Imagine it is morning at your company three years from now. The warehouse staff receives a shipment order for a part number nobody recognizes. A worker sweeps a scanner across the order. Touching a box on a nearby screen makes a picture of the part appear in a window, along with its location in the warehouse.

In the administrative offices, a marketing executive is learning a new feature in a sales analysis application. The executive clicks on an icon and watches a video demonstration of the feature accompanied by an audio explanation.

Next door, the sales manager is preparing some promotional tools for broadcast to the entire sales force over electronic mail. The tools include full-color graphics, video clips of customer testimonials and a message from the manager offering a special discount to buyers. Instead of typing the message, the manager activates a video camera built into the workstation and begins to speak.

Believe it or not, IBM wants to put all these capabilities on your AS/400 over the next three years. However, you won't have to wait until 1997 to start building multimedia applications. The enabling technologies will begin to ship before the end of this year.

The Multimedia Potential

Multimedia could become one of the most exciting technologies of the late 1990s. Currently, however, it is one of the least understood technologies in the computer industry. As a result, only a handful of visionaries have grasped its significance for the future of business applications, while critics view it as a solution looking for a problem.

IBM sees multimedia as the next step beyond the graphical user interfaces of today. Through multimedia, workstations of the very near future will guide even the most unskilled users through highly complex tasks.

The technology will also let users receive, combine and transmit data that only a handful of systems can manage at present-for example, digitized video and audio. Most personal computers do not have the storage capabilities this data demands. Therefore, IBM plans to position the AS/400 as a multimedia repository and server. It will support multimedia applications on client workstations running OS/2, Microsoft Windows, AIX and Macintosh System/7.

According to Peter Hansen, program manager for Advanced Applications Solutions at the AS/400 Division, IBM sees four main applications for multimedia products.

o Kiosks (similar to automated teller machines) offering expanded services to both internal users and customers. The ticket reservation system created for the Minnesota Twins baseball games is a good example of this use of multimedia.

o Multimedia-based education and training applications that speed up the learning process and improve knowledge retention. These applications may run on a stand-alone basis or be nested inside current applications.

o Standard business applications that incorporate multimedia elements. In the warehouse we discussed earlier, a worker used a traditional inventory application equipped with a multimedia component to locate a part. In other cases, companies could entirely replace a character-based screen with a multimedia interface.

o Applications that transmit multimedia data and applications to remote users over traditional communications links and wireless services. The sales manager in our example used such an application to put powerful sales tools in the hands of his staff.

Because of IBM's ambitious plans for multimedia on the AS/400, there's a strong possibility that your software providers-and your competitors-will implement the technology to gain a strategic advantage.

Kiosks could cut staff costs and expand services; just-in-time training could boost productivity; and applications with multimedia interfaces could let relatively unskilled workers perform tasks formerly handled by highly skilled employees. Given this potential, AS/400 professionals should begin to learn about the new technology now.

The Road to Multimedia

At present, the AS/400 is one of the most advanced platforms for one form of multimedia: document image and work flow management. The system's primary software offering for these tasks is ImagePlus Workfolder Application Facility/400 (WAF/400). In addition, the AS/400 now supports Automated Work Distributor, an intelligent work flow management system that electronically routes work associated with documents, phone calls, faxes and other sources through an organization.

Image management, however, is only a partial multimedia solution. IBM has introduced three other software packages over the last year and a half to help manage audio, full-motion video and other data types.

o Ultimedia Video Delivery Services/400 (UVDS/400) turns the AS/400 into a repository for multimedia objects. It stores, indexes and retrieves both analog and digital objects as shared folders on the AS/400. If the information is digital, UVDS/400 stores it on the system's optical and magnetic media. If it is analog information, the system can access it through devices such as videotape players and cameras. UVDS/400 also contains application program interfaces (APIs) that let workstation-based applications retrieve these objects.

o Ultimedia Host Support/400 (UHS/400) lets programmers construct multimedia interfaces for standard 5250 applications. These interfaces can entirely replace character-based "green screen" interfaces or generate windows within 5250 screens.

o Ultimedia Color Delivery/400 enhances multimedia screens with 24-bit color, which is important for applications that require high-quality images (e.g., a product catalog).

While these products give the AS/400 some multimedia capabilities, there is still much work to be done. Here are the major challenges IBM faces and the solutions it will probably adopt.

AS/400 Architecture-Like all business computers, the AS/400 is optimized to handle coded, character-based data. Such data flows through the system in large, high-speed bursts and arrives at workstations in a similar, burst-mode fashion. Video data, however, must flow over channels at slow but constant rates between 130,000 and 380,000 bytes per second and arrive at a continuous rate if it is to make sense to the user. The AS/400's input/output processors (IOPs) and operating system cannot easily handle such "isochronous" transmissions; in fact, the system can only broadcast lengthy digitized objects to a fraction of its concurrent users without interruption.

To remedy this problem, IBM will enhance both the IOPs and the OS/400 operating system this year. These enhancements will let the IOPs send more low-speed isochronous data streams and improve the ability of OS/400 to administer those streams. We expect these enhancements in late September or early October of this year.

Storage Constraints-In comparison to traditional business data, multimedia consumes vast amounts of disk storage. For instance, a 10-minute video clip occupies around 120 megabytes (MB) of storage. In addition, multimedia data comes from a variety of sources including videotape, compact disks, phone conversations and television broadcasts. These data types use many different standards, some of which are competing with each other for industry dominance. To function in this environment, the AS/400 must have an extremely large storage capacity, connect to a large number of digital and analog devices and support a broad range of standards.

