The application sharing protocol jointly submitted by Microsoft Corp and PictureTel Inc to the International Telecommunications Union ITU (CI No 2,943), to extend the capabilities of the T.120 standard for data conferencing, has moved further down the selection chain and is to be considered at the determined stage of the Union’s Study Group 16 for multimedia services and systems. The specification, called T.128, calls for industrywide compatibility with the technology used in Microsoft’s NetMeeting and PictuteTel’s LiveShare Plus data conferencing software. It already has support from the likes of Intel Corp, Xerox Corp’s LiveWorks in subsidiary and MCI Communications Corp. According to the Study Group’s spokesman Fabio Bigi, the submission has passed part one of the two-part determined stage, and is ready for a drafting decision at the next study group meeting, Bigi said.
