Palm Springs, Calif. - Users who've dreamed of telling their Mac off, or on, could get the chance sooner than expected.
In a technology preview at Demo '92 here last week, David Nagel, senior vice president of Apple's Advanced Technology Group, used both voice and a pen to pilot a Quadra 900.
The demonstration was intended as a "sneak preview" of where interface technologies could go in future Macs and other products from Apple, Nagel said in an interview with MacWEEK.
Because the Mac interface has turned out to be surprisingly flexible, it will be possible to build these new input methods into Macs in the not-too-distant future, Nagel said. But the combination of voice and pen with intelligent agents running in the background will eventually allow Apple to create a different interface paradigm, one as revolutionary as the original Mac, he said.
>Hearing voices.
Code-named Casper, Apple's speaker-independent voice-recognition system was demonstrated on a Quadra 900 enhanced with a digital signal processor (DSP) and a higher-quality microphone offering than the microphones Apple currently bundles. Both the DSP chip and the new microphone are likely to be incorporated into a new Quadra model by year-end, sources said.
Casper currently has a vocabulary of more than 100,000 words. According to Nagel, a version with a smaller vocabulary could run on a platform with less processing power than a Quadra.
Unlike existing microcomputer-based voice-recognition systems, such as Articulate Systems Inc.'s Voice Navigator II, Casper does not need to be trained to recognize its user's voice. Apple designed its system by sampling hundreds of different voices in a wide range of accents, tones and pitches.
To pilot Casper, users simply tell their Macs what to do. In Nagel's demo, Casper pilot and principal engineer Robert Strong said, "Program my VCR," causing a VCR control panel to come up on the Quadra's screen. He then said, "Record Channel 5 tonight from 5 to 7 p.m," and Casper entered the event into the VCR's program log.
Other more typical Casper uses could include direct access to nested menu items, opening and closing windows on the desktop, or searching for and displaying a particular document.
Casper does not take dictation, nor is it likely to any time in the foreseeable future, Nagel said.
Although it wasn't part of last week's demo, Casper also has an output mode:
Speaking in an intelligible, human-sounding voice based on sampled speech, it can read back the contents of a file, according to Nagel. The point is not to make the Mac seem human, he said, but rather to give users a way to get feedback without being physically in front of the machine.
The basic voice-recognition technology is already in place, but Casper has problems understanding the nuances of human speech - "the interruptions and 'ums' and 'ahs' and indirect references," Nagel said.
The technology currently requires about 1 Mbyte of RAM, but Nagel said Apple hopes to cut that by more than half before shipping a voice extension.
Localizing Casper for all the languages used in the markets Apple now serves will be a huge challenge for the company, Nagel said.
>Mac penmanship.
Apple believes that pen input will be as important to the future of its interface as voice recognition, Nagel said.
The company's pen-input technology, code-named Rosetta, lets users control the Mac's interface with a stylus: Putting a check mark on a file opens it, dragging the pen across the screen scrolls through a window and crossing out a word deletes it.
Rosetta also can be used to enter text by recognizing words and converting them to type. Currently the system must be trained to recognize each user's handwriting. Ultimately it should be writer-independent and writer-adaptive, Nagel said.
Unlike Casper, Rosetta doesn't require special hardware, but it currently takes about 4 Mbytes of RAM.
"I think it's OK to deliver [pen and voice] when the technology is ready for use," Nagel said when asked when these new technologies might appear on Macs. "What I don't think is OK is delivering it just because it's neat." He declined to specify any target dates.
(MacWEEK News, February 3, 1992, page 1) (c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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Apple shows off scripting system
By Raines Cohen
San Francisco - Apple briefed 50 key developers here last month on AppleScript, its long-awaited user scripting system. Although it will be many months before users get their hands on the system, Apple is encouraging developers to build support for it and other scripting environments into applications now under development.
Macintosh-based scripting will offer much more power than the batch scripts familiar to DOS users. In addition to executing many basic file-management and operating system tasks, scripts will let Macintosh users call on individual functions in scripting-aware applications while running other programs.
Since developers will be able to use scripts to define what menu commands in their applications do, users will be able to customize off-the-shelf software simply by modifying the scripts.
