Cupertino, Calif. -- When QuickDraw GX finally crosses the finish line next month, it will face a major roadblock: Current printer drivers cannot be used with the new imaging technology.
Meanwhile, a third-party developer is seeking a buyer for software that promises to resolve these printing quandaries.
GX beta testers said the problems may hinder widespread adoption of Apple's new imaging architecture.
All current print drivers, including Apple's own LaserWriter driver, must be rewritten before they can be recognized by GX. Apple has said it will release updated versions of its own drivers with GX and help printer vendors update their drivers.
The problem with Apple's plan, observers said, is that users may be left with unusable drivers because Apple cannot reach every vendor and convince them to undertake the translation.
"We've made writing a GX printer driver a simple process for developers and [we] will continue to grow our base of printer drivers as well as third-party solutions," said David Nagel, senior vice president and general manager of AppleSoft.
Output from applications that do not support GX is processed through a translator before printing. As the migration from Apple's LaserWriter 7 to the LaserWriter 8 driver developed by Adobe Systems Inc. demonstrated, results can vary slightly from expectations.
According to a GX beta tester, "As good a job as they might do with the emulator -- and it looks like they've done a great job -- there are going to be times when it's not perfect and you'll want to go back to something you're familiar with, like LaserWriter 7." Once GX is installed, however, such a switch is impossible.
Some applications, such as the current release of Aldus PageMaker, cannot print at all under GX, sources said. Large vendors, including Aldus Corp., are expected to revise their applications to resolve printing problems, but that process will take time.
Yosemite Software of San Carlos, Calif., reportedly has a solution for these problems, however. The company has completed work on Detente, an extension that lets users switch between GX and non-GX printing on the fly.
Detente will not eliminate problems with GX, but users will be able to avoid them. When Detente is installed, two new items appear at the top of the Apple menu. The first toggles between the two printing modes, and the other opens the Chooser to show the appropriate drivers for the current mode. Detente remembers which setting is used for each application.
Sources said the company hopes to sell its extension to a distributor but has not yet found a buyer.
MacWEEK 05.02.94
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(c) Copyright 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
News: Unix developers laud Power Macs
By Mark Hall
When Mac developers get together at next month's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Jose, Calif., processor performance will be on the minds of those who have been lured into the Unix workstation market over the years. While the Power Macintosh has impressed CPU-hungry developers, few say they are ready to abandon the features that only high-end Unix machines can provide.
In the Mac's stronghold of desktop publishing, Sun Microsystems Inc. and Silicon Graphics Inc., both of Mountain View, Calif., have made a concerted effort to attract traditional Mac users. In March Adobe Systems Inc., also of Mountain View, began shipping Photoshop for SGI and Sun computers (see MacWEEK, April 18, Page 4).
According to Dano Ybarra, an Adobe senior marketing manager, Adobe Illustrator, which began shipping a year ago on both Unix platforms, "exceeded all of our expectations." As a result, he said, the company's hopes for Photoshop on the Unix machines have risen.
The primary appeal of workstations has been their performance. Perry Kivolowitz, president and CEO of Madison, Wis.-based Elastic Reality Inc., said his company's morphing and warping software can draw Bezier curves using the specialized graphics hardware of SGI machines "at blazing speeds." Its performance on Quadras is much slower, since the software must handle the Bezier functions on the Mac's CPU, he said.
According to Kivolowitz, Power Macs change the equation. "The Power Mac is the Mac we've been waiting for," he said.
In some cases, developers have seen their programs run faster on Power Macs than on the Unix computers. Richard Kerris, director of product development at Electric Image Inc. of Pasadena, Calif., said his company's Electric Engine 3-D rendering software "ran benchmarks better on the Power Mac than on [SGI's] Indy. The Power Mac definitely gives you the bang for your buck."
Kivolowitz said that an SGI machine with his product would cost $15,000, while a comparably configured Power Mac would be $6,000.
Although the Power Macs compete well on price and performance, they lack some fundamental capabilities of the Sun and SGI products. "The Power Mac lacks a pre-emptive multitasking operating system: Unix. And A/UX is not a factor," said Jerry Barber, chief technical officer at Seattle-based Aldus Corp.
"The Sun and SGI systems have very good software-development tools," said Russell Belfer, an engineer at nFX Corp. of Santa Clara, Calif. "These machines were designed by developers for developers."
Belfer added that current Unix machines have multiprocessing and memory-protection capabilities that Apple can only promise for future Power Macs.
Many developers said they were attracted by workstation vendors' commitment to standards. Kerris said the Open GL standard, which is based on SGI's graphics library and will soon be released for Microsoft Windows, is technology Apple should incorporate for 3-D graphics.
"Apple has an NIH (not-invented-here) syndrome when it comes to graphics," he said.
Applications written for Unix machines are simpler to move to other platforms. This portability appeals to developers, who have to completely rewrite Mac software to make it work on other platforms. According to Randy Frank, an engineer at the University of Iowa's Image Analysis Facility in Iowa City, Unix has a "high degree of portability of generated code [because] of the better support for industry standards."
MacWEEK 05.02.94
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News: Users hail NetWare for RISC server line
By Stephen Howard
Cupertino, Calif. -- "We can't cover the waterfront just by ourselves," said Apple CEO Michael Spindler at last week's announcement of the porting of Novell Inc.'s NetWare 4.1 to Apple's three new PowerPC-based servers.
Customers and analysts said the RISC servers are not very attractive today because of their non-native LAN services. The promised arrival of the most popular network operating system, however, was seen as a corporate door-opener for the servers and Macs in general.
The Workgroup Server 6150, 8150 and 9150 are shipping now, along with logic-board upgrades for 68040-based servers; Processor-Independent NetWare is expected before the end of the year, the companies said. Bob Frankenberg, Novell's president and CEO, added that his company had no plans at this time to port NetWare to any PowerPC machines other than Apple's.
It may not be bundled with the network operating system, but NetWare for Macintosh will be ported to the Power Mac servers, according to Provo, Utah-based Novell. All NLMs (NetWare Loadable Modules) must be recompiled before they can run on RISC, the company said.
PowerPC NetWare will give Apple a viable server platform, said Michael Pastore, Apple product manager at Entex Information Services Inc. (formerly JWP Information Services) of Rye Brook, N.Y. But, he said, "it's not the answer to making Apple a significant player in the server market. Period." Apple's desktop machines need corporate acceptance first, according to Pastore. "It will be an uphill battle."
Thousands of NetWare resellers are reportedly waiting to help with that climb. Novell said certified NetWare engineers will be trained to install and support the network OS on the Workgroup Servers. And Apple promised it would sell CPUs with NetWare preinstalled.
Richard King, executive vice president of Novell's NetWare Services Group, said the network OS on the Power Mac servers would be popular with many resellers; he noted that Power Mac compatibility will give Novell access to Apple's channels.
Users of Apple's current '040 servers aren't eager to upgrade but hold out hopes for future speedups.
"My main concern is how long it will take to get AppleTalk, network drivers and server software native. Our database developer has told us it is working on native code, too, so moving to PPC is exciting to us -- if Apple ever gets its code native," said Shandor Simon, technical associate at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools.
Users of the Unix-based Apple Workgroup Server 95, especially those at education or government sites, are reluctant to switch to the Mac OS-based RISC models.
"In all instances where I have an AWS 95, it's doing a lot behind the scenes in Unix," said Jamie Thingelstad, technical coordinator for disability services at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. "I think [NetWare on PPC is] a good idea for sites that need super-fast file-server performance."
Spindler promised just that, saying NetWare on the Workgroup Servers would offer two to four times better performance than today's high-end systems.
Malcolm Duncan, manager of executive education computing at Purdue University's Krannert Graduate School in West Lafayette, Ind., said he expects the combination will be very competitive with the superserver lines offered by Hewlett-Packard Co. and Compaq Computer Corp.
MacWEEK 05.02.94
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News: La Cie to sell Apple drives
By David Morgenstern
Beaverton, Ore. -- La Cie Ltd., a Quantum Co., this week will introduce a line of Apple-branded external hard drives.
The drives were designed by Apple and were briefly available last fall in a test-marketing program through Apple Direct. The drives are manufactured by La Cie for Apple and will be sold through Quantum's distribution, La Cie said.
"It's a well-designed product and should sell," said product manager Bob Zellin at Di-no Computers Inc. in Pasadena, Calif. "Anything with Apple's name will sell, but the competition's fierce in the hard drive industry."
The Apple External Hard Drives are based on Quantum mechanisms with capacities of 160, 230 and 500 Mbytes, priced at $389, $479 and $829, respectively. A 1-Gbyte model, costing $1,299, will be available in June.
"The price of the 160-Mbyte drive scares me, but the rest are in line [with the prices of similar drives]," Zellin said. "The marketplace can only stand a $50 difference for the Apple name. It will have to lower prices to stay competitive."
The drives' compact-brick enclosures can be operated in a vertical or horizontal position. The devices' power and SCSI address switches are on the front panel. The drives include a cable, terminator and La Cie's Silverlining formatting software.
La Cie Ltd. is at 8700 S.W. Creekside Place, Beaverton, Ore. 97005. Phone (503) 520-9000 or (800) 999-0143; fax (503) 520-9100.
MacWEEK 05.02.94
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News: Apple releases System Update 3.0
By Robert Hess
Cupertino, Calif. -- Apple last week released Version 3.0 of its System Update extension, a collection of bug fixes and enhancements to System 7.
