PRESS RELEASE
Houston, TX, May 21, 1998.
BIAP Systems, Inc. is pleased to announce the immediate availability of
BIAP Chat and BIAP Chat Pro, the first full-featured, native server for
hosting real time interactive chat sessions on the Macintosh. BIAP Chat is
designed to be extremely easy to install and administer, yet provides a
feature set rivaling chat products on other platforms costing hundreds or
thousands of dollars more. BIAP Chat is designed to integrate and work
seamlessly with W*API 1.2 compliant Web servers on the Mac, including Quid
Pro Quo from Social Engineering and WebSTAR from StarNine.
BIAP Chat’s extensive list of features includes:
– Single file installation
– Integrated Java chat client with configurable appearance
– Client support for full international character sets
– 68k and PPC native code support for the chat server engine
– Support for telnet users
– BIAP Chat Pro supports 100* different chat rooms (20 for BIAP Chat)
– 200* simultaneous chat sessions hosted by BIAP Chat Pro (50 for
BIAP Chat)
– Support for multiple domains and restricted groups (BIAP Chat
Pro only)
– Complete Web based administration
– Room by room logging with HTML output for chat session archives
– Handles private, passworded chat rooms
– Allows moderated chat rooms for interviews, presentations, etc.
– Ability to broadcast URLs to chat participants for presentations,
banner ads, etc.
– On-line chat administration functions for sysops and moderators
* higher capacity versions are available for customers with special
requirements
BIAP Chat was designed with a special emphasis on integration with Web
sites without sacrificing the high performance of native code. Unlike many
Java-based chat solutions available to webmasters today, BIAP Chat
implements its server in native 68k or PowerPC code. The chat client is
implemented in standard Java using JDK 1.02 for maximum compatibility with
existing Web browsers and minimum download time. BIAP Chat’s client user
interface is completely configurable, allowing webmasters to adjust its
appearance on a room by room basis, changing colors, fonts, background
images, and sounds to match the theme or style of a given Web site.
Chuck Shotton, founder of BIAP Systems, Inc. noted, “The Mac has always
been an awsome Internet server. BIAP led the way with MacHTTP as one of its
first Internet products. But the Mac has lacked a good interactive chat
implementation. We wanted to provide Mac webmasters with a solution that
was easy to use but provided features that can’t be found on any other
platform or O/S.”
BIAP Chat can opereate with any Java compatible browser on any operating
system and the server can be configured to run on any 68k or PPC Macintosh
model that supports popular Mac Web server software and the W*API 1.2
standard.
In addition to providing a high degree of flexibility in configuring the
appearance of BIAP Chat, the software provides powerful administration
functionality to webmasters through a HTML based interface. “We tried hard
to implement a chat solution that anyone can configure and operate using
just a Web browser. And by providing multiple permission levels,
administrators can offload many operations to chat room moderators or
trusted users,” says Louis Slothouber, VP of R&D for BIAP Systems.
Users have been able to integrate BIAP Chat with their Web sites since
version 1.0 was released in October of 1997. With the release of BIAP Chat
2.0, Mac webmasters gain a significant increase in capability, performance,
and usability.
Howard Barton, Vice President of Web-Star.Com, LLC remarked, “Mac
Webmasters have been at a disadvantage, until now. BIAP Chat 2.0 places the
Mac at the forefront of chat on the Web. It’s scalable, fast, intuitive,
and a hit with every one of our users.”
In use at the #1 radio station in northern Mexico, Jorge Euran Graham says,
“We are using BIAP Chat for a Spanish-based virtual community. It’s a
great, easy to set up system that brings interactivity and a community feel
to our Web site.”
The International Purveyor Index, operated by Randy Little, is using BIAP
Chat to facilitate commercial exchanges between food equipment buyers and
sellers. “IPI has tested several different types of chat software on
several different computer platforms and has found BIAP Chat to be easy to
use and we believe it to be one of the best chat products on the market,”
he says.
BIAP Chat and BIAP Chat Pro are available for purchase from BIAP System’s
on-line store, which can be found at (http://www.biap.com/). 30 day
evaluation keys are available through the store and special introductory
pricing is available. BIAP Chat 2.0 can be purchased for $99 and BIAP Chat
Pro, which adds increased capacity and support for multiple domains, can be
purchased for $289. After June 15, the pricing for BIAP Chat and BIAP Chat
Pro will be $129 and $329, respectively.
ABOUT BIAP SYSTEMS, INC.
BIAP Systems, Inc. of Houston, TX was founded in 1987 to develop custom
telecommunications software for Unix, PC, and Macintosh computers. BIAP’s
MacHTTP software, released in 1993, was the first commercially available
Web server for any computer platform and MacHTTP 3.0 became StarNine
Technology, Inc.’s WebSTAR product in 1995. The founders of BIAP Systems
returned to BIAP in January, 1998 to continue the development of high
quality, high performance Internet software for Macs, PCs, and Unix
platforms.
BIAP Systems, Inc. can be found on the Internet at (http://www.biap.com/).
E-mail should be addressed to info@biap.com. Additional contact information
is available from (http://www.biap.com/biapContact.html)
Editorial Contact:
Chuck Shotton
BIAP Systems, Inc.
cshotton@biap.com
http://www.biap.com/