Sun Microsystems Inc has a new set of data conferencing tools which it says should help its workstation users collaborate with workgroups that include PCs and Macintoshes. The SunForum suite, which is free of charge, offers a shared electronic whiteboard application for simultaneous data collaboration, a sequential data collaboration tool, file transfer utility, and chat utility. Sun workstation users can download the software from the web. Remote users need to be running either SunForum, Microsoft Corp’s NetMeeting, PictureTel Inc’s LiveShare Plus, or any data conferencing program that supports the International Telecommunications Union T.120 conferencing standard. The application being shared – Microsoft Word or Adobe Photoshop, for instance – does not need to be loaded on each system.