The extension is a superset of the Hardware System Update 1.0, Hardware System Update 2.0 and System Update 2.0.1 extensions previously released.
Version 3.0 fixes a PowerBook Apple Desktop Bus port bug that could result in crashes when some copy-protection schemes are installed; it also improves the way the PowerBook manages shutdown alerts.
When an AppleShare server unexpectedly disconnects from a client Mac that has files open on the server, certain conditions can result in data on the client's disk becoming corrupted. The update fixes this bug.
Version 3.0 also includes a patch that introduces a new memory-movement call for developers to use to improve application performance. The patch affects non-AV Macs.
The System Update also remedies situations in which the "About This Macintosh" window draws the application memory usage bars outside their boundaries.
System Update 3.0 increases the frequency with which System file modifications are saved to disk. This should prevent power outages and other improper shutdowns from corrupting the System file.
The update is available on AppleLink and other on-line services.
MacWEEK 05.02.94
News Page 3
(c) Copyright 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
News: Panasonic releases 300-dpi printer
Vertical SideWriter has small footprint
By David Morgenstern
Secaucus, N.J. -- Panasonic Communications & Systems Co. sidestepped its competition last month as it shipped the SideWriter KX-P5400 M1, a $1,139 LED printer with a small footprint.
Unlike other desktop printers, the SideWriter has a vertical design with a front-panel, 16-character LCD display; the device resembles a tower-configured personal computer more than a printer. The 14.5-pound SideWriter has a footprint of 5 by 15 inches and a height of 11.5 inches.
The new printer provides 300-dpi resolution and a print speed of 4 pages per minute, Panasonic said. The SideWriter comes with 2 Mbytes of RAM, which can be expanded to 4 Mbytes. It supports a LocalTalk interface.
The KX-P5400 M1 supports Adobe PostScript Level 2 and PCL 4 page description languages and ships with 17 Type 1 and 28 PCL bit-map fonts.
The printer can support send-and-receive PostScript faxes via a $299 module mounted externally under it. The fax package includes an additional 18 Type 1 fonts.
The printer's side-mounted input tray can hold 100 letter- or legal-size sheets. The side output tray handles 50 letter-size or 20 legal-size pages.
Panasonic said the SideWriter is rated for a duty cycle of 2,000 pages per month. A toner package costing $14.95 will produce 1,600 pages, and the printer's $82.99 drum unit offers 6,000 sheets. Panasonic said it based the supply figures on a page with 5 percent coverage.
Panasonic Communications & Systems Co. is at 2 Panasonic Way, Secaucus, N.J. 07094. Phone (201) 392-4500 or (800) 742-8086.
MacWEEK 05.02.94
News Page 4
(c) Copyright 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
News: Apple Software Dispatch CD for business
By Kirsten L. Parkinson
Cupertino, Calif. -- Apple this week will put a new spin on its Software Dispatch CD when it releases a disc specifically for business users.
Like the company's Premiere CD-ROM, the Macintosh Productivity Edition offers users free software demonstrations and encrypted applications that can be purchased by calling a toll-free number and obtaining an unlocking code.
The new disc offers 70 applications, such as Adobe Illustrator, Claris Corp.'s FileMaker Pro and ClarisWorks, Now Software Inc.'s Now Contact and Now Up-to-Date, and Attain Corp.'s In Control, geared toward office users.
"If there was a single reason why people didn't purchase [from the first disc], it was not finding the product they wanted," said Jonathan Fader, Software Dispatch marketing manager. "We believe that by segmenting our discs we're able to give those subsets of customers more breadth in their area of interest."
The Productivity Edition will be bundled with selected Apple hardware products, including external CD-ROM drives and multimedia kits. The company will continue to ship the Premiere disc with other hardware products until a consumer-oriented CD is completed in the next few months.
Apple will also send the Productivity Edition to business users who purchased from the original Software Dispatch disc and to those who respond to the company's ads.
In related news, Apple last week shipped a Windows version of the Software Dispatch Premiere disc.
The Software Dispatch CD-ROM can be ordered from (800) 937-2828, Ext. 600.
MacWEEK 05.02.94
News Page 4
(c) Copyright 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
News: Ventana ships Internet starter kit
By Nathalie Welch
Chapel Hill, N.C. -- Ventana Media, the newly formed software division of Ventana Press, this week will ship an all-in-one starter kit of Internet tools for Mac users.
The $69.95 Internet Membership Kit includes a variety of Internet shareware, in addition to free Internet account setup via service provider CERFnet of San Diego.
The kit contains Apple's MacTCP; Eudora, an Internet mail viewer; InterSLIP, a connection utility; and TurboGopher, Fetch and StuffIt Expander for searching, retrieving and decompressing Internet files.
Ventana Press' Internet Tour Guide, regularly $27.95, provides software documentation; software support will be provided by Ventana Media. The kit also includes Osborne/McGraw-Hill's Internet Yellow Pages, regularly $27.95.
In addition to waiving the $50 setup charges and first-month membership fee, CERFnet will give users six free hours of connect time, after which they pay $20 a month, plus $8 to $10 per hour.
Other companies offering one-stop shopping for Internet access include O'Reilly & Associates Inc. of Sebastopol, Calif., whose Internet-in-a-Box for the Macintosh is expected late this year for less than $100, and Indianapolis-based MacMillan Computer Publishing, whose Internet Starter Kit for the Macintosh is available now for $29.95.
Ventana Media, a division of Ventana Press, is at P.O. Box 2468, Chapel Hill, N.C. 27515. Phone (919) 942-0220 or (800) 743-5369; fax (919) 942-1140.
MacWEEK 05.02.94
News Page 4
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Gateways: cc:Mail Router update aims high
Large-scale networks target of Version 5.1
By Nathalie Welch
Cambridge, Mass. -- Lotus Development Corp. is preparing to deliver a major upgrade to cc:Mail Router, the software that moves E-mail between its mail servers.
Geared to ease the creation and administration of large-scale and wide-area messaging networks, cc:Mail Router 5.1 will ship this month; pricing has not been set. Like its predecessor, the message transfer agent (MTA) runs on DOS or OS/2 machines but works on all-AppleTalk LANs, the company said.
LAN-based cc:Mail mail servers handle Macintosh, DOS, Windows, OS/2 and Unix clients.
Lotus is billing the updated MTA as the first step in the Lotus Communications Server strategy the company announced late last year. It comprises a cross-platform, multiprotocol messaging service based on cc:Mail and Lotus Notes technology with added X.400, SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) and MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) transports as well as X.500 directories.
cc:Mail Router 5.1 features a variety of message delivery and directory update options.
> Domain administration. Version 5.1 provides three additional messaging- and directory-propagation topologies geared for large or extended networks.
> SmartScheduling. Administrators will be able to specify when directory updates, bulletin board postings and E-mail messages are exchanged. SmartScheduling can send lengthy or low-priority messages to other servers at night while smaller messages travel by day.
Version 5.1 also lets administrators optimize messaging traffic by assigning multiple Routers to high-volume sites and scheduling messages and directory updates separately.
> WAN management. A central administration feature lets managers change user attributes and cc:Mail Router functions from a single console on the network. A new file containing messaging performance data and a newly established common format for error messages should help developers create better monitoring programs.
cc:Mail Router connects to other LANs via network bridges, modems or serial connections and to other E-mail systems via supported gateway products.
Version 5.1 brings TCP/IP and X.25 connectivity to the OS/2 version and includes support for 150 modem files, up from about 90. The updated router will include gateways to AT&T EasyLink and Sprint International's SprintMail, Lotus said.
cc:Mail Inc., a division of Lotus Development Corp., is at 800 El Camino Real W., Mountain View, Calif. 94040. Phone (415) 961-8800; fax (415) 961-0840.
MacWEEK 05.02.94
Gateways Page 10
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Gateways: STF ships bundle of fax add-ons
By Nathalie Welch
Concordia, Mo. -- STF Technologies Inc. last month delivered a set of modules that add new capabilities to FAXstf 3.0, the company's stand-alone fax package for Macs.
The $89 STF AutoPak has four modules: STF AutoOCR, STF AutoPrint, Background Imaging and STF Developer Kit for FAXstf 3.0. A package that also includes FAXstf 3.0 costs $129.
STF AutoPak replaces the company's previously announced FAXstf 3.0 PRO, a fax-gateway package for Apple's PowerTalk clients that was scheduled to ship last November. STF said it will instead provide a stand-alone PowerTalk module; pricing and availability have not yet been determined.
The AutoOCR module uses Calera Recognition Systems Inc.'s OCR technology to convert incoming documents into several popular word processing formats. Users can convert received faxes manually or schedule times for automatic conversion. Users can configure the AutoPrint module to print faxes on receipt or at prescheduled times.
The Background Imaging module converts outgoing documents to a faxable image format unobtrusively, and the Developer Kit lets developers add fax capabilities to their applications.
STF Technologies is at P.O. Box 81, Concordia, Mo. 64020. Phone (816) 463-7972; fax (816) 463-2179.
MacWEEK 05.02.94
Gateways Page 10
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Gateways: PowerTalk-to-CIS gateway: $5
By Nathalie Welch
Columbus, Ohio. -- A personal gateway from CompuServe Inc. will lengthen the reach of PowerTalk to CompuServe's E-mail. CompuServe Mail for PowerTalk is available now and can be downloaded from the CIS:CISSOFT area for $5.
