Hybrid solutions to information publishing in the World Office era

Discusses the disadvantages of CD‐ROMs and the Web from the perspective of professional information distributors and proposes an alternative solution. CD‐ROMs cannot easily be updated in a timely and cost‐effective way, whereas the Web compromises quality of graphics, sound and video. The information bottleneck caused by the Internet is predicted to get worse, adding to the problem. Bespoke hybrid CDs which allow updating of some CD‐ROM files by downloading from the Internet on to the local hard disk also have limitations. A new software product, SoftCD, overcomes the problems of bespoke hybrid CD‐ROMs, while retaining their advantages. It is identified as useful and cost‐effective for situations where there is a relatively high volume of volatile data. Potential markets are seen as remote business support, business‐to‐business reference information and computer‐based training updates.