FOR RELEASE JULY 14, 1997
Contact: Charles McHenry
541-772-2382
cmchenry@opendoor.com
OPEN DOOR NETWORKS SIMPLIFIES ACCESS TO MACINTOSH FILES THROUGH THE INTERNET
“AFP ENGAGE!” ENHANCES APPLESHARE FILE SERVERS
ASHLAND, OR. — July 14, 1997 — Open Door Networks Inc. today announced
shipment of its new AFP Engage! product. AFP Engage! is a Macintosh
application which gives users point-and-click access to AFP (Apple Filing
Protocol) servers in Internet, intranet and AppleTalk environments.
Working with popular Web browsers, email readers and other Internet
applications, AFP Engage’s point-and-click access lets users mount remote
AppleShare volumes directly on their desktop, simply by clicking on AFP
URLs (universal resource locators). Information within those volumes is
then available through the Macintosh’s traditional drag-and-drop user
interface. AFP URLs can also be saved as bookmarks and managed through any
standard bookmark manager.
“Open Door’s AFP Engage! product helps to enhance Apple’s ongoing strategy
of bringing AppleTalk’s ease of use to Internet and intranet environments,”
said John Hanay, product manager for AppleShare IP. “AFP Engage! and
AppleShare IP work together to provide the easiest way to find, access and
share information across industry-standard networks.”
In intranet environments, where large AppleTalk networks continue to be
common, network managers can use Web pages and AFP Engage! to organize and
list AppleShare, personal file sharing and other AFP servers for easy
access by users within the organization. AFP Engage! supports AFP servers
on both AppleTalk and IP networks and thus serves as a key utility for
organizations evolving their intranet from AppleTalk to TCP/IP protocols.
“AFP Engage! is a key piece of our strategy of providing access to
Macintosh file services over TCP/IP while still maintaining the ease of use
people have come to expect from these services,” said Everette Allen,
network consultant for a Raleigh, North Carolina university using over
2,000 Macs. “Mounting server volumes over the Internet is truly exciting!”
For Internet sites, combining AFP Engage! with AppleShare IP means
Webmasters can provide easier accessibility to Macintosh files at their
sites. By enabling clickable, drag-and-drop file access, Webmasters can
minimize the need for access through complex interfaces like that of FTP
(File Transfer Protocol) while retaining Apple’s standard user based
security. Webmasters who publish links to Internet-accessible AppleShare
volumes know that users accessing those links will be able to simply click
on the link to mount the volume on their desktop and locate the desired
file.
As a cutting-edge example of the power of AFP Engage! over the Internet,
Open Door Networks sponsors a centralized registry of publicly accessible
AppleShare servers at http://www.opendoor.com/asip/asipregistry.html. With
AFP Engage! users browsing that registry can simply click on an AFP link to
access the associated server.
AFP ENGAGE! DETAILS
AFP Engage! works with System 7.5 or later and most Macintosh Internet
applications, including Netscape Navigator 2.0 or later, Microsoft Internet
Explorer 3.0 or later, Eudora 3.0 or later and any application that
supports Internet Config 1.3 or later. AFP Engage! requires AppleShare
Client version 3.7, provided free by Apple through the AppleShare IP Web
site at http://appleshareip.apple.com.
AFP Engage! is available in single and multiple unit licenses. A single
copy of AFP Engage! is priced at $19, with 5, 25 and 100 unit quantities
priced at $76, $300 and $950 respectively. Educational pricing and site
licenses are also available. All the details of AFP Engage! and AFP URLs,
including a free evaluation version of the product, are available at
http://www.opendoor.com/asip/afpengage.html. The product can also be
ordered online through the site.
RELATED ANNOUNCEMENTS
In concert with the shipping of AFP Engage!, Open Door Networks also
announced that it will be hosting an AppleShare IP based mirror of the
popular Info-Mac shareware archives (see “Open Door Networks to host first
ever AppleShare-based Info-Mac site”) and that it intends to provide
AppleShare IP based Web hosting services through its WebDoor Pro Web
hosting service (see “Open Door Networks to offer AppleShare IP based Web
hosting services”).
Open Door Networks, Inc., a pioneer in the field of Web publishing for
Macintosh computers, was founded in January, 1995 by Alan Oppenheimer, an
11-year Apple veteran and co-creator of the AppleTalk network system. Open
Door’s mission is to provide Macintosh users with Internet solutions that
are as easy-to-use and as powerful as the Macintosh itself. Open Door
Networks is located in Ashland, Oregon.
AFP Engage! and WebDoor Pro are trademarks of Open Door Networks, Inc.
Apple, Macintosh and AppleShare are registered trademarks of Apple
Computer, Inc.
—————————
FOR RELEASE JULY 14, 1997
Contact: Charles McHenry
541-772-2382
cmchenry@opendoor.com
OPEN DOOR NETWORKS TO HOST FIRST EVER APPLESHARE-BASED INFO-MAC ARCHIVE
ASHLAND, OR. — July 14, 1997 — Open Door Networks Inc. today announced
that it will be hosting an AppleShare-based mirror of the popular Info-Mac
shareware archive. Previously only available through FTP (File Transfer
Protocol), Open Door’s mirror site will allow Macintosh users to mount the
Info-Mac server on their desktop and thus use all the Macintosh’s
capabilities for finding, browsing and downloading files from that server.
Access to the mirror is further enhanced through use of Open Door’s
recently announced AFP Engage! product (see “Open Door Networks enables
access to AppleShare servers from Web pages.”)
“We felt that hosting an AppleShare IP based Info-Mac site was a great way
to show off both Apple’s and Open Door’s new technologies while providing a
useful service to the Macintosh Internet community,” said Alan Oppenheimer,
president and founder of Open Door Networks. “FTP has worked well to date,
but it’s always been a least common denominator approach. AppleShare IP is
a better solution for Macintosh-specific archives.”
The AppleShare IP based Info-Mac archive has a number of advantages over a
traditional FTP based archive:
– Access to files and folders on the archive is available directly through
the Macintosh Finder, presenting an easy-to-use, intuitive, drag-and-drop
user interface. Additonally standard Macintosh capabilities, such as
searching, sorting and aliases are available for use with the archive.
– Files on the archive can be stored and sent in standard Macintosh format,
rather than FTP’s”binhex” format, saving, on average, over 10% on download
time.
– Since the AppleShare client is built into Macintosh systems, Mac users no
longer need to run a separate application to access the archive.
Open Door’s Info-Mac mirror, available immediately, can be accessed using
AppleShare Client version 3.7 or later. The host name for the mirror is
afp.opendoor.com. The mirror can also be accessed through AFP Engage! via
the URL afp://afp.opendoor.com/info-mac/. Details on Info-Mac are
available at http://www.pht.com/info-mac/. Details of AFP Engage! are
available at http://www.opendoor.com/asip/afpengage.html.
Open Door Networks, Inc., a pioneer in the field of Web publishing for
Macintosh computers, was founded in January, 1995 by Alan Oppenheimer, an
11-year Apple veteran and co-creator of the AppleTalk network system. Open
Door’s mission is to provide Macintosh users with Internet solutions that
are as easy-to-use and as powerful as the Macintosh itself. Open Door
Networks is located in Ashland, Oregon.
AFP Engage! is a trademark of Open Door Networks, Inc. Apple, Macintosh
and AppleShare are registered trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc.