Eventually, users will even be able to combine and customize the functions of multiple applications to create composite programs tailored to their needs.
In-house corporate developers, for instance, could assemble a custom executive information system by writing a script that called functions in spreadsheet, database and project-management applications.
CAD users could integrate database and spreadsheet applications to generate bills of materials.
At the "scripting Quickstart" session held after last month's Macworld Expo here, Apple reportedly encouraged developers to make their applications scripting-aware as soon as possible by incorporating support for the company's Open Scripting Architecture (OSA).
The specification, announced last year (see MacWEEK, June 4, 1991) defines a standard set of hooks that application developers can add to allow different scripting and macro systems, not just AppleScript, to control their programs. Developers need to build extensive support for Apple events into their applications, detaching the user interface from the program's code, to fully comply with the OSA.
Because of the standard, users won't have to wait for AppleScript to control applications. They will be able to turn to Frontier, the user-scripting environment released last month by UserLand Software Inc. of Palo Alto, Calif., as well as to less complex systems such as ControlTower, due later this year from Simple Software of Mill Valley, Calif.
AppleScript, currently in pre-alpha form, is very different from Frontier, according to developers who have seen it. The Apple software uses a language not unlike HyperCard's HyperTalk; Frontier's language, UserTalk, is more like C and uses an outline structure rather than a straight-text listing. Frontier can remember data values and settings between sessions in its object database, an ability not currently found in AppleScript.
Most important to non-technical users, AppleScript will provide a "watch me" recorder that will allow point-and-click script generation. Frontier currently does not include such a feature.
AppleScript has an adaptable syntax, making it localizable for different languages, according to Steve Weyl, manager of Apple's Developer Tools Engineering group. "You can write an application in one syntax and modify it in another," he said.
(MacWEEK News, February 3, 1992, page 1) (c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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Developers open Windows first
By Jon Swartz
San Francisco - With the release of Windows 3.1 on the horizon, it's no surprise DOS developers are scrambling to bring compatible products to the market.
What is turning heads, however, is the reaction of Mac developers, who once snubbed their noses at DOS technology but now are jumping on the Windows bandwagon.
According to industry observers, nearly every major software developer is devoting more time and money to Windows development, based on the larger Windows market and user demand.
"All the interesting apps used to come first on the Mac, then go to Windows. Now every productivity package is debuting on Windows," said Jeffrey Tarter, editor of Soft*Letter in Watertown, Mass. "The Mac is becoming an afterthought."
Some analysts believe that the Macintosh will remain a vital development platform for new kinds of applications nonetheless.
"Larger developers are more interested in economics, while small developers are more interested in innovation," said Esther Dyson, editor of Release 1.0 in New York. "The Mac will still be a platform for innovative, creative development."
The rapid rise in top-flight Windows programs has several users thinking twice before buying strictly Mac for a graphical-user interface program, according to several interviewed.
Eric Weidl, a computer analyst at the University of Chicago, said that although the Mac is popular on campus, its installed base remained flat at 7,500 while PC sales grew 25 percent last year to 2,000 because of Windows.
"The superiority of Microsoft's Windows (business applications) makes it difficult for a lot of people to ignore Windows and continue to buy Mac," Weidl said. "And that creates a cyclical situation. The more Windows sales, the more development, etc."
One large multivendor user in Southern California, for example, is debating whether to convert to Windows-only software and reduce its Macintosh installed base.
Still, most Fortune 1,000 companies are demanding cross-platform software to facilitate the exchange of data between different computer systems, according to Paul Stroube, Lotus 1-2-3 for Windows product manager.
Consequently, developers such as Microsoft and Claris are intensifying efforts to design core code that will allow them to bring cross-platform programs to market faster.
Currently, Excel, PowerPoint and Project have core engines, and the company is working on core code for other products such as Word, according to Pete Higgins, vice president of analysis business unit at Microsoft.
"With Excel 3.0 it was a 12- to 16-week difference between the two. With Excel 4.0 we hope to reduce it to six to eight weeks," Higgins said.
(MacWEEK News, February 3, 1992, page 1) (c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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SuperMac slices display prices
By Neil McManus
Sunnyvale, Calif. - Taking a cue from Apple's price cuts, SuperMac Technology this week will announce price reductions of up to 40 percent on its high-end color graphics boards and monitors.