The PowerTalk gateway works through the Macintosh Communications Toolbox and includes the capability to send file enclosures encoded in MacBinary and AppleSingle formats.
Users can also send and receive E-mail automatically at preset times or when a certain number of messages fill the software's Out Basket.
The company last month released a gateway to Microsoft's MAPI (Messaging Application Programming Interface) for the same price. E-mail systems accessible via host-based gateways include the Internet, MCI Mail, NetWare Message Handling Service, cc:Mail and Notes. CompuServe accounts start at $8.95 per month for unlimited access to basic services, including E-mail.
CompuServe Inc. is at 5000 Arlington Centre Blvd., P.O. Box 20212, Columbus, Ohio 43220. Phone (614) 457-8600 or (800) 457-6245; fax (614) 529-1610.
MacWEEK 05.02.94
Gateways Page 12
(c) Copyright 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Gateways: GEnie conjures up Mac client
By Nathalie Welch
Rockville, Md. -- GE Information Services this summer will answer the wishes of Mac users with its first graphical front end for its GEnie on-line service.
Currently in public beta testing, the client is available to all users. The program has menus and icon palettes to issue commands; Mac users previously used a character-based interface. Features to help users navigate the service include the Online menu, to which users can add frequently accessed services, and the Menu Navigator, which keeps track of all areas accessed during a session for easy return visits.
The graphical client includes a text editor; address book; and the To Do Manager, an on-line task manager for batch-mode operations. Users can have the To Do Manager save new GE Mail or bulletin board messages in its filing cabinet for off-line reading. Users cannot reply with this version of the client.
GEnie charges $8.95 a month for four hours of connect time; additional hours are $3 per nonprime-time hour or $12.50 per prime-time hour. Users accessing at 9,600 bps pay extra.
The new interface can be downloaded from GEnie or will be mailed free to users who call GEnie Client Services at (800) 638-9636.
MacWEEK 05.02.94
Gateways Page 12
(c) Copyright 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Mobile: PowerBook users struggle with cellular
Products ready, but logistics are tricky
By Nathalie Welch
Modems optimized to transmit digital data over the cellular voice network have been available for three or four years, but many PowerBook users are still struggling with the mechanics and the costs of making reliable use of the technology.
The circuit-switched cellular network is the most widespread option available today to transmit digital data. Cellular rates and options can vary widely. One example: the San Francisco branch of carrier Cellular One offers a basic plan for $39.99 per month, plus 45 cents per minute for peak periods or 20 cents per minute off peak.
Through the cellular network, PowerBook users can connect to their corporate dial-in networks and send and receive faxes. The lack of advanced international error-correction standards for fax, however, may limit line speed to 4,800 bps or lower and limit transmission from a fixed location.
As with standard land-line data transmissions, a modem is required to modulate and demodulate digital information sent over the analog cellular network. A land-line modem supporting the V.42 LAPM (Link Access Procedure Modem) standard can be used for cellular data connections, but specialized error correction protocols should be incorporated to ensure top speeds and robust data delivery.
A variety of manufacturers have developed what are called cellular-ready modems by incorporating Norwood, Mass.-based Microcom Inc.'s MNP Level 10 adverse-channel protocol into their standard land-line offerings. Others, such as Largo, Fla.-based AT&T Paradyne, have developed their own cellular modulation schemes (see MacWEEK, April 25, Page 18).
Users of cellular-ready modems contacted for this story report attaining typical speeds of 9,600 bps. The V.42bis data-compression standard can sometimes increase throughput to speeds approaching 14.4 Kbps.
Since few internal PowerBook modems support adverse-channel protocols, pocket or portable modems best fit a mobile PowerBook user's needs. Prices for these devices range from $200 to $600, depending on features. Users may have to configure their modems for cellular operation via the particular communications application they are using by entering the appropriate AT commands or by writing a CCL (Command Control Language) script.
Having access to a cellular-ready modem is only the beginning. A PowerBook user must also have a cellular phone and a connection device that converts modem signals into signals that can be transmitted through a cellular phone. No special communications software is necessary to transmit data over cellular networks, but some vendors, such as cc:Mail, a division of Lotus Development Corp. of Mountain View, Calif., sell wireless-capable versions of their remote E-mail packages.
An example of a typical cellular interface connection is Dallas-based Spectrum Cellular Corp.'s $299 Axcell. The small box has one cable that plugs into any PowerBook modem's RJ-11 jack and another that plugs into the cellular-phone jack available on several models of cellular phones. These types of devices require an extra power source, but they can be used with a variety of popular phones.
Another interface option involves direct-connection cable devices from vendors such as Nokia Mobile Phones Inc. of Largo, Fla.; AT&T Co.; and NEC America Inc. of Irving, Texas. Cables do not require additional power supplies, but they can be used only for the modem and cellular-phone combination for which they were intended. Cables are typically priced at about $50.
Finally, a few vendors have announced all-in-one cellular phones that incorporate a modem and the appropriate interface components. Air Communications Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif., will ship its $1,495 AirCommunicator this month. Motorola Inc. of Schaumburg, Ill., is reportedly planning to deliver an all-in-one unit later in the year.
To get the most reliable cellular connection, users should not try to transmit data while moving, as in a car, because they might lose data when passing between cell areas. Cellular road warriors also recommend using the Zmodem file transfer protocol because it can resume a file transfer at the point of disconnection if the call gets dropped. And try to avoid connecting during peak transmission times, which can impair network conditions.
Although improvements to data-over-cellular technology are in the works, such as CDPD (Cellular Digital Packet Data), and alternatives to analog cellular are coming, such as radio-packet technology, PowerBook users have all the necessary components right now to make reliable use of cellular connections to send data.
MacWEEK 05.02.94
Mobile Computing Page 16
(c) Copyright 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Mobile: Many cellular options for mobile users
By Nathalie Welch
PowerBook users seeking to push the mobile-computing envelope have a variety of cellular-capable modems and add-ons at their disposal to let them transmit digital data over the analog cellular network.
Cellular-ready modems that use specialized error-correction protocols often come in a pocket-size format with optional battery-operation capabilities. Examples of these modems include San Jose, Calif.-based Bay Connection Inc.'s $249 Spectra-Com 1414iPB; Hayward, Calif.-based Zypcom Inc.'s $299, 14.4-Kbps Z32b-PX pocket fax modem; and San Jose-based Piiceon Inc.'s $299, 14.4-Kbps Dispatcher internal modem.
PSI Direct, a Campbell, Calif.-based division of Supra Corp., sells its PowerModem 14.4 Plus internal and COMstation 14.4 Plus external cellular-capable devices for $249 each; San Jose-based Ven-Tel Inc. offers its 9,600-bps Pocket Modem 24 for $229. Zoom Telephonics Inc. of Boston offers its $229 VFX 14.4 and $299 VFX 28.8 with cellular capabilities.
Microcom Inc., the Norwood, Mass.-based developer of the ad hoc standard MNP Level 10 cellular protocol, has a family of cellular-capable 28.8-Kbps modems; the pocket-size TravelPorte FAST is $499.
U.S. Robotics Inc. of Skokie, Ill., sells cellular versions of its Courier and WorldPort lines that support the company's proprietary HST 16.8-Kbps protocol; prices for these models range from $545 to $1,295.
Motorola UDS, a division of Motorola Inc. based in Huntsville, Ala., offers its own Enhanced Cellular Control in the $399 CELLect 14.4-Kbps pocket modem. The device connects directly to any data-capable Motorola MC2 MicroTAC personal cellular telephone.
Anaheim, Calif.-based ZyXEL provides its own ZyCellular protocol in the $579, 16.8-Kbps ZyXEL U-1496P.
A sampling of cellular-connection devices includes the $249.95 Cellular/Data Link cellular-telephone adapter kit from Chatsworth, Calif.-based ORA Electronic. Additional detachable cellular-phone interface cables are $69.95 each.
Dallas-based Spectrum Cellular Corp.'s $299 Axcell cellular interface can hook a variety of cellular-ready modems to a variety of popular cellular phones; Motorola's $337.50 Cellular Connection Interface is compatible with a variety of Motorola cellular phones.
Cellabs, based in Canoga Park, Calif., offers its $249 MiniDial auto-dial and $149 MiniJack manual-dial adapters, which can connect a variety of modems and handheld cell phones. And finally, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Air Communications Inc.'s $1,495 AirCommunicator, due to ship this month, will offer an integrated fax modem and cellular transceiver.
MacWEEK 05.02.94
Mobile Computing Page 18
(c) Copyright 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
GA: ElectricImage gets slew of features
Power Mac-native renderer due by June
By Carolyn Said
Pasadena, Calif. -- Electric Image Inc. is packing its namesake 3-D application with a throng of new high-end features.
ElectricImage Animation System 2.0, still $7,495, is due this month; a Power Mac version will ship this summer. Electric Engine, a stand-alone rendering application for Version 2.0, is due by June in a $1,495 Power Mac version.
"I've got to commend Electric Image for taking the time to put in important usability features and not just focus on things that make for impressive demos," said beta-user John Knoll, visual effects supervisor at Industrial Light & Magic in San Rafael, Calif. "It's a really solid product for people doing serious work."
Version 2.0 enhancements include:
> Deformations. Users can arbitrarily scale, shear, twist, taper, bend, bulge, ripple and stretch models.
> Sync-sound animation. Users can import multiple soundtracks, limited only by memory, in AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format) or QuickTime format. Soundtrack waveforms are displayed in the project window, allowing precise synchronization between animation and sound.
