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InSoft Inc. was an American developer of network-based communications software and multimedia software founded in 1992 in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. The company’s applications included ''Communique'', which is used for desktop collaboration and videoconferencing. InSoft has been called a pioneer in the desktop videoconferencing market, and is credited with developing the first generation of Internet media streaming and VoIP/collaborative software applications that would later be developed into NetscapeConference and NetscapeMedia Server. These, in turn, would provide the groundwork for the Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) standard. RTSP is used to control incoming data when streaming video. The company was sold to Netscape Communications on April 25, 1996. ==History== Company founders Daniel Harple and Richard Pizzarro met in 1990 while employed as computer engineers at AMP Incorporated in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Their jobs were introducing computer-aided design systems and networked workstations to the manufacturing company. The pair wanted to create a way to let engineers working together on a design speak to and look at one another without leaving their desks over a real time video network requiring only "regular computers and cheap, desktop cameras". Harple and Pizarro worked on their idea after hours, creating improvised labs in spare bedrooms, and connecting borrowed workstations with streams of cable. After some months, they succeeded in creating a piece of software which allowed real time, face to face collaboration over a computer network. This would save companies money, because other early teleconferencing systems depended on the purchase of costly hardware. The two men left AMP to co-found InSoft Inc. in 1992, with Harple acting as Chairman and CEO and Pizzarro as Chief Engineer and Vice President. Because they believed the solution to videoconferencing was in software alone, they named the new company InSoft. Money to start up the company came from family and friends, and also from the Pittsburgh-based venture capitalist Adams Capital Management, which raised funds from Philadelphia Ventures, New Enterprise Associates of Baltimore, Edison Venture Fund of Harrisburg and Newbridge Networks of Canada. In 1992, SunWorld magazine praised InSoft's ''Communique'' product as a "killer app" for Sun, calling it "the next logical step in improving computers as communications devices". The product's could run on any high-end workstation powered by virtually any chip through most any type of existing network. Within two years, industry magazines were referring to the company as a "pioneer in the desktop videoconferencing market"〔 The company's software was adopted by manufacturers like IBM, Hewlett Packard and others. An industry marketer wrote that InSoft had positioned itself as "a mandatory checklist item" among computer giants."〔 A 1994 issue of VARBusiness magazine described InSoft as pursuing "a new software model" completely independent of the compression hardware and network type that analysts predicted would dominate the future of videoconferencing.〔 One analyst attributed InSoft's success to "its capability to deliver a product for workstations that didn't represent a huge incremental expense, and go after the PC market later." InSoft went on to sign Communique bundling deals with major technology companies such as AT&T, Sprint, Hewlett Packard, Digital Equipment, and IBM. By 1995, the company had eight regional offices and over 70 employees. Sales of its distributed digital video solutions, desktop conferencing and videoconferencing software had topped over $7 million in annual revenue. InSoft recruited and sponsored Russian and Indian scientists for immigration to the US. Author Thomas Petzinger described the company's culture as a mixture of formal business plan and informal playfulness; photos of rock stars decorated the offices and were used as graphics for demo products, the company's music on hold featured The Grateful Dead, and mailroom employees included Harple's teenage daughter.〔 CEO Harple saw a potential market for InSoft's products in the early Internet, which was a low-bandwidth, copper wire-based technology at the time. Despite his board's warnings that developing Internet applications would "kill our direct sales", Harple set up an internal company skunk works team to create a low cost, mass market version of InSoft's software that would run over the lower bit-rate Internet. This involved the invention of lower bit rate compression algorithms for audio and video signals and synchronization.〔 When the resulting new Internet product was nearing completion, word of "a possible picture phone for the Internet" reached Netscape founder James H. Clark, and he traveled to InSoft headquarters for a demonstration. He was so impressed that he promptly proposed a merger with Netscape.〔 The company is credited with developing the first generation of commercial, US-based VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol, Internet media streaming and realtime Internet telephony/collaborative software and standards that would later become NetscapeConference and NetscapeMedia Server. These, in turn, would provide the basis for the Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) standard.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「InSoft Inc.」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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