SuperMac's price cuts affect more than a dozen products, including accelerated 24-bit-color boards, eight-bit-color boards, digital video cards and large-screen color displays. For example, the SuperMac Thunder/24 board will drop to $3,499 from $4,999, the Spectrum/8*24 card will be cut to $999 from $1,399, and the SuperMatch 20 Color monitor price will fall to $1,999 from $2,800.
"A lot of people are looking for accelerated color graphics, and these price cuts will let them afford some top-of-the line boards," said Mills Davis, a graphic arts research consultant in Washington, D.C.
Resellers cautioned that street prices won't fall as dramatically as list prices since SuperMac's dealer discount is dropping by a lower percentage.
"SuperMac is reducing the delta between list price and street price," said Ken Krich, president of ComputerWare Inc., a computer reseller chain based in Palo Alto, Calif.
Krich said that the street price of the Thunder/24 board will likely fall by $400 or $500, even though the list price is dropping by $1,500.
Steve Blank, SuperMac vice president of marketing, said his company hopes increased sales will offset lower margins. "It's the Apple market share strategy without the layoffs," he said. "We've been frustrated by the perception that if you win the Lotto, SuperMac's products are the best buy," Blank added. SuperMac's strategy also involves divesting itself of its software products. Soruces said the company is negotiating to sell PixelPaint Professional to MacroMind-Paracomp Inc. of San Francisco.
SuperMac's reductions could affect pricing throughout the high-end display market. "SuperMac is trying to stick it to its competitors, but I imagine companies like RasterOps [Corp.] will respond with some price cuts of their own," Davis added.
RasterOps spokeswoman said it has no immediate price reductions. However, a spokeswoman said, RasterOps is about to release a "very competitively priced" accelerated 24-bit board.
Industry sources said SuperMac's price cuts are part of a company strategy to go public in April or May. SuperMac's Blank would not comment on the possibility, but he said his company is in strong financial shape. "We have overhead and expenses under control. We're a lean-and-mean company right now," he said.
(MacWEEK News, February 3, 1992, page 1) (c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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Apple to pump up the volume
By Carolyn Said
Cupertino, Calif. - Apple this week is expected to trim prices for Macs on the road as well as on the desktop. The company will cut prices for PowerBook 100s by about 12 percent, sources said.
In addition, Apple reportedly will slash the price of the StyleWriter, its 360-dpi inkjet printer by a third.
As reported last week, Apple plans dramatic price cuts for all its low-end to midrange desktop Macs.
The anticipated move generated enthusiasm from dealers and analysts. "I think we'll move a lot more volume with these price cuts," said Ken Krich, president of ComputerWare Inc. of Palo Alto, Calif.
"This is a very aggressive attempt on Apple's part to stay competitive with the aggressive pricing of the PC clones," said Charles Finnie, research analyst at Volpe, Welty & Co., a San Francisco investment-banking company.
Apple refused to comment.
Apple also will release two new PowerBook 100 configurations next week: a 4/40 without a floppy drive for $2,399 and a 4/40 with an external floppy drive for $2,599.
The company also has decided to cut pricing for the 68000-based Classic, as well as to continuing an incentive program.
Customers hoping to see street prices fall in proportion to this week's changes in Apple's retail prices may be disappointed, however. Because planned cuts in dealer prices won't match reductions in Apple's suggested retail price list, dealers who want to preserve their margins won't be able to cut prices as drastically as the Apple announcement might suggest. For example, the Mac IIci 5/80 list price will drop 33 percent, while dealer pricing will drop about 22 percent. The Mac IIsi 5/80 list price will drop about 34 percent, and dealer pricing will drop about 26 percent.
The dealer price for the lame-duck Mac IIfx will remain unchanged, but its suggested retail price will drop about 28 percent to $5,800.
The logic board upgrade to turn the Mac IIci into a Quadra 700 will ship this week for $3,499 with exchange of the original logic board.
(MacWEEK News, February 3, 1992, page 1) (c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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Agents to run handheld devices
By Andrew Gore
Cupertino, Calif. - A handheld machine and a radically new operating system for it will be the wedge that enables Apple to penetrate the consumer-products market, according to sources.