The AS/400's ability to meet these demands is adequate at present, but it needs improvement to handle the applications planned for the second half of this decade. The largest AS/400s currently support up to 1.3 terabytes (TB) of optical disk storage and will support 2.6TB by the middle of this year. Because IBM realizes that optical disks will probably hold the bulk of multimedia data in the future, it plans to increase the AS/400's optical storage capacity to 40TB or more during the next several years. In addition, the company will improve the AS/400's connectivity to both digital and analog devices and expand its support for data and transmission standards.

Cost Barriers-While storing terabytes of multimedia data may be easy technically, it can be hard to swallow financially. According to Hansen, erasable optical disks currently cost around $0.25 per MB, which is relatively inexpensive compared to magnetic disks. However, the hardware needed to access those disks drives up the total cost to $1.50 per MB, or $1.5 million per TB (this will decline to $0.75 per MB by mid-year).

IBM recognizes this as a barrier to creating a viable multimedia repository, and multimedia planners such as Hansen feel the cost per megabyte of optical storage will decline by 50 percent each year.

On the basis of Hansen's projections and my own calculations, I think it is likely that IBM will sell optical disk libraries with one TB of erasable optical storage for less than $200,000 three years from now. This price reduction will let multimedia users shift much of their data from single-user CD-ROM disks to multi-user optical repositories.

Development Tools and APIs-Solving all the hardware and financial problems will mean nothing if IBM and its business partners fail to offer an adequate set of multimedia development tools, APIs and packaged software. While UVDS/400 and UHS/400 are good building blocks, they are only part of the software needed to create a multimedia repository. During 1994, IBM plans to lay much of the remaining software foundation.

According to MC's sources, three discrete products will make up that foundation. The first product, which as yet has no name, might best be described as a multimedia application enabler (MAE). Under MAE, AS/400 users will be able to retrieve objects created by multimedia authoring tools on a variety of personal computers and workstations. Once these objects are on the AS/400, users will edit them using functions such as crop, zoom and rotate; after editing, users will be able to sequence a series of objects and splice them together for presentation.

MAE will be a client/server application in which the editing and sequencing features run on client workstations. The first release will probably support OS/2 and Windows clients; IBM will probably add support for Macintosh System/7 and AIX clients in later versions. To make presentation development easy, MAE will include tools such as templates and frameworks. It will also come with a large number of APIs so developers can invoke its presentation functions and build multimedia into applications.

The second product to be released in 1994 will support multimedia teleconferencing between AS/400-attached clients. Customers using this product will be able to turn their workstations into "video telephones" complete with multimedia presentations and a shared workspace for all conference members. The AS/400 will support these sessions with calendar and scheduling functions; in addition, the system will record teleconferences and distribute them to designated users. Much of the functionality for the client portion of this package will come from IBM's Person to Person teleconferencing product for OS/2. However, support will probably spread to Windows, System/7 and AIX over time.

This year's final product-multimedia electronic mail-will enable the distribution of multimedia objects to multiple client platforms. Users will be able to retrieve objects created in the MAE environment, perform some simple editing functions, add text and send the results in much the same way that they send text-only messages. The product may also act as the distribution agent for the teleconferencing package.

All three of these client/server applications will depend on Version 3 of OS/400 for support. Therefore, IBM is likely to announce them along with the new version in May. The applications will likely ship in the late third quarter or early fourth quarter.

The Very Near Future

These new products will represent a giant leap forward for multimedia on the AS/400. Nevertheless, they provide only a framework on which IBM and other developers can hang actual applications. As a result, the rate at which multimedia enters the mainstream of computing will depend on the actions of many players. Here's my best guess as to what will happen beyond this year.

During 1995, IBM will probably integrate multimedia into many of its own AS/400 products. Likely candidates include help screens, ImagePlus WAF/400, CallPath/400 and Facsimile Support/400. In addition, IBM will encourage other vendors to add multimedia functions. Prime candidates are third-party products in IBM's Client Series (see "AS/400 Software Directions," MC, October 1993). IBM may also build work flow support into OS/400. If our information is accurate, work flow support will probably be part of Version 4 of OS/400. V4 will likely ship at the same time as the new RISC-based AS/400s-in late 1995 or early 1996.

By next year, there's a strong chance that IBM's more sophisticated business partners and customers will begin thinking of ways they can use multimedia to increase productivity and gain a strategic advantage. Their first applications will surface during 1996 and 1997.

As these applications go online, they will boost the multimedia storage requirements of their users. This will encourage storage providers to enter the AS/400 market with a variety of multimedia devices, including magnetic tape and disk products. The increased competition will send the cost per megabyte of storage through the floor.

In the 1996-1997 period, vendors will begin to settle on storage and transmission formats. Although some chaos may arise as companies fight for market and mind share, clear winners and losers should emerge. From the perspective of the present, it seems likely that asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) will be the multimedia transmission protocol of choice. It is not as clear which storage formats will become standards.

With the standards battles settled, 1998 and 1999 should be years when multimedia spreads from leading-edge companies to the masses. As a result, many of the applications at midrange sites worldwide will be fully integrated with multimedia by the turn of the century. In many cases, traditional business processing will run in the background; all the user will see is a multimedia front-end.

In the eyes of some observers, this timetable may relegate multimedia to the "not important to think about now" category. Those who assign this label should remember that multimedia application development will begin in earnest next year. Once this happens, the AS/400 computing environment will change very quickly. Those who catch this wave early will face some risks, but they will also have early access to all the rewards.

Lee Kroon is the industry analyst at Midrange Computing.