Chairman's Message
The SIGCOMM '93 Symposium
The 1993 SIGCOMM Symposium will take place at the Westin St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco dur-
ing the week of September 13-17. Tutorials will be offered on the first two days of the week; the conference
program will begin on Wednesday. The advance program has been mailed to SIGCOMM members. I hope
to see many of you there!
Arrangements are being made to record portions of the 1993 SIGCOMM conference, including the key-
note presentation by the SIGCOMM Award winner, for distribution by Internet Talk Radio, which makes
high-quality, professionally-edited sound recordings available on the Internet. Further information will be
included in the October issue of CCR.
1993 SIGCOMM Award
The 1993 SIGCOMM Award will be presented to Dr. Robert E. Kahn during the opening plenary ses-
sion of the 1993 SIGCOMM Symposium. The SIGCOMM award recognizes lifetime achievement in and
contributions to the field of data communications. It is awarded annually to a person whose work, over the
course of his or her career, represents a significant contribution to the field and a substantial influence on the
work and perceptions of others in the field. The past recipients of the Award are Paul Baran, Leonard
Kleinrock, David Clark, Hubert Zimmerman, and Sandy Fraser.
CCR Guest Columns
Hubert Zimmerman, the 1992 SIGCOMM Award winner, inaugurates a new series of guest columns
with his article "Microkernel UNIX: Ready to Revolutionize Telecommunications" in this issue of CCR.
The series is intended to give some of the field's most accomplished members an opportunity to comment on
current issues and trends. The first five columns will be written by the past winners of the annual
SIGCOMM Award; Leonard Kleinrock's column will appear in the October issue of CCR. I encourage
SIGCOMM members to send me their suggestions for other guest columnists ("I've always wanted to know
what so-and-so thinks about...").
New SIG on Multimedia
The organizers of the Multimedia '93 conference (which will be held in conjunction with the
SIGGRAPH conference in Anaheim, CA, during the week of August 2-6, 1993) have been working with a
"multimedia steering committee" consisting of representatives from six sponsoring SIGs (CHI, COMM,
GRAPH, IR, LINK, and OIS) to establish a new "conference SIG" called SIGMULTI. SIGMULTI will
oversee an annual Multimedia conference and serve as the focal point within ACM for researchers and oth-
ers interested in the multidisciplinary field of multimedia. I encourage anyone who is interested in this field
to get in touch with J.J. Garcia-Luna, one of SIGMULTI's organizers (and SIGCOMM's conference coordi-
nator), at garcia@sri.com.
Standards Status
This issue of CCR contains a report of the "Status of Internet Standards", which complements the long-
running "Status of OSI Standards" by providing information about the open systems standards developed
and published by the Internet community. I hope to include the OSI and Internet standards reports in alter-
nate issues of CCR. If you have any suggestions for other "status" reports, please send them to me at
sigcomm@bbn.com.
SIGCOMM Finances
ACM's fiscal year ended on June 30. SIGCOMM finished the year in excellent financial health, with a
comfortable budget surplus. SIGCOMM's secretarytreasurer, Chris Edmondson-Yurkanan, will present a
detailed financial report at the SIGCOMM business meeting during the SIGCOMM '93 conference in Sep-
tember, which will be included in the October issue of CCR.
Lyman Chapin.
Editor's Message
This issue of CCR will arrive rather late, as did the April issue. A very unfortunate confluence of cir-
cumstances, including three illnesses in my extended family and an unusally heavy load at my paying job,
caused my efforts at serving the CCR readership to flag. While reviewing and working with authors man-
aged to continue at a somewhat reduced rate, creation of CCR features and production work ceased alto-
gether for nearly three months. One casualty for this issue is the usual Bibliography feature, which will re-
turn in October and will cover the entire six month period since the April issue.
I am catching up now, and fervently hope that the October issue will be only slightly late, and CCR will
be back on schedule by January.
Since the SIGCOMM executive committe increased the page budget for CCR last fall, the article back-
log has gotten under control and has started to drop. Those of you who saw long publication delays should
find the situation somewhat improved, and new submissions should be through the process of review and
publication in six months, rather than the recent twelve month average. So, keep those good papers coming
in!!
As always, I am interested in your comments, ideas, and criticisms. I hope to see many of you at
SIGCOMM '93 and will report there on the status of CCR and my plans for the future. I hope your summer
has been a pleasant one; I certainly will appreciate my next one.
David R. Oran