developed in Toshiba research labs in the mid-1990s.
Key to the concept is a low-level communication layer that can manage, without a fixed central server, the identities and application rights of computers that join and leave a network. "We work simultaneously with any other protocol," says SpanWorks product manager Kevin Capone.

"The computers connect and disappear and come into view just as we communicate with people," Capone says. "It's for areas that don't have any network infrastructure support," such as airports, courtrooms, and college campuses.

Targeting Familiar Group Tools

Early SpanWorks applications include such groupware mainstays as chat, whiteboards, note takers, and slide shows. Capone says he recently used SpanWorks to quickly reconvene outdoors a meeting that had been kicked out of a conference room.

Large teams at IBM's Raleigh, North Carolina, PC division run SpanWorks text-sharing and chat software on wirelessly networked ThinkPads to conduct weekly project updates. "When the meeting is done, everyone walks away with an identical copy of the meeting minutes," says Ron Sperano, program director for IBM's WorkPad line.

SpanWorks will get a boost from the expected release late this year of low-cost embedded wireless technology from Bluetooth, a consortium founded by Toshiba, Intel, IBM, Ericsson, and Nokia. Bluetooth aims to link notebooks, personal digital assistants, cellular phones, and other portable devices over standardized short-range radio networks.

"Our overall vision is to connect any of these mobile devices in a collaborative environment," says Capone.

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