We expect a revolution in the computing industry with a shift from the current software model built around UNIX, Windows 95/NT, Macintosh, and mainframe operating environments. Rather, future applications will be built for WebWindows [1]. WebWindows is loosely defined as either the distributed operating system of the World Wide Web (WWW), or more operationally, by the use of Web servers and clients, their open interfaces (HTML, VRML, CGI, etc.), and their technologies (Java, LiveMedia, etc.). We believe that WebWindows will prove to be the dominant environment for two linked reasons. Firstly, the Web is a pervasive technology, and not linked to a particular hardware platform. Secondly, the Web naturally supports a heterogeneous distributed computing model - a concept critical in many applications including both manufacturing and command and control.
The National Information Infrastructure (NII) more generally describes the software, services, and digital infrastructure, which will support WebWindows applications. We have previously described [1] how the NII will be used in seven different areas, including society (delivery of digital TV and information systems), education, collaboratory (distributed collaborative research and development), business enterprise systems (often called Intranets), and health care (from modern telemedicine through patient record systems). As shown in Figure 1, we expect NII applications to be built in a layered fashion. In particular, we suggest that one will build and re-use a set of NII services. This is the ``multi-use'' generalization for software and systems of the old dual use concept of linking military and commercial products. Alternatively, one can consider it as an implementation of the COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) philosophy where military applications are built on top of base commercial multi-use services. Table 1 lists our seven NII applications, and shows that they can share most of the services. In Section 2, we briefly review the latter multi-use base while in the last two sections, we review our two chosen applications - command and control, and manufacturing. These exercise significantly all five identified service areas, but in different ways.
