New Moon Software Inc is adding new a version of Liftoff Windows client software tailored specifically Microsoft Corp Office 97 applications priced from $1,000. It has also abandoned the notion of creating a new product line called Booster for improving the scalability of Microsoft’s Hydra Windows Terminal Server software, and will instead incorporate the work in a future release of LiftOff. The Office 97 version differs from the vanilla LiftOff in that it will only work in conjunction with Office 97 code, NT 4 and Internet Explorer 4. That’s why New Moon has changed its license practice for this low-end package to include an unlimited number of users hanging off a single NT 4 server (although Microsoft recently reminded the industry that even thin client users require licenses). 1.1 also lacks LiftOff’s 1.0’s load-balancing work. LiftOff processes pieces of an application across both the server and the client according to resources and constraints, partitioning and distributing the Office application. Liftoff requires Win32 clients and, unlike rival Citrix Systems Inc’s ICA Metaframe technology, it is not cross-platform. Citrix’s software works by hosting multiple simultaneous client sessions and transmitting bitmapped displays of the session’s interface to a desktop that acts like a display terminal. New Moon says its work enables users to better manage their desktop environments. Support for distributed OLE and DDE Dynamic Data Exchange supposedly allows users to access multiple servers and to perform cut-and-paste tasks between applications. New Moon says it has other application-specific LiftOff releases in the wings, including ERP (SAP, Baan, Peoplesoft) and communications (WRQ, Wall data, 3270 emulation).