The new hardware and software, both code-named Newton, reportedly will be as different from the Mac as the Mac was from DOS. The system will rely on voice and pen for input and intelligent software agents to process the input.
David Nagel, senior vice president of Apple's Advanced Technology Group, wouldn't comment on the Newton project, but last week acknowledged that Apple considers the intelligent-agent technology critical for any system based on pen and voice.
"To make speech-recognition work as an integral part of an interface," he said, "you not only have to have a language model - you have to have a behavior model." Handheld electronic assistants, such as those Apple CEO John Sculley recently promised, need to use speech recognition because it doesn't require scarce screen space, he said.
But a language-based system needs a way to adapt itself to the way a person speaks, he added, so it can learn that what one user refers to as a document, for example, is the same thing as what another user calls a file.
That is the kind of task agents will handle, Nagel said.
Newton's primary function, according to sources, will be to extract data that the user needs from other computers. It will be capable of sifting through information as it becomes available on remote systems, including voice and electronic-mail systems, to which the device can connect. Agents will filter data automatically, on the basis of criteria defined by the user, and alert the user when it locates desired items.
Agents also will be able to recognize patterns in users' work and anticipate what they want to do next, Nagel said. If, for instance, users search for news stories on AppleLink every time they access an information service, the agent will ask if they want that search performed every time they connect to that service.
All this will be dependent on wireless communications, Nagel said, so that the agents will have a way to access other computers and services while on the road.
(MacWEEK News, February 3, 1992, page 1) (c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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ComNet looks to broadband future
By Mitch Ratcliffe
Washington - Fast broadband nationwide networks will appear this decade, according to companies and analysts at ComNet '92, held here last week.
Demonstrations focused on applications that will use new technologies to enable video teleconferencing, radio frequency messaging, 100-Mbps and faster fiber-optic networks, and data sharing through digital telephone technologies.
Keynote speaker George Heilmeier, president and CEO of Bellcore, the research arm of the seven regional telephone companies, outlined a new industry that will give users universal access through telephone lines to large hypertext databases, entertainment such as films or books, and multimedia educational programs.
"We'll see emphasis on pocket-size wireless handsets on the one hand and handheld wireless computers on the other," Heilmeier said.
Handsets, which may share many of the features of a cellular telephone, might allow users to view messages or downloadable TV programs. Wireless computers, Heilmeier said, could provide worldwide access to business applications.
Although the Mac played a small part on the show floor, Apple's partnership with IBM Corp. took center stage during off-the-floor seminars.
To fulfill some of the futures predicted in the keynote, "IBM needs access to Apple's multimedia technologies," said Larry DeBoever, managing director of Tucker/DeBoever Associates Inc., a South Norwalk, Conn.-based networking consultant. He said IBM will soon increase the speed of its token-ring cards from 16 Mbps to 32 Mbps, which will make possible the bandwidth-hungry multimedia applications that the two companies are developing.
"Traffic statistics are telling us that users are only barely tolerating current network speeds," DeBoever said. Users are waiting for the capability to collaborate in an interactive environment, which will increase demand for high-speed networks. "Net traffic will expand to use all available bandwidth," he said.
Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI), a metropolitan-area networking topology that offers 100-Mbps throughput, was demonstrated by as many as three dozen companies at the show. AppleTalk-to-FDDI routing is problematic, but several companies are promising the capability in their hardware by midyear.
Digital telephony, however, will play the largest part in a national information economy, Heilmeier said. Information services must provide a common, hardware-independent user interface all across the country, he said. During a press briefing, Heilmeier refused to speculate about what this interface might look and feel like.
But he did say that Bellcore and other companies might provide directory and security capabilities for the phone network to any object-oriented operating system. A common telephone object dropped into the Apple-IBM joint venture's Taligent operating system, for instance, could provide such an interface.
(MacWEEK News, February 3, 1992, page 6) (c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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It's mix-and-match messages
Electronic-mail systems exist on every major corporate computing platform. But making them talk to one another is a Herculean task for network managers. Gateways offer a multipronged solution but increase the number of E-mail connections to be managed.