> Plug-ins. ElectricImage 2.0 features a plug-in architecture similar to that of Adobe Photoshop; it supports most Photoshop extensions. Version 2.0 comes with plug-ins that blow models apart, create lens flare, provide control over particle systems effects, and create and import motion to mesh objects. Electric Image said several third parties are developing additional plug-in modules.
> Motion blur. Enhancements include increased speed and the capability to blur only selected objects in an image. Knoll said he and a colleague used this feature to blur the flying Pentium chip in Intel Corp.'s current TV commercials.
> Summation texture mapping. Knoll called this feature "a huge help." He said: "If you take an object, texture it and view it from an oblique angle, a bit map will get blurry to prevent aliasing. A summation will stay sharp."
> SGI support. Electric Image plans to ship by June a $2,995 version of Electric Engine for Silicon Graphics workstations, which Mac users will be able to tap for rendering.
Upgrades are $1,495.
Electric Image Inc. is at 117 E. Colorado Blvd., Suite 300, Pasadena, Calif. 91105. Phone (818) 577-1627; fax (818) 577-2426.
MacWEEK 05.02.94
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(c) Copyright 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
GA: EnviroSafe imagesetters
By David Morgenstern
Thousand Oaks, Calif. -- Printing professionals concerned about the environment are searching for output alternatives to hazardous chemicals. Autologic Inc. last month introduced two thermal systems that address this concern by imaging directly to film or paper substrates.
Autologic's EnviroSafe Laser Imaging Systems use a new dry-process media developed by 3M Corp. Paper and film cost 55 cents and $1.17 per square foot, respectively; they come in six widths from 11.8 to 18 inches. The company said the seemingly higher cost of dry media is comparable to wet-media expenses after adding the costs of chemical use, disposal, water, and additional labor to clean and maintain equipment. Additionally, Autologic claimed that future pre-press costs might be influenced by increasingly strict occupational safety, storage and disposal regulations for hazardous chemicals.
"California is a tough state, and it's good to get a step ahead in the game. We were pleased with the result," said beta-tester Gary Hughes, production director at The Desert Sun Publishing Co. in Palm Springs, Calif. He said the new media caused some calibration difficulties when mixed with output from his current system, but it provided better results when used by itself. "People just setting up shop or buying a new system should certainly consider it," Hughes said. "The transition costs might be difficult to justify if you recently purchased a system."
The APS-7/108ES is based on a helium-neon red laser light source and provides a resolution of 1,016 by 1,016 dpi. It supports images as large as full-bleed 18 by 30 inches and can output 24 inches per minute. The $89,000 imagesetter has a 200-foot-capacity media cassette; additional cassettes cost $2,500.
The APS-7/3850 uses a visible red laser diode light source and offers resolutions from 800 to 1,600 dpi. The $99,500 system can image a maximum width of 16.3 inches and can output 24 inches per minute at 1,000 dpi. The system uses 400-foot-capacity media cassettes costing $2,500.
Both EnviroSafe models use an on-line thermal processor and a proprietary video interface. They require an Autologic hardware or software PostScript Level 2 RIP priced from $12,000 to $14,000. The RIPs support parallel, serial and Ethernet interfaces.
Autologic Inc. is at 1050 Rancho Conejo Blvd., Thousand Oaks, Calif. 91320. Phone (805) 498-9611; fax (805) 499-1167.
MacWEEK 05.02.94
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BusinessWatch: Cost reductions, PPC bolster Apple
Profitability returns for 3 straight quarters
By Jon Swartz
Cupertino, Calif. -- Just nine months ago, Apple was hemorrhaging red ink. It had suffered its worst quarterly loss, $181.3 million, and was in the process of eliminating 2,500 jobs.
Since then, the company has sought to reverse its fortunes by employing the time-honored business strategy of cost cutting and offering a new technology in the form of Power Macs. The results: three straight profitable quarters, including second-quarter net income of $17.4 million on sales of $2.08 billion (see MacWEEK, April 25, Page 1).
"It wasn't an overwhelming quarter, but it established a foundation for a solid fiscal year," said Maynard Brandon, vice president of securities at Duff & Phelps Investment Research Co. of Chicago. "Apple did what it had to do."
Apple this year has slashed quarterly operating expenses by more than one-fifth -- to $464.3 million from $591.7 million a year ago -- and cashed in on strong early sales of Power Macs to turn a profit.
Fred Dickson, director of research at D.A. Davidson & Co. of Great Falls, Mont., said the shipment of 145,000 Power Macs in March makes it highly probable that Apple will make good on its vow to ship 1 million systems by next March.
Apple Chief Financial Officer Joseph Graziano told analysts last month the company expects to ship 300,000 Power Macs in the next three months.
In the process of reworking its economic model, analysts pointed out, Apple managed to trim its inventory to $1.29 billion from a bloated $1.51 billion last fall and maintain gross profit margins of 24 percent.
Apple achieved this by selling a record number of Macs at cut-rate prices, according to Doug Kass, principal analyst at The Viewpoint Group in Santa Cruz, Calif.
Despite the financial headway, industry observers said they are concerned that a dearth of native applications could dampen long-term Power Mac sales.
"It's a scary thought," Brandon said. "An [operating system] platform is only as good as its apps."
MacWEEK 05.02.94
BusinessWatch Page 28
(c) Copyright 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
BusinessWatch: Apple Germany executives leave
By Matthew Rothenberg
Ismaning, Germany -- Apple's German division here experienced a high-level shake-up last month with the departure of several top executives.
The company announced that General Manager Gerhard Jorg had resigned after eight years as head of the division that oversees Apple operations in Switzerland and Austria as well as Germany. Jorg's replacement is Jan Gesmar-Larsen, who came to the company from Compaq Europe in November 1992.
While Apple cited personal reasons for Jorg's resignation, Germany's weekly newsmagazine Der Spiegel reported that he had been fired because of the division's inability to increase its share of personal computer sales in Germany, Europe's largest market, beyond 3 percent to 5 percent. In contrast, the newsweekly said, Apple's divisions in France and Scandinavia have claimed more than 10 percent of their respective markets.
Sources claimed Jorg's departure was also precipitated by the sudden resignation earlier last month of Walter Puschner, regional marketing director for Apple Germany's personal computer business division. Puschner, another Compaq veteran, had joined Apple only three months earlier.
Apple Germany declined to comment on reasons for Puschner's departure. Sources said, however, that Puschner had been frustrated by his inability to coordinate marketing efforts at Apple Germany.
The division traditionally has split its marketing efforts among five business units, which sources said has put a strain on its dwindling ranks. The division lost about one-third of its 150-person staff eight months ago as part of a reorganization of Paris-based Apple Europe.
The policy of separating business units prompted Apple Germany to divide its presence at CeBIT '94, the gargantuan consumer-electronics show held in Hanover, Germany, in March. Apple, which had maintained a large, highly visible booth in years past, this year chose to split its efforts among several small booths scattered throughout the exhibition (see MacWEEK, March 28, Page 3). Sources said the decision was widely criticized both within Apple and among third-party developers.
Apple also announced that Erik Hansen, head of Apple Germany's Personal Interactive Electronics marketing group, has left Apple to take a job as CEO at another company.
MacWEEK 05.02.94
BusinessWatch Page 28
(c) Copyright 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Special Report: MacWEEK 200 overview
The sixth annual MacWEEK 200 survey reveals the largest government and commercial Mac sites in the United States and Canada. Its companion, the fourth annual Education 50, highlights the 50 largest U.S. and Canadian university Mac sites. We explore Mac usage and future platform and infrastructure development.
Among the top 200 sites using Macs in the United States and Canada, 99 percent have PowerBooks, 98 percent have Quadras, and a solid 87 percent plan to buy or upgrade to Power Macs in the coming year.
These and other findings in the sixth annual MacWEEK site survey point to the fact that while Macintoshes are meeting the complex needs of large corporate and government organizations, power demands drive the move to new technology.
These top sites account for almost 342,000 Macs, or an average of about 1,700 per site.
Installed base
Macintosh II-series computers are found in almost every MacWEEK 200 site (99 percent), and about nine in 10 sites have Centris or compact Macs, such as Classics, installed.
Laptop Macs are indeed part of the enterprise, with all-in-one PowerBooks installed at almost all the sites (97 percent) followed by Duo models (88 percent). All-in-one PowerBooks and Duos account for one in eight (13 percent) installed Macs.
Understandably, the Mac II series, introduced in 1987, makes up the bulk of the installed base, accounting for 43 percent of installed Macs at these sites. Quadras, found on almost as many sites as Mac II models, make up just 13 percent of installed Macs, while Centris models (which now are part of the Quadra line) account for 8 percent of the installed base.
Other computers
MacWEEK 200 sites account for more than 400,000 IBM PCs and compatibles and more than 76,000 workstations. IBM PCs or compatibles are installed at every MacWEEK 200 site at a reported average of about 2,030 per site. Almost all the sites also have workstations (93 percent), with a reported average of about 425 among these sites.
Collectively, MacWEEK 200 sites report about 820,000 Macs, PCs and workstations installed, which averages out to about 4,100 computers per site. Macs account for just more than two in five (42 percent) of these computers, while PCs account for about half (49 percent).
Purchase plans
MacWEEK 200 sites are welcoming the Power Macs while retaining a healthy interest in high-end 68040 desktop models.
