01/22/96 THIS WEB BROWSER DOESN'T JUST BROWSE

THIS WEB BROWSER DOESN'T JUST BROWSE

IF YOU THOUGHT THAT WEB browser software was good only for unraveling the World Wide Web, then you better think again. Wollongong Group in Palo Alto, Calif., is making its $399 Emissary Office Edition browser useful for viewing practically any kind of document or database record found on corporate computer networks.
In addition to Web pages from the Internet or internal networks--also called ``intranets''--Emissary can display E-mail, most text and graphics files from a PC or network server, and postings from the thousands of special-interest bulletin boards--collectively known as Usenet.
What's more, the software lets you create new documents that contain a mix of any of these items and lets you share them easily across your company network with other Emissary users. Let's suppose you find a Web site that you think a colleague should see: Using a mouse, you insert the appropriate hotlink into a standard E-mail message. When the co-worker reads the E-mail with Emissary, a click on the hotlink will command the program to connect to the selected Web site. If a phone call is needed, Emissary will initiate that, too.
And now, with Wollongong's acquisition by Attachmate Corp., a software company, documents will even be able to contain live PC-to-mainframe connections. Just view the document through Emissary, and you'll be connected to the selected mainframe program--and you can interact with it using your keyboard.
EDITED BY WILLIAM J. WINKLER