| At the language/protocol level, we can identify now three potential candidates for integrating/unifying the complex '96 Web systems: |
| 1) HTML/CGI -> JavaScript/LiveWire - this (Netscape) solution promotes all HTML components (forms, frames etc.) to the scripted object level. HTML documents gradually evolve towards dynamic scripts, passed between servers and clients and integrating all multimedia components of HTML with support for user-document interaction. |
| 2) Java OS solution - Sun plans to put Java directly on computer hardware. All backend computers become Java Web servers, all frontends become Java terminals/PDAs. |
| 3) VRML 2.0 -> Televirtuality (TVR) - here the paradigm is shifted from textual/multimedia to 3D visual interactive spaces governed by TVR protocol that integrates VRML and Java. |
| In the near term, none of these solutions will likely dominate and Web'96 will be a mixture of all these components. |
| We conclude that the single language/protocol based integration path in not promising in the near term on the multilingual Web. |