Almost nine in 10 sites will purchase Power Macs or Power Mac upgrade boards in the next 12 months. Of that group, about four in five sites plan to purchase Power Macs; the average number being considered for purchase is 140. Two in five sites plan to upgrade Motorola 680x0-based Macs with PowerPC-based boards during this time; an average of about 20 percent of the current installed base plan upgrades.
Workgroup Server Power Macs are planned for purchase at almost half the sites, with an average of 19 being considered per site.
The 680x0 Mac remains popular: 87 percent of sites plan to purchase Quadra models in the next 12 months, with an average of 106 being considered per site.
Interest in portable Macs remains strong; more than four in five sites (84 percent) plan to purchase them in the next 12 months. All-in-one PowerBooks are being considered at about three in four sites. Duos follow at about two in three sites.
Power Macs make up the lion's share of new Mac acquisitions at 41 percent, with 38 percent accounted for by Power Mac desktops and 3 percent by Power Mac servers. Quadra machines account for 30 percent of planned purchases. PowerBooks make up 23 percent of Macs considered for purchase.
Nearly half the sites are considering purchasing '040-based Apple Workgroup Servers, the same proportion that is considering the PowerPC-based AWS line. Collectively, they account for 5 percent of the share of planned purchases.
All in all, 93 percent of the MacWEEK 200 sites plan to buy an average of about 300 Macs in the next 12 months.
Almost nine in 10 sites plan to buy PCs during the next 12 months; they are considering purchasing an average of about 350 machines, while three-fourths plan to buy an average of about 90 workstations.
Networking services
Virtually all (98 percent) MacWEEK 200 sites have networked Macs. These connected Macs use a wide range of networked services, with E-mail (97 percent) and file-server access (96 percent) nearly universally found at these sites.
Terminal emulation, multi-user database access and Internet services are provided by networked Macs at almost nine in 10 sites, while document management and calendaring are each found at about three-quarters of the sites.
MacWEEK 05.02.94
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(c) Copyright 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Special Report: Power Mac buyers exude confidence
Compatibility problems are quite low in the RISC machines, but SoftWindows gets lukewarm response.
By Charles Rubin
Conventional wisdom says to stay off the bleeding edge of new technology. Yet many Mac managers at MacWEEK 200 sites are snapping up Power Macintosh models with gusto. Most Power Mac buyers aren't worried about the compatibility problems that usually accompany new hardware designs. On the contrary, many buyers report that the lure of RISC-based performance at low prices will drive overall Macintosh purchases higher at their companies in the coming year. But if Power Macs are pleasing Apple loyalists, the bundled Windows-compatible software isn't attracting as many PC converts as Apple had hoped.
No fear
Aiming to ensure strong sales from Day One, Apple made Power Mac evaluation units available to many corporate buyers days or weeks before the launch, and it did extensive demonstrations for many others. The efforts have given buyers a high level of confidence that the move to RISC will be a smooth one.
At the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. (No. 70), Senior Systems Analyst Rich Fugate and his group tested prerelease Power Macintosh units for several months. "We've run quite an array of applications -- everything from Photoshop, PageMaker, Excel and Word to genetic-sequence analysis software -- and we've had good compatibility," he said. "I'd have a hard time citing even one example of a problem we were unable to figure out." The Mayo Clinic plans to buy about 300 Power Mac 6100 and 8100 systems in the coming year.
Other sites didn't get their first Power Macintoshes to evaluate until March 15 but are moving ahead with purchase plans because the machines have received good marks for compatibility from the press and the user community. Jim Starr, executive director of marketing information and services at Bell Communications Research Inc., also known as Bellcore, in Red Bank, N.J. (No. 43), said his group plans to buy about 300 Power Macintoshes this year. "I expect the move to Power Macintoshes will be easier than the move from System 6 to System 7," Starr said. "That upgrade required a lot of software changes. From what I read, this won't be as difficult."
At companies that were buying Quadra 610 or 650 machines as their base systems, the Power Macintosh is quickly becoming the new standard. Most corporate and government buyers said it's more important to move to the new architecture than to try to save a few bucks on a 68040-based Mac.
"For the majority of people, we're going to be recommending the Power Macs," said Curt Bland, computer specialist at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. (No. 23). "There's nothing to save by buying older Macs because I think ultimately you'll end up paying for upgrades."
Some buyers will continue buying older Macs as they gradually phase in Power Macintoshes. Hugh Miller, chief of acquisitions at the U.S. Department of Energy in Golden, Colo. (No. 22), said his organization plans to buy 1,000 Power Mac systems in the coming year, but that it's still buying older Macs, too. "We're buying Power Macs slowly to make sure they fit in with our existing base," he said.
In organizations that buy large numbers of lower-end Macs, Apple's entry-level 68030 and '040 machines are still in vogue. At the University of Texas at Austin (Education, No. 1), Technical Support Coordinator Jim Rubarth-Lay said that although the university projects buying 1,000 Power Macs during its next fiscal year (beginning July 1), the new Macs haven't stopped the university from making other Mac purchases. "We will continue buying the LC 475, LC 575 and Color Classic," he said. "If a Mac is going to sit on student desks and they're going to write two papers a semester, or a secretary is typing a few letters a day, they can still do that fine with an LC or a Color Classic."
Windows of opportunity
Apple hopes that Power Mac performance, price and Windows emulation will give it a significant boost in market share, but so far, corporate buyers think the gains will be minimal. Although many sites anticipate buying more Macintoshes overall than they would if the Power Macintosh hadn't come out, many of the sales are going to existing Mac users. "Most of the requests are from people upgrading existing machines," Bellcore's Starr said. "There are a lot of fully depreciated Macs now, so people see an opportunity to move up."
Starr said most of the interest at Bellcore is from users already familiar with both platforms. "Some users who currently have both Mac and Windows systems on their desks are interested in evaluating Windows emulation on Power Macs," he said, "but the average Windows user doesn't see the point. If he has no Mac experience, he isn't motivated to move to the Mac."
According to Lou Hernandez, Macintosh specialist in the department of academic computing at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York (No. 79), the Mac-Windows gulf requires more than mere compatibility to cross. "There's some interest in emulating Windows here," he said. "But if you're talking to most Mac users, they wonder what Windows is anyway, and DOS users wonder why they'd want to emulate it."
Expectations of installed base
The Mayo Clinic's Fugate reported that most Power Macintosh requests so far are from current Mac users who want more performance. "People are expecting native-mode applications that run faster," he said.
The U.S. Department of Energy is hoping to use Power Macintosh systems as low-end workstations when PowerOpen, Apple's Unix for the Power Mac, becomes available next year, Miller said.
For now, however, native-mode performance enhancements alone will make a difference in many applications. "People will end up using their Macs differently once they see what they can do," Bellcore's Starr said. For example, Bellcore users run complex risk-analysis models in Excel. With Power Macintoshes and a native-mode version of Excel, Starr said, the same users will be able to process far more complex models in the same amount of time. The AV technology options available for Power Macs will also encourage users to add QuickTime movies and sounds in presentations, he added.
If these early reports are any indication, Apple has made an extremely difficult transition look easy. Even though native-mode applications are not plentiful, high-volume buyers are forging ahead with their purchase plans as favorable compatibility reports emerge. But while the Power Macintosh will undoubtedly prove to be a better Mac, Apple has miles to go before Windows users are convinced it's a better personal computer.
MacWEEK 05.02.94
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(c) Copyright 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Special Report: Education 50 overview
The MacWEEK Education 50, MacWEEK's survey of the 50 educational sites with the largest Macintosh installations, shows that every one of these institutions has Mac II-series machines, LCs, compact Macs and PowerBooks. Quadra machines are almost as widely installed, at 98 percent.
Additionally, these universities account for about 226,000 Macs, with more than 4,500 per site on average.
Mac II-series machines account for the largest share of installed Macs, at 30 percent, followed by compact Mac models (27 percent). Quadra and Centris Macs comprise 19 percent of the installed base. All-in-one PowerBooks and Duos comprise only about 9 percent of the installed base even though they are found at every site.
Other computers
IBM PCs and compatibles and workstations are also found at all Education 50 sites, averaging about 5,200 PCs and 860 workstations per site. This comes to about 262,000 PCs and about 41,000 workstations in total.
All told, the Education 50 sites have almost 530,000 Macs, PCs or workstations installed. Macs comprise 43 percent of this total, while PCs account for about half.
Purchase plans
Like their MacWEEK 200 counterparts, the Education 50 sites plan to buy high-end systems in the next 12 months. Those considering Power Mac desktops (94 percent) plan to buy an average of nearly 400, while those considering Workgroup Server Power Macs (66 percent) plan to buy an average of 19. Similarly, nine in 10 sites plan to buy Quadras, considering nearly 350 on average.
Portability remains important to these sites, with nine in 10 considering the purchase of all-in-one PowerBooks and four in five considering Duos.
Six in 10 sites (62 percent) plan to upgrade older Macs with PowerPC boards in the next year and are considering upgrading about 16 percent of their current Mac installed base, on average.
In sum, virtually all (96 percent) Education 50 sites plan to buy an average of about 1,050 Macs in the next 12 months, leading to a 19 percent increase in the installed base, minus retirements.
All the sites plan to buy PCs and workstations during the next 12 months; they are considering an average of about 920 PCs and 215 workstations.
Networking services
All Education 50 sites have networked Macs, which provide a wide range of networked services to end users. E-mail (98 percent), file server access (98 percent), access to Internet (98 percent) and terminal emulation (96 percent) are almost universally available.
