Papers in PDF format

- whether these new applications could really satisfy the new goals of the broadcasting service,
- whether it could be possible to attract new audience world-wide,
- about the amount of money to invest for personnel, servers, and bandwidth,
- whether a return of investments would be guaranteed,
- and whether it should be a branch of its own or part of the radio or TV program.
Therefore the risks for the company should be minimised.
3. The Deutsche Welle General Plan
A traditional business-oriented way to solve this problem is outsourcing. Another important point is a clear
distribution of responsibilities and work. Setting up Internet services require networking and system
administration knowledge as well as skill in organising and preparing the data [Liu et al. 94].
Therefore two external partners were sought to co-operate with the DW-Internet task force being responsible
for the program itself and the raw material:
- one co-operation partner for the layout and the information design in the World Wide Web.
- one co-operation partner for the provision of the Internet connectivity and the operation and the enhancement of
the information service.
Both co-operation partners should be experienced, should be willing to co-operate and should be capable to act
as a think tank for the Deutsche Welle in questions related to Internet, Internet applications and future
directions. The personnel of Deutsche Welle being responsible for networking and communications should
have an opportunity to learn in practice the management of the new Internet-based applications in order to be
enabled to run the service needed by themselves in medium terms (migration plan).
Apart from that, the service should come up as fast as possible with a minimal amount of bureaucracy (e.g.
procurements and registration of a second-level domain) but should be operated under professional conditions
with guarantees for quality of service and a certain amount of security.
3.1. The Co-operation Partners
GMD is the German National Research Center for Information Technology [GMD 96]. In its Media
Communication Institute it performed the engineering of value-added services like e-mail, file transfer, and
directory services for different co-operation partners. Especially in this context WWW-based developments,
integration of services, and works related to Secure Internet are of major importance. GMD qualified to be the
co-operation partner for the service operation.
gekko is a small, spin-off company of GMD located in the GMD premises called GMD Technopark. As a
combination of a traditional consulting and advertising agency with a general purpose technical service
provider gekko specialises in the provision of access methods as well as the development of ways of
representation and turn-key information and advertising systems for companies wishing to establish their
presence on the Internet [gekko 96]. gekko qualified to be the co-operation partner for the information design
and layout.
3.2. The Time Schedule and a First Plan
DW wanted to be present on the Web. A small, low-budget project based on existing hardware - the so called
introduction phase for setting up the basic contents, introducing the services and merchandising - was defined
starting in September 1994 with expected end in August 1995. Afterwards, depending on the results of this
phase it should be decided whether and how to continue.
In order to give DW's Internet start a sound basis careful planning was crucial. Within a couple of meetings we
defined the realisation steps as well as the responsibilities and the distribution of work. We also identified some
basic guidelines. The realisation must be scaleable, i.e. the system must be adaptable as the popularity and
hence the number of accesses grows. The solution must be extensible so that new services could be integrated
as they become popular. And last but not least the migration of the system from GMD to DW was a major
aspect from the very beginning.