System Support for Efficient Dynamically-Configurable
      Multi-Party Interactive Multimedia Applications

                        Mark Moran
                      The Tenet Group
Computer Science Division, University of California, Berkeley
        and International Computer Science Institute
                     Berkeley, CA 94720

                            and

                      Riccardo Gusella
                Hewlett-Packard Laboratories
                     1501 Page Mill Rd.
                    Palo Alto, CA 94304

                       November 1992

                          ABSTRACT


     An important new class of communication-oriented appli-
cations  are described as multi-party interactive multimedia
applications.  In this paper,  we  examine  the  programming
abstractions,  system  support  and  communication  services
required by these applications; evaluate  existing  support;
and  propose  strategies  for improving support by combining
current systems with new designs.  We have taken a  holistic
approach to this problem by considering the local system and
communication architecture together  in  deciding  where  to
implement  each service, and in designing interfaces between
components.



























                     November 19, 1992