MacWEEK 05.02.94
Special Report Page 46
(c) Copyright 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Special Report: University nets on cutting edge
Academia provides a look at what's ahead for corporate networks.
By Jeff Ubois
Universities have been on the cutting edge of computer technology since the 1940s; for corporate managers, they offer a glimpse of what lies ahead for the rest of the 1990s.
University system administrators integrate a variety of platforms, re-engineer their networks to deliver higher speeds and Internet services, cope with older installed systems, and worry about security in an era of tighter budgets and increased scrutiny from top management.
"Budget pressures and corporate-style downsizing are preoccupying research university officials -- these schools are feeling poorer than they have in a long time," said Mike Roberts, vice president for networking at Educom, a Washington, D.C.-based association representing the computing interests of major universities. On the other hand, investments in information technology are getting a higher priority among top administrators.
"The psychology of a university president saying 'I have to invest' is quite a bit different from the 'I'm not sure this is a good investment' that we heard in the early '80s," Roberts said. The prospect of vastly more powerful desktop machines has many in the university community excited. "The PowerPC is seen by a lot of campus people as a very positive step forward," Roberts said.
"On the network side, people are upgrading their physical plant to handle 100-Mbps traffic," Roberts said. "A lot of people are thinking about ATM cards in PowerPCs -- I would think that is a Holy Grail of the leading-edge crowd."
Internet becomes universal
Although universities have been using the Internet longer than most corporate sites, truly universal Internet service on most campuses is just beginning. "The other thing that is new is the wild success of Mosaic [freeware from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications]," Roberts said. "It's created expectation that everybody is going to be an information resources user." While Internet services are reaching new users, for others, it is transforming their research methods by creating an auxiliary laboratory independent of time and space.
"Universities have been living the vision [Vice President] Gore has been describing as the information superhighway," said Stephen Hall, director of the Office for Information Technology at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. (Education, No. 3). "If you want to be a member of the new cross-disciplinary research teams at multiple institutions, you need to be part of the network." At Harvard, the campus and WAN architecture is Internet-based. Increasingly, its use is expanding out of the research community to support administrative applications.
Novell, Ethernet edge Apple protocols
For Harvard's LANs, Ethernet and Novell Inc.'s NetWare have edged out AppleShare and LocalTalk. Inexpensive Ethernet connections let students plug into the Internet easily, without phone connections or modems. "LocalTalk was free, but the speeds were limited, and when people wanted to integrate Intel machines and Macs, it made sense to move right to Ethernet," said Dennis Devlin, manager of Harvard's Technology Product Center. "When a 10BASE T card was almost $1,000, it was prohibitively expensive, but when it's $100, it becomes a compelling option."
Building an infrastructure
The University of Texas in Austin (Education, No. 1), which owns about 13,500 Macs, is also moving to Ethernet.
"Just because of the sheer number of Macs here, we have a lot of PhoneNet, but 230 Kbps is too slow, so we are going from that to Ethernet," said G. Morgan Watkins, UT's manager of microcomputer technologies. However, he said, "This is not a homogeneous environment -- we have a little of everything." To finance recent expansions, UT recently began charging students a fee for information technology, which has created a $7.5 million fund for computer system and related technology upgrades.
"There is a lot of emphasis on new facilities and infrastructure," Watkins said. In March, the university opened a free E-mail service for all faculty, staff and students. "It gives us a single distribution point, so if a person is looking to find someone here at the university, they have a single site," he said.
Watkins recently helped design a 16,000-square-foot computer lab that now has 160 Quadra 800s with 16 Mbytes of RAM, 500-Mbyte disks and 16-inch monitors connected via Ethernet. It also has 49 Dell 486/66 computers. The machines are connected directly to the Internet using Category 5 cable that is rated to carry 100-Mbps traffic, and they run UT-developed software that automates support tasks in the lab in addition to a number of standard applications.
Watkins is now moving to make computer operations more efficient using software tools. "We are trying to do more with automating facilities and administration," he said. "In budgeting for new services, it's not just the initial cost of the hardware and software you have to think about -- a huge expense is in recurring personnel costs.
"I don't mind losing additional CPU cycles to smart, easy-to-use and -configure network software," Watkins said. "The keys are service and cost. If a site can deliver comparable support with one $30,000 network administrator rather than three $60,000 gurus, that's a wonderful option."
License management is important, too. "We are looking at new tools for software tracking that let us do internal audits," Watkins said. "We are extraordinarily careful with licensing -- there is never any question that we have to do it -- but what is the most cost-effective mechanism?"
Coordinating with other departments is a big part of the job. "Multimedia is changing our networking plans because we have to assume it will eat up a lot of bandwidth," he said. "We're building pipes under our city and trying to guess how big they will have to be -- for example, we found it made sense to pay a little more to get 100-Mbps cabling because we don't want to pull 80,000 feet of wire out of the ceiling of our lab."
Keeping various departments happy is also important. The solution is to take advantage of centralized resources when appropriate while giving final authority to the departments that foot the bill. "We manage computer information centers that are directly responsible to the various departments, which lets them keep their autonomy while getting the benefits of our size, experience and resources," Watkins explained.
Achieving interoperability
Decentralized decision-making is common in academia and creates technical and managerial issues. "Interoperability continues to be a big problem of ours," said Andy Palms, manager of campus computing sites at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor (Education, No. 2). "We are trying to implement the Open Software Foundation's DCE (data communications equipment) protocols, and we are working with Novell and Apple to implement Kerberos for authentication and to synchronize directory services with X.500."
The University of Michigan runs three Fiber Distributed Data Interface backbones interconnected with routers from Cisco Systems Inc. and Wellfleet Communications Inc. and with departmental Ethernets. "We are running IP (Internet Protocol), IPX and AppleTalk on the backbone, and that is working out relatively well for us -- we're happy Apple and Novell are more fully embracing IP," Palms said.
Palms has mixed reviews on Apple. "The Power Macs are outstanding, and we are just waiting for products that run native," he said. "I really want to see Apple more fully integrate its products with the NOS [network operating system] vendors. We are integrating X.500 with AOCE, and that synchronization will be helpful, but it would be far better if it used X.500 native. The students here who like the Macs are losing a bit of ground to [Microsoft] Windows because that is so mainstream," Palms said. "A lot of them are thinking, 'When I leave here I'll be using Windows, so I need to buy it now.'"
Another major focus for Palms is security. "We have close to 60,000 Kerberos IDs on campus for staff, faculty and students, and we are using that for access to public machines, mail and their computing environment," Palms said.
"We have a lot of students who aren't malicious but are, well, curious," he said. "One of the projects in a course is implementing a Sniffer that looks at information going across the network, so it is not much of a step for them to start capturing passwords."
The university is also going after people with weak password security. "Our College of Engineering runs a crack program on all student IDs, and if they can break the password they shut the account off, and the student has to come in and sign a form agreeing not to use a crackable password again," Palms said. "We have found the number of crackable passwords is about 40 percent."
For the future, Palms is looking at adding wireless networking facilities around the campus to let mobile users share data easily with others. "Wireless networking is something that will be extremely attractive," he said.
MacWEEK 05.02.94
Special Report Page 46
(c) Copyright 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Review: Macromedia Director 4.0 is impressive
Substantially improved upgrade promises a cross-platform future
By Michael D. Murie
In Director 4.0, Macromedia Inc. offers several new features and an assortment of interface and performance improvements to its popular multimedia authoring program. The $1,195 program also promises seamless cross-platform compatibility through a binary-compatible file format with Director 4.0 for Windows -- a feat that may open a whole new world of opportunities for Macintosh multimedia developers. The Windows version, however, is slated for a late-summer release, so we were unable to test what may be Director 4's most important feature.
Director 4 comes with more than 30 Mbytes of files, including sample files, tutorials, clip art and utilities. Judicious pruning reduced this to 7.5 Mbytes; you could squeeze this to 3.5 Mbytes if you want just the application and its resource and help files.
Taking direction
You store every element for a Director movie -- including text, graphics, animations, digital video, sound and interactivity -- in a graphic database called the Cast window. You then arrange and animate these cast members on the Stage. The Score window records the location of the cast members on the Stage using frames that represent time. Version 4 doubles the number of channels within the Score: You can now display 48 separate cast members on the Stage at one time. In addition, the Cast window can store as many as 32,000 separate cast members (up from 512).
There are many interface changes in Director 4: The number of menus has been reduced from 13 to 10, and many commands have been standardized. Longtime users will spend a few weeks pressing the wrong keys and hunting around the menus to find features that used to be second nature to them. While most of these changes are for the better, there are some cases in which the improvements are questionable. For example, to apply a sound you must now choose it from a dialog rather than selecting it quickly from a hierarchical menu.
You can now drag elements within the Score to change their locations and drag them from the Cast directly to the Score; we're not too sure how often you would want to do the latter. The Score, Cast and other windows have been jazzed up with color and 3-D buttons, which make all the sundry dialog boxes look very plain.
Macromedia has dispensed with Director's Overview feature, a method for creating simple slide shows that few users bothered with. Also gone -- not unexpectedly -- is the Accelerator, a proprietary movie compressor that worked only with Director movies. Accelerator did a good job of compressing movies but had none of the options and expandability offered by QuickTime. If you want to accelerate animations, you must export to QuickTime (or Video for Windows).