By Mitzi Waltz
At John Deere in Moline, Ill., cross-platform electronic mail has opened up the world of interoffice communication. Before the E-mail system from cc.Mail Inc., a Mountain View, Calif.-based division of Lotus Development Corp., went into operation, the only E-mail delivery was through IBM Corp.'s pre-PROFS DISOSS system, which ran on the mainframe. Now John Deere's 30 Macs and 50 PCs are tied to each other and, via a gateway, to DISOSS and four Unix machines running Unix mail, said Office Automation Coordinator Linda Popp.
When users send mail, "it's totally transparent; you don't see anything at all to indicate whether the recipient is on a different kind of computer," Popp said. "Once we get the [automatic] directory updates done it'll be perfect." Currently, an E-mail administrator must add names to directories manually. The system is also easy to access from home computers or on-the-road laptops, a factor John Deere's sales staff appreciates.
>Patchwork connections.
Probably every manager in charge of a cross-platform E-mail installation wishes his or her site was as trouble-free as John Deere's. But as first- and second-generation gateways to disparate systems proliferate and improve, the mistranslated messages, lost addresses and bad connections many users have experienced should become less common.
Some vendors, such as Microsoft Corp. of Redmond, Wash., are doing their best to offer many links and gateways necessary for cross-platform operation themselves. The recently shipped Microsoft Mail Connection is intended to connect the different versions of Microsoft Mail that run on networks of Macs and IBM PCs and compatibles. Microsoft also offers gateways to PROFS; X.400 (a standard used by many mail systems, including Digital Equipment Corp.'s ALL-IN-1 and VMS Mail, AT&T Mail and Sprint TeleMail); Unix's SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol); Novell Inc.'s Message Handling Service (MHS); and many other communications protocols. Third-party gateways are also available for Mac systems.
>Third-party development.
Other companies, such as CE Software Inc. of West Des Moines, Iowa, are leaving the bulk of gateway development to third parties. CE's QuickMail 2.5 runs on Mac and PC networks, and other vendors have written a multitude of plug-in gateways.
Kevin Ladwig, systems engineer at Electric Data Systems in Dallas, keeps his site talking via Microsoft Mail. He recently added Microsoft Mail Connection to tie his 100 Macs and 30 PCs together. The E-mail network already included a gateway to Systems Network Architecture Distributed Services (SNADS), which lets Microsoft Mail users communicate with host-based mail systems such as PROFS, and an MHS gateway, which hooks up users with remote sites. Ladwig hopes to tie in a 20-workstation network of Sun workstations running Unix mail soon using Microsoft's SMTP gateway.
Microsoft Mail gets the job done, Ladwig said, but the result has not been perfection. "It's a workable solution but not the happiest environment," he said. "It still feels like a patch job. I'm hoping Version 2.2 will take care of that."
>Address problems.
Ladwig's biggest problem is that address lists are not automatically updated between remote networks. The administrator must be sure to track and update user lists on the various gateways to make message addressing seamless for end users. "Right now there are eight different gateways to choose from, and [for the administrator] it's like peeling an onion to find who you're looking for," Ladwig said. "If you're on the same network it'll exchange messages and addresses fine, though."
Jim Warhman, principal engineer at Computer Science Innovation Inc. of Palm Bay, Fla., likes QuickMail's third-party gateways. CSI has 20 Macs and three DOS machines on QuickMail now and is adding PCs as the managers need them.
Warhman expects to add VAXes and Unix workstations to his E-mail system next year using third-party gateways. "It speaks well for QuickMail that it has an open architecture; I prefer a choice," he said. "If CE tried to put out every gateway known to man, I don't think they'd do as good of a job as third parties that really understand those other environments."
In fact, Warhman has used QuickMail's scripting capabilities to write his own Internet gateway. There's just one drawback to his system, he said: No Windows interface is available. "Folks here are gradually moving toward Windows," he said, "and I'd like to see that happen."
He added that CE's QuickMail-to-QuickMail software, which lets the head office send E-mail via modem to the company's Alabama and Maryland sites, has been "a powerful motivator" for the network's spread.
>E-mail directions.
