Microsoft Debuts 'Universal Plug and Play'

Initiative aimed at making it easier to connect PCs with other home devices.

Microsoft on Thursday launched Universal Plug and Play, an initiative designed to allow a broad range of devices such as PCs, printers, and even security cameras to connect as peers over a home network and share resources.

The initiative in many ways is Microsoft's response to the Jini technology disclosed last year by Microsoft's archrival, Sun Microsystems. Both technologies are designed to allow devices to connect easily to a network and other devices.

"As appliances become more intelligent and the distinction between appliances and computing devices blurs, a key part of their value to consumers will come from their ability to communicate with other intelligent devices," said Craig Mundie, senior vice president of Microsoft's consumer strategy division.

Microsoft, along with industry partners including Intel and Hewlett-Packard, is developing a common set of interfaces that will let manufacturers build products that are Universal Plug and Play-compatible. The technology will be based on open standards, primarily TCP/IP and XML, Mundie said.

The initiative has parallels with the Plug and Play initiative announced by Microsoft and others back in 1992, which lets users connect peripherals to a PC with less suffering. With Universal Plug and Play, that idea is extended and applied to a home network: Peripherals can be attached to a network; they "announce" their presence; and they can interoperate with other devices already connected to the network, Mundie said.

In a demonstration, a Microsoft engineer printed a document from a PC to a printer close by on stage. The devices were not connected, but using Universal Plug and Play and infrared technology, the printer "announced its presence" on the network and churned out the document.

In another example, a security camera was attached to a mock home network on stage. The image from the camera appeared immediately on a home security program running on a PC.

Appearing in Windows, Sometime
Mundie said Windows 2000 (formerly known as Windows NT 5.0) will be Universal Plug and Play-compatible when it is released. The company will offer a software upgrade for all Windows 98 users to make that operating system compatible too, he said, although he didn't offer a time frame for the upgrade.

Because the technology is based on industry standards including TCP/IP, it will work with almost any kind of network, Mundie said.

Microsoft spokesman Philip Holden said the company hopes manufacturers will have compatible products in the market as early as next fall. However, one analyst was skeptical.

"I don't think they really know when this stuff is going to happen. They just saw all the press Sun is getting with Jini and they said, 'Let's do something alternative,'" said Seamus McAteer, Web technology strategies analyst with Jupiter Communications.

"The goal is to have a complete set of specifications and sample source code available at this year's WinHec," Microsoft's Holden said. WinHec, the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference, starts April 7.

Universal Plug and Play is almost certain to butt heads with Sun's Jini. Sun is set to announce its Jini manufacturing partners later this month. Sun also hopes to have products that support Jini in the market by the end of 1999. Holden stopped short of calling Microsoft's technology an answer to Jini, but acknowledged similarities between the two.

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