Finally, Macromedia has also discontinued the separate Player application used to create projectors, which are play-only Director movies. You now create projectors from within Director. Director 4's binary compatibility with its Windows companion will replace the $995 Windows Player. If you want to create a stand-alone Windows animation from a Director 4 file, you'll have to buy Director 4.0 for Windows. Until that version ships, Macromedia recommends that developers continue using Director 3.1 and the Windows Player.
Opening performance
Director movies are no longer limited to 16 Mbytes -- a boon for commercial animators and multimedia developers who need to create large, complex productions.
Macromedia said it has optimized the file format Director uses to save its movies, improving performance when reading from CD-ROMs and reducing the number of disk accesses. Our tests support these claims. We tested how long it took Director 4 to load and unload a movie. We first performed the test with a 2-Mbyte file in a 2-Mbyte memory partition and then a 3.5-Mbyte file in the same partition. The files loaded and unloaded in 3.46 seconds and 3.8 seconds, respectively. Using the same tests in Director 3.1, the files loaded in 8.2 seconds and 9.15 seconds, respectively.
Director 4 also lets you specify the purge priority -- the order in which unused cast members are purged from memory -- which may improve performance when RAM is low.
Animation files stored in Version 4 format are marginally larger than 3.1 files, while the resulting Projector files are slightly smaller.
We were surprised to discover a minor bug: The In-Between Special command did not work correctly when using the Accelerate and Decelerate options. This command should make an animated object appear to start slowly, accelerate to speed and then slow down before coming to rest. Instead, our test object accelerated in the first half of its trip, stopped, started moving again and decelerated before coming to a halt.
Curiously, the color thumbnails of the cast members for large color images do not provide as clear a representation of the graphic as they did in Version 3.1. Although this doesn't affect the final animation, it's sometimes hard to recognize images stored in the Cast, and this does not help productivity.
Learning the Lingo
Lingo, Director's scripting language, is similar to HyperCard's HyperTalk language. You can attach Lingo scripts to frames in the Score or to cast members so that an action will occur at a particular time in the animation or when a graphic is clicked.
Director 4 includes a number of improvements to Lingo. Scripts are now compiled immediately after being entered. This dramatically improves performance for repetitive operations. Character operations execute in half the time required by Version 3.1, while numeric operations take a quarter of the time. Another benefit is that you can error-check scripts before playing the movie. Animating an object on screen, however, results in performance a little slower than that of Version 3.1.
Also new are Parent scripts, which let you create multiple objects based on the same script, and the capability to play a movie within a window of another movie. We wish, however, that there were another way to do the latter without resorting to scripting.
Scripts are now stored as elements in the Cast, which makes finding and editing them simpler; it can also cause confusion when working with other objects in the Cast. If you have the Paint window open for editing a graphic in the Cast and then open a script, the Paint window will become blank. This is because the Cast allows the selection of only one cast member for editing; switching back to the Paint window does not reopen the graphic. Director also needs a trace window to let scriptors step through and debug complex Lingo routines. The existing trace feature is too limited.
Director 4's new Protect Movies option lets you remove Lingo code and cast thumbnails from final movies and projectors -- a welcome security feature for your creations. Movies saved in this way can still be played, but they can't be opened or edited in Director.
We were disappointed that The Apartment, a collection of sample animations demonstrating Lingo coding, has been discontinued -- it was one of the best ways to learn and use complex Lingo routines. The new Lingo Expo demonstrates most of the same features, but it's not as easy to use.
Documentation and support
Director 4's documentation is very good. It includes a manual, a tutorial, a Tips & Tricks booklet and two scripting manuals: an introduction to Lingo programming and a Lingo Dictionary. Technical support is free for 90 days. While support has been sporadic in the past, this time we managed to speak to someone after only a five-minute wait.
Conclusions
Director 4 is an important upgrade for commercial animators and multimedia developers. Its expanded cast, stage and file capacities make it easier to create complex productions, and the new file protection feature adds a valuable security precaution. What remains to be seen is Director's cross-platform compatibility with Director 4.0 for Windows. If Macromedia can release a solid, file-compatible Windows version, it's possible that Director, with its existing market acceptance, could become an industry standard for multimedia development.
Macromedia Inc. is at 600 Townsend, San Francisco, Calif. 94103. Phone (415) 252-2000; fax (415) 626-0554.
MacWEEK 05.02.94
Reviews Page 51
(c) Copyright 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Review: PopupFolder 1.0.1
Inline Software's navigation utility lets users treat folders like menus
Overall value 4
By Ross Scott Rubin
PopupFolder is a $55 control panel from Inline Software Inc. that combines two venerable elements of the Macintosh interface -- the folder and the pop-up menu -- into a directory navigation aid.
PopupFolder lets you easily launch files buried deep in your file structure, with just one mouse click. Holding the mouse down on any folder in the Finder reveals a pop-up menu of that folder's contents, including nested folders up to five levels deep. Each nested folder displays a submenu of all its items. To launch a file, you simply drag the mouse through the appropriate submenus and release the mouse button on the item you want.
Hop on Pop
You can also use the utility to speed your filing tasks. Dragging an item to a folder's icon lets you place it into any folder within the hierarchical contents of that folder.
By default, PopupFolder operates in the Finder (regardless of whether you're viewing by icon, by small icon or in a list format), the Apple menu, and applications' Open and Save dialog boxes. You can de-activate the utility for any or all of these locations.
The PopupFolder control panel lets you choose fonts and sizes (from 7 to 16 points) for pop-up menu items and lets you use different type styles to designate aliases and folders. It also reflects any label colors you may have applied to items using the Finder's Label menu.
Folders can appear first, last or alphabetically in a pop-up menu. When listed alphabetically, folders can be grouped using a separator line (this does not work, however, in the Apple menu). You can also display items on the desktop in small icon format, which can dramatically reduce the amount of space they consume.
Overall, PopupFolder performed well in our testing, but there was a slight lag as the utility read the contents of large folders. Minor conflicts were resolved with Version 1.0.1, which Inline will E-mail to registered users.
Conclusions
PopupFolder gives users an accessible springboard for jumping through the hierarchies of the Mac's folder structure. While we think the program is an impressive execution of a clever idea, we have a short wish list: We'd like to be able to drag and drop documents onto applications in pop-up folders, select items in a pop-up folder instead of launching them and move items from one pop-up folder to another. Support for viewing items in compressed archives would also be a coup. With the addition of a few of these features, PopupFolder can become a superb utility.
Inline Software Inc. is at 308 Main St., Lakeville, Conn. 06039. Phone (203) 435-4995 or (800) 453-7671; fax (203) 435-1091.
MacWEEK 05.02.94
Reviews Page 56
(c) Copyright 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
ProductWatch: Contact managers: Is bigger better?
The latest batch of contact software offers the kind of links that help you stay in touch.
By Mitzi Waltz
If the current crop of personal information management programs is any evidence, nobody wants a boring little Mac address book anymore. Personal information managers, or PIMs, have evolved from simple phone lists to feature-laden data managers, making them business-ready and occasionally RAM- and space-intensive. AppleScript and Apple events have given vendors the tools they need to let you link your personal information collection with everything else.
Link mania
Adding links is the biggest trend in the contact-management category. A few companies keep it simple, including links only with companion programs. Others let users grab an address and drop it anywhere, attach letters and other documents to individuals, and bring to-do lists into project-management programs.
But who needs this overwhelming functionality? Nate Ferguson, manager of custom software at Management Science Associates Inc., a systems integrator in Pittsburgh, said his company's clients have welcomed it with open arms.
Ferguson's company recently put Now Software Inc.'s Now Up-To-Date and Now Contact bundle together with ACI US Inc.'s 4th Dimension database for the marketing and communications department at Federated Investors Inc., a mutual-fund company in Pittsburgh. Using Apple events, schedules created in 4D are linked to activities on to-do lists, contacts and calendar items, including a networked workgroup calendar and personal calendars. When a worker is assigned a task, he or she receives an automatic Microsoft Mail message. The schedule is also sent to Microsoft Project for charting, while other software components handle estimates, billing and time tracing.
"We decided that instead of building everything into 4th Dimension we would integrate several desktop packages," Ferguson said. The Now Up-To-Date and Now Contact bundle's built-in links made it an excellent candidate for the procedure, he said, adding that smaller companies should be able to set up simple integrated systems on their own. This capacity for cooperation helps managers save time, Ferguson said.
"At Federated, managers get reports on what's been marked as done by a team or individuals," he said, allowing them to concentrate on planning and motivating rather than looking over people's shoulders. A new version of the Now bundle is expected this fall; a Power Mac-native version of Now Contact was announced in April.
Aldus Corp.'s DateBook Pro and TouchBase Pro bundle is often compared with Now's product, and for good reason. The two offer similar functionality, right down to their Apple-events linking -- although DateBook cannot be networked. A new version of Aldus' twosome is due to ship in May and will include support for System 7's drag-and-drop extension. As a result, TouchBase users will be able to click on a contact, drag it into DateBook, and then create a new DateBook item or add to an existing item. The programs will also feature improved speed, the capability to view linked information without having both applications open and TouchBase fields that let users automatically set up callback reminders in DateBook, according to Aldus.
Double features
Both Common Knowledge Inc.'s Arrange and Rae Assist from Rae Technology Inc. work hard to integrate various types of documents into an information arrangement that suits the user. Name and address fields can be linked to letters, calendar items or graphics.