The trend is definitely toward systems with a multiplicity of ways to marry into other E-mail nets. The market is moving away from single-platform software that makes users spend a long time addressing mail or navigating through a maze of gateways, according to Nina Burns, president of Network Marketing Solutions, a consulting, research and training firm in Menlo Park, Calif., that specializes in communications issues.
Burns said standards from Microsoft, Lotus and Novell eventually will prevail, with X.400 becoming the protocol of choice for communication between remote networks.
TCP/IP, the networking protocol most typically found on Unix-based LANs and wide-area networks, is supported on almost every type of computer in some fashion. And SMTP, which runs on TCP/IP, is now the most widely used system for sending E-mail to and from Unix computers. Although SMTP has been advocated as a potential cross-platform standard, Burns said she doesn't expect to see it move outside the Unix world.
Cross-platform gateways are also becoming an integral part of more networking products. Pathworks for Macintosh, the network operating system from Maynard, Mass.-based DEC and Apple, includes Mac E-mail clients and hooks for outside E-mail networks.
The standard system includes a client that can link with any VMS Mail or SMTP system. Pathworks also comes with a license for DEC's ALL-IN-1 E-mail system, an X.400 user agent that will let managers implement any X.400-based mail system and distributed directory services to avoid complex addressing.
Though E-mail integration with applications is more vendor promise than reality, WordPerfect Corp.'s WordPerfect Office includes E-mail along with a suite of simple office productivity programs for Macs and PCs.
Once a major user concern, the user interfaces of mail are rarely mentioned as a problem these days. "Interfaces are becoming more standard with the advent of Windows, and that's a good move for the user," Burns said.
(MacWEEK Geteways, February 3, 1992, page 24) (c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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Apple wireless devices heard 'round world?
By Mitch Ratcliffe and Dartanyan L. Brown
Malaga-Torremolinos, Spain - Apple's plans for roaming wireless networks of Macs and other devices could be altered by diplomatic maneuverings that start this week in this Spanish town.
Representatives of 165 countries will meet for the next month to divvy up international rights to the radio spectrum at the World Administrative Radio Conference (WARC) '92, a meeting of the United Nations International Telecommunications Union.
The outcome of the negotiations here could affect whether users of wireless computers will be able to transmit data anywhere in the world.
In the United States, it could have an effect on Apple's proposals to the Federal Communications Commission for setting aside portions of the public-radio spectrum (see MacWEEK, Feb. 5, 1991).
As proposed by Apple, Data-Personal Communications Services (D-PCS) would free up radio bandwidth between 1,850 and 2,200 MHz for use by data and voice communication devices, such as the handheld devices planned by Apple's consumer products division and Apple spinoff General Magic. Wireless devices now use expensive and exclusive private cellular networks, such as Motorola Corp.'s and IBM Corp.'s ARDIS, to communicate and send data.
The United States last month reinforced its claim to spectrum allocated for voice and data communications by an earlier WARC, when it took steps to allocate bandwidth for "emerging technologies" (see MacWEEK, Jan. 20). But the decision isn't final.
"When the FCC made [the emerging technologies] announcement, they allocated no frequencies. Every country has a voice at WARC, and typical politics don't apply," said Bill Stevens, Apple manager of wireless networking.
"[The United States] will have to get international allocation first, and then we can decide on what to do with the issues involving domestic frequency allocation," a State Department spokeswoman said.
According to the State Department official, the United States also could work outside WARC rules or apply for permission to use the D-PCS spectrum it wants in the Western Hemisphere only.
Even if D-PCS is "a settled matter" within the United States, as Ambassador Jan W. Baran, chairman of the U.S. delegation, said, Apple is still pushing for a uniform worldwide bandwidth so users can roam the world using a single radio data device.
Without a worldwide spectrum allocation, companies must engineer wireless products for several different frequencies to sell into international markets. This is an expensive and intricate task because small changes in frequency can drastically affect signal propagation or antenna design, among other things, according to manufacturers.
European countries - now including the newly independent Baltic states - have banded together and are offering 14 alternative radio initiatives, making the likelihood of settling on a single global allocation somewhat remote.
