With its announcement of the AS/400e Series and OS/400 V4R1, IBM is recognizing the fundamental shift in the role the Internet is playing in leading edge organizations. What once began as merely access to e-mail and a marketing presence via static home pages is now giving way to an Internet-based transactional world of networked applications and services. IBM calls this e-Business.

Later this month, at the Fall Common expo in San Antonio, Texas, Advanced BusinessLink Corp. plans to help IBM deliver on this e-Business model of computing by demonstrating native Internet push technology for the AS/400.

Although savvy Internet vendors like PointCast and Castanet are already reaping the rewards of this technology, Advanced BusinessLink (Kirkland, Wash.) is the first to bring this model to the AS/400.

Today, most companies use the Web to "pull" users to the information contained on their Web sites. Push technology uses the Internet to send static information or forms to authorized users similar to the way an e-mail ListServ works.

However, Advanced BusinessLink's BusinessLink/Push promises to deliver more than glorified e-mail. "We are turning push into something practical for the AS/400 community," says Chris Lategan, CEO of Advanced BusinessLink. "BusinessLink/Push brings interactivity to push technology."

Lategan notes that traditional AS/400 applications determine user needs based on interaction with menu-based applications or physical location of devices and printers. These applications then distribute reports and data outbound to those users as their natural mode of operation. "Push technology just leverages the AS/400's existing architecture," he says.

According to Lategan, BusinessLink/Push pushes authorized users into an interactive session with an AS/400 application. The pushed content can be DB2/400 files, spool files, PC files including multimedia or streaming data for bulletins or tickers.

For example, a real estate company could use BusinessLink/Push to push new listings to their agents or prospective home buyers, while a manufacturer could push a request for materials to several competing suppliers at once. When one supplier places a bid and completes the transaction, all the other sessions are automatically terminated so there is no confusion with multiple bids. Since BusinessLink/Push lets AS/400 shops begin and take away interactive sessions at will, Lategan sees push technology as an option for companies too small or unwilling to do commercial EDI.

End-users download and install the Advanced BusinessLink's pTuner application on their local system. This application "tunes" the user into a specific AS/400 site (or channel) and can be displayed as a flashing taskbar icon, screen saver, ticker application call or interactive 5250 or GUI session. Once a user tunes into a channel, the BusinessLink/Push Server, running on OS/400 V3R1 or later, executes a push to all subscribers via an AS/400 application or prompt from an administrator.

Advanced BusinessLink's Internet strategy dovetails with last months AS/400e Series announcement and IBM's efforts to promote e-business. E-business is what IBM is calling the melding of enterprise IT with Web technologies.

According to IBM, 87 percent of all enterprises worldwide are using the Internet, while 55 million consumers in the United States are using the Internet for activities like e-mail. BusinessLink/Push holds the promise of enabling AS/400-based enterprises to extend their applications to a much broader base of end users.

"AS/400 users are in a unique position to lead the industry in push applications," Lategan says. "We are going to change the way people think about the AS/400." BusinessLink/Push could be available as early as the fourth quarter of this year.

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