Arrange is a customizable program built atop a database. With a required 2.5-Mbyte RAM partition, Arrange is not for low-end Mac users. But for people like CD-ROM developer Ed Draper of University of Texas/Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, it can quickly become essential. "I consider Arrange to be my second brain," Draper said. "I've used most of the other [PIMs] and it's completely different -- an information manager, not just a glorified Rolodex."
Draper has dedicated a second monitor to run Arrange continuously. "I use it to generate weekly reports for my boss and to generate bug reports as I program," he said. The linking feature lets him attach all bug reports to a central "bug repository," while the viewing filters let him ask the repository for every bug associated with certain programs or features. "The best thing about it is the Grabber feature," Draper said. "If I come across a code snippet or something while reading an Internet news group, it works with Apple events and the Clipboard to dump the selection, be it a picture or a text block, into the Arrange database." Draper said his only request would be support for scripting, preferably through UserLand Frontier.
Competitor Rae Assist 1.5 has a reliable intelligent-linking scheme with an interface reminiscent of a HyperCard stack. Assist lets users establish automatic or manual links between data easily. One Rae Assist user, an adviser with a West Coast investment bank, called it the PIM that put his Sharp Wizard in the trash. "I was very dissatisfied with the Wizard and with the other Mac PIMs I had tried -- they were limited and not at all intuitive," he said. "Rae Assist is flexible, especially the linking." For example, when a user gets a message, the user can enter the caller's name into the Assist database and make an entry in the to-do list to return that phone call. This will turn up on the user's calendar automatically.
On the down side, Assist is slow, he admitted. "It's not as fast as [Claris Corp.'s] FileMaker Pro, but what you give up in speed you gain in organization," he said. "The information is there and I can access it -- so even if I've forgotten a name I can find that person somehow. I can link in my expense reports, directions to someone's house [and] transcripts of phone calls. The project management aspects of Assist let me set up a project for each prospect I work with as they work their way to being a client."
FIT Software's Full Contact, released in January, is a new application with linking capabilities. The program lets users link calendar entries with contacts and offers user-customizable sorting filters and two floating palettes of buttons for easy data manipulation.
Busy, but organized
Chena Software Inc.'s InfoDepot -- a revamp of the company's Fair Witness program -- puts its emphasis on outlining and project-management features. Easy linking to personal data and documents offers many possibilities for busy, but organized people.
Attain Corp.'s In Control 2.0 also supports document linking and Apple events. Although technically not a contact manager, it can be used as an outliner and to-do list manager. This helps Rick Citron, partner in the Los Angeles law firm Citron & Deutsch, keep a handle on his voluminous caseload. "I categorize my data by client name," Citron said. "That will be on the left [of the In Control screen], and on the right are eight columns with the most important things I need to know, like what I'm working on for this client currently, priority and phone number. Whenever the file gets more complex, I can link it to a longer file."
Citron also links his client files to extensive to-do lists. He said the program's indexing capabilities are useful for viewing linked information relating to a single client. All linked documents can be opened and viewed from within In Control. In Control 3.0, expected to ship this month, uses Apple events to look up names, addresses and phone numbers from FileMaker Pro, TouchBase Pro and Portfolio Software Inc.'s Dynodex. Other improvements include a calendar with daily, weekly and monthly views, plus support for recurring events and improved reminders. A Windows version of In Control is expected later this year.
Simplicity counts
Not everyone enjoys a complex interface or a hard-drive hog, no matter how powerful its tools are. Pastel Development Corp.'s DayMaker Organizer 3.0 has maintained its simplicity while adding linking and other functions.
Don Hirsch, director of business development at Chesterfield, Mo.-based Meridian Technology Corp., said, "Some organizers have integrated a limited word processor and graphics program -- that's unnecessary when you have full-featured applications."
DayMaker's "hot links" feature lets Hirsch start with his daily to-dos, call a phone number, create a note to record the discussion and link everything back to his phone book to keep track of contacts with sales prospects. He uses DayMaker's category tags to track potential clients through the sales process. He said he would like to see future versions "deal with corporations instead of just individuals -- I want to view my historical relationship with a business entity over time."
InTouch 2.1 from Advanced Software Inc., now sold with appointment-book application DateView 1.0, emulates the Now and Aldus programs, minus some features, but eschews System 7-based links for a proprietary control panel, Snap*. The Snap* utility works from within any application and lets users paste an InTouch address into another file, such as a word processing document. And since both InTouch and DateView use a control panel for linking instead of Apple events, they can run under System 6 as well as System 7.
Brian O'Sullivan, director of consumer electronics and services for Arlington, Va.-based Bell Atlantic Network Services Inc.'s consumer marketing group, said InTouch was perfect for his workgroup. "We find it handy, especially the ability to link with documents and bring addresses into letters and other documents," he said. "Just recently we've started using DateView to plan things and to link over to InTouch to make calls. It's helped our group organize our activities and plan things better."
If it's ease of use you're looking for, Portfolio's Dynodex 3.5 will get even more cooperative this summer. Dynodex already links with Dyno Notepad, and the company said its upcoming calendar program, slated for a fourth-quarter release, will include a link to Dynodex as well.
Although ever-increasing complexity seems to be a theme, don't be deceived: The most feature-laden applications are often the most customizable, letting users personalize the interface. Simpler programs are sometimes more rigid, forcing users to fit data into prescribed formats and offering fewer timesaving tools.
System 7 lets developers add linking mechanisms that go far beyond one-to-one communication. As vendors and corporate users continue to explore the possibilities of flexible linking via technologies such as Apple events, they are likely to discover new ways to manipulate and use the data stored in PIMs. That will make it harder for vendors to stick with limited links, and perhaps change PIMs again. For example, printing and form-letter functions now found in many high-end PIMs may be better handled by word processors.
Up and coming
An unreleased product from Trio Development Inc., code-named Cheetah, is in limbo. At press time the vendor was about to be acquired by an unnamed company. The buyer will be releasing it "sometime before Boston Macworld" in August, said a source close to the deal. Trio is banking on the combination of a fast, compact (850-Kbyte) application and powerful links to carve out a niche in the mobile, small-business and home-office markets.
MacWEEK 05.02.94
ProductWatch Page 59
(c) Copyright 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Mac the Knife: Tony Pomona sharpens image
Experience has taught us to accept a fairly large dose of vacuousness, misleading statements and outright lies in our political campaigns. After all, the burning ambitions of powerful men and women are at stake. But some of us are unprepared for the unpleasant turn taken by the no-holds-barred competition between the PowerPC consortium and the Intel crowd. Compared with the stakes in the politician's game, which are raw power and greed, this struggle is merely to determine the course of computing for the next few years.
As the Goliath in this battle, Intel defends from a position of nearly overwhelming dominance against the upstart PowerPC, which raises the question of why its most highly regarded engineers are sprinkling industry briefings with references to Pentium potential not yet tapped by OS designers. And why, if the PowerPC is as good as the evidence shows, is Apple's revered public relations agency distributing a press release touting test results achieved with questionable testing procedures? Perhaps the struggle is really all about image.
Only the finest
Image apparently has been the key inspiration behind Apple's Pomona project. Despite rumors last winter that the project had fallen under the wide swath of Spindler's rightsizing scythe, reliable evidence indicates that this showpiece of Apple technology is still with us.
Dreams of computer as counter appliance seem monochromatic and two-dimensional compared with the vision being actualized by the Pomona team -- a product to showcase all the technology Apple can squeeze into a single box. The price is expected to be in the $5,000 range, but it will assume the duties currently assigned to TV and audio equipment, telephone and answering machine, and, yes, the Mac.
Compromises will be few and the synergy great. The standard display, for example, will be 10.4-inch active-matrix color. And anything less than the fastest PowerPC available would be inappropriate. Too tony for the masses, perhaps, but just the thing for an image in need of focus.
To everything ...
As recent events have shown, all things, both good and bad, eventually run their course. The amped hysteria that greeted the introduction of the original MessagePad is a case in point. Those rosy predictions of unit shipments per month turned to dust in a twinkling. The Excel macros are still crunching away, but it's clear that the loss will be measured in both financial and human terms.
In the course of tracking down the rumor that the main distributors have only a few score of MessagePad 100s among them, the Knife ran head-on into the mounting frustration many dealers are experiencing in their efforts to dump their inventory of the original Newtons. Their frustration may turn into white-hot resentment if Apple persists in ignoring their pleas for some kind of incentive plan to get these future classics off their hands.
All of which adds credence to the rumors that newly installed Apple PIE chief Joseph Graziano is on a cost-cutting tear. The first target of his passion is likely to be Starcore, PIE's software publishing arm, which some claim was already as good as dead before his installation.
You never know where a path will lead until you take it. Sources say that Apple's Human Resources, inspired by Graziano's zeal to reduce costs, is reviewing employee records. Innocents were surprised by the degree of academic qualification inflation the investigation revealed. The swift termination of the guilty will certainly contribute to the ongoing drive to keep costs as low as they need to be to keep the stock market happy.
A MacWEEK mug is no guarantee that your career won't need rehabilitation one day. It's just a reward for cooperating with the nice, friendly people you'll meet at (415) 243-3544, fax (415) 243-3650, MCI (MactheKnife), Internet (mac_the_knife@macweek.ziff.com), AppleLink (MacWEEK) or CompuServe/ZiffNet/Mac.
MacWEEK 05.02.94
Mac the Knife Page 102
(c) Copyright 1994 Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
