Nicholas Baran
The concept of the information highway has captured the imaginations of computer users and editors alike. But in the midst of all the headlines, one alternative that business and government agencies are increasingly using to share information has existed since the early days of personal computing: the electronic BBS.
Says Scott Brinker, president of Galacticomm (Fort Lauderdale, FL, (305) 583-5990), which produces The Major BBS, ``We have seen a significant ramping up of sales in 1994. People used to see the BBS as a hobbyist venture. Now it's seen as a real tool for business.'' Boardwatch magazine, which covers the BBS market, estimates that at the end of 1993, approximately 60,000 BBSes operated in the U.S.--roughly twice as many as there were 18 months earlier. Today's BBSes offer mult
itasking (allowing multiple users to perform activities such as E-mail, file transfers, and electronic chatting), customizable GUIs, security, and gateways to the Internet, E-mail, and other networks.
In the world of business communications, BBSes sit between internal LANs running Lotus Notes or Microsoft Mail and external on-line services, such as CompuServe and BIX. BBSes provide a relatively inexpensive way--both in terms of cost and training--for employees to communicate with outside customers and with each other.
In the business environment, BBSes are most popular for external communications, such as customer support, and for providing a central information system for field offices. In contrast to a product like Notes, which requires a user to have client software to access a Notes database, anyone who has a terminal program can dial into most BBSes. In addition, many BBSes offer the advantage that the operator has complete control over the system, from the user interface to the levels of s
ecurity.
Citibank uses The Major BBS to connect its audit-division offices all over the world. ``We used to send audit reports on diskettes by overnight express,'' says Gene Friedman, the firm's manager of data communications. ``It was expensive and unreliable.'' Today, the offices send reports by modem directly to the central BBS at Citibank headquarters in New York. The BBS is connected to the office LAN, so internal users also have the ability to post files and messages.
Friedman estimates that the company spent under $15,000 (about $5000 for the PC, $1000 for modems, $6000 for an X.25 line lease, and $2000 for software) to hook up 30 offices around the world. ``There really was no alternative other than some kind of WAN [wide-area network],'' says Friedman, adding that since he's set the system up--which took about a week--maintenance has been minimal; most of it, such as deleting old files, is automatic.
Another interesting BBS application is that of Wieck Photo Databases of Carrollt
on, Texas, which supplies photographs and graphics to the media. Using the Mac-based TeleFinder BBS from Spider Island Software (Irvine, CA, (714) 669-9260), Wieck offers a central repository in which news services and major newspapers, such as the Washington Post and the New York Times, post their photos, which can then be downloaded via JPEG data compression by other newspapers and publications. Travis Hughes, a partner in the business, says newspapers and public-relations firms use his company's service to retrieve photographs to use with articles and trade brochures.
Some BBS systems are designed to run on LANs and modem connections alike. One such system is the Mac-based FirstClass from SoftArc ((905) 415-7000) of Markham, Ontario, Canada (see ``A FirstClass Experience,'' September 1993 BYTE). This system uses a client/server model and supports multiple network protocols. The client software, which is installed on Macs or Windows-based PCs calling into the system, is distributed free of charge, wh
ile the server software is priced according to the number of users. SoftArc also offers a command-line client interface that allows connections for any computer that can emulate a VT100 terminal.
SoftArc's vice president of corporate affairs, Scott Welch, says that a ``Big 6'' accounting firm is now using FirstClass to maintain an ``intellectual capital'' repository, available to all the firm's offices around the country. If one office generates a report on the textile industry, for example, it's posted on the FirstClass BBS so that other offices can access it.
BBSes are relatively easy to set up and maintain and are priced in the $200-to-$1000 range, depending on the configuration and number of users. The bottom line is that if you want full control over your company's internal and external communications, a BBS is worth considering.
Illustration: A new Wildcat BBS Suite from Mustang Software (Bakersfield, CA, (805) 873-2500) offers many new features designed to appeal to both the bu
siness and entertainment fields. A new programming language called wcCode lets the BBS operator customize the BBS to provide unique menu choices and place any feature or wcCode application on any Wildcat menu.
Illustration: A new add-on option for The Major BBS called Search and Retrieve 3.0 lets users search several megabytes of preindexed text files, using up to eight keywords. It also adds the ability to preview graphics on-line before downloading the file.
Businesses Turn to BBSes