Still, whether the outcome is a single standard bandwidth or many different frequencies, "there is a need for worldwide standards before companies can begin producing products," said Kaveh Pahlavan, director of the Center for Wireless Information Network Studies at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Mass., speaking at ComNet '92 in Washington, D.C., last week.
WARC get-togethers also have been known as contentious forums that engender little in the way of international cooperation, Baran said. For example, in 1982 the Arab world, backed by the Soviets, spent most of the conference trying to expel the Israeli representatives, he said.
This year, however, Baran expects the spirit of capitalism to smooth geopolitical waters. Visions of profits could melt the barriers to an agreement, Baran said during a State Department briefing last week.
(MacWEEK Gateways, February 3, 1992, page 22) (c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in
any form without permission.
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Mac the Knife: Looking at all the channels
Consumer confidence in the future of the economy may be in the toilet, but the people who run Apple have no shortage of confidence in consumers. In fact, there's every indication that the company has targeted this summer as the proper season to jump into the consumer-electronics business.
Not surprisingly, the first offering in this channel will be the 68000-based Mac Classic bundled with some kind of productivity software. While no one is saying for sure, the logical choice would be ClarisWorks. This is a move that would be sure to rekindle all manner of unseemly controversy in the third-party applications-development community.
The process of selecting the channel through which to move those thousands of Classic boxes has yet to be completed, but insiders speculate that Sears, which is where America may still shop even though it doesn't have everything anymore, has the inside track. If such is the case, it is probably one of the few bright spots in the beleaguered retailer's future. Then again, at the beginning of the last decade, Apple authorized Macy's to move its iron, and look what happened to Macy's.
>Gotta have it.
In the category of things that muddy the waters, the Knife reports that Ingram Micro intends to sign a purchasing agreement with the Mac Consultants Network (MCN) to let the consultants buy products from the distributor for resale to their customers.
Perhaps to some Mac consultants, just the prospect of providing the client with the odd surge suppressor or copy of WordPerfect Mac would be fulfillment enough. Other Mac consultants, however, want more, much more. These are the consultants who will be most happy if Ingram gets Apple's nod to supply Mac hardware to value-added resellers. Then, as if by magic, MCN members will be offered the opportunity to achieve VAR status effortlessly. Merisel and Tech Data also are in the running, but sources tell the Knife that Ingram has the inside track. A final decision on these plans is expected this week, with a formal rollout in March.
>Only in Japan.
Word has reached the Knife that Sony is putting the finishing touches on the CD-ROM drive that is destined to appear in a future consumer product from Apple. The truly interesting thing about this drive, which plays 3.5-inch discs, is average access times in the lab that rival moderately priced hard disks. Engineers were able to achieve a 600-Mbyte capacity on the small discs by reducing the level of data redundancy that has been necessary to ensure performance of earlier drives.
>Equal latitude.
You have to wonder what Apple thinks about Quorum Software Systems Inc.'s recent announcement of Quorum Latitude and Quorum Equal, products that allow System 7-ready, 32-bit-clean Mac applications to be converted relatively easily to run on one of several Unix workstations.
The Knife reports that Quorum engineers are at this moment developing a similar product that will allow third-party software developers to port their applications to both Windows 3.0 and Windows NT. If the best legal observers are wrong and Apple loses its infringement lawsuit against Microsoft, it would have all the more reason to pursue its rumored plans to buy the company.
The right product moves. Now that everyone is comfortable with the idea of much lower Mac prices, it's probably as good a time as any to plan for some scheduled changes in the product lineup itself. After all, forewarned is forearmed. In August, Apple is planning to drop the floppy-based IIfx, so those planning to configure IIfx systems with third-party drives should act now to avoid possible disappointment. And those who think the IIci is just the ticket should be aware that a replacement model is due later this year. Specs include a 33-MHz '030, Ethernet, three slots, on-board video, FPU and cache slot.
While Bill and Hillary may only dream of possessing a MacWEEK mug, you can actually own the dream if you've got the right inside stuff. The Knife is open for business at (415) 243-3500, fax (415) 243-3650, MCI (MactheKnife), AppleLink (MacWEEK) and CompuServe/ZiffNet/Zmac.
(MacWEEK, Mac the Knife, February 3, 1992, page 102) (c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
