Reviewing two multimedia presentation (quasi-) standards

We compare the BERKOM globally accessible services project (GLASS) with the well-known World-Wide Web with respect to the ease of development, realization, and distribution of multimedia presentations. This comparison is based on the experiences we gained when implementing a gateway between GLASS and the World-Wide Web. Since both systems are shown to have obvious weaknesses, we conclude this paper with a presentation of a better way for multimedia document engineering and distribution. This concept is based on a well-accepted approach to function-shipping in the Internet: the Java language, permitting for example a smooth integration of GLASS' MHEG objects and WWW HTML pages within one common environment.