Marimba Grabs Patent For Doling Out Code And Data

Marimba , which is known for its Desktop/Mobile Management and Web Traffic Monitor technology, Wednesday says it has received an U.S. patent for its software distribution technology

Titled “System and Method for the Distribution of Code and Data,” U.S. patent 6,272,536, relates in part to the automatic distribution and updating of software applications and data over a network.

Mountain View, Calif.-based Marimba co-founders Arthur van Hoff, Sami Shaio and Jonathan Payne are named as the inventors of the patent.

“I am extremely proud of the work done by Arthur, Sami and Jonathan on this innovation, which ultimately allows our customers to further benefit from Marimba technology,” says Marimba president and CEO Rich Wyckoff.

The patent is for a system and method for distributing software applications and data to many thousands of clients over a network. In this case, the applications are called “channels,” the server is called “transmitter,” and the client is called “tuner.”

The way Marimba executives explain it; the use of channels is based on subscription. The end-user needs to subscribe to a channel before it can be downloaded.

When the end-user subscribes to a channel the associated code and data is downloaded to the local hard disk. Once downloaded, the channel can be executed many times without requiring further network access. Channels can be updated automatically at regular intervals by the tuner and, as a result, the end-user is no longer required to manually install software updates.

Instead, these software and data updates are automatically downloaded and installed in the background. This method of automatic downloading of updates achieves for the client the same result as the broadcast distribution of software over a connection-based network, but wherein the client initiates each update request without requiring any special broadcast networking infrastructure.

The company currently works with large firms including ADP, Charles Schwab, Intuit, Electronic Arts, Nasdaq and Earthlink as a source for systems management solutions.

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