Item 2195552 94/12/07 10:03 From: DENISE_SCHNEIDER@NEXT.COM@INTERNET# Subject: NeXT SHIPS RELEASE 3.3 FOR INTEL ~ ANNOUNCES BETA FOR NEXTSTEP DEVELOPER 3.3 Cc: next-announce@digifix.com To order your NEXTSTEP USER 3.3 Upgrade, please call NeXT Telesales at 1-800-848-NeXT. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Karen Logsdon NeXT Computer, Inc. 415/780-3786 or Charlotte Penner Copithorne & Bellows 415-975-2225 NeXT SHIPS RELEASE 3.3 FOR INTEL AND ANNOUNCES BETA FOR NEXTSTEP DEVELOPER 3.3 REDWOOD CITY, Calif.-December 7, 1994-NeXT Computer, Inc. today announced that it is now shipping a new version of its object-oriented operating system, NEXTSTEP Release 3.3 for Intel and Motorola processors. The company also announced that it is in beta with NEXTSTEP Developer Release 3.3. "The NEXTSTEP products that we are shipping today are a result of customer feedback and our goal in 1995 is to continue to offer NEXTSTEP/OpenStep customers even greater development and deployment choices to solve their toughest business problems," said Steven P. Jobs, Chairman and CEO of NeXT Computer, Inc. "As a result, NEXTSTEP Release 3.3 for PA-RISC and SPARC processors will be available in mid-1995." NEXTSTEP Release 3.3 for Intel and Motorola Processors Ships NEXTSTEP Release 3.3 is based on feedback from NeXT's customers and includes enhancements to address critical deployment issues for enterprise-wide client/server applications. The new release includes enhancements in the areas of interoperability, scalability and ease of use. Specifically, NEXTSTEP Release 3.3 offers more support for Intel-based PCs, eases system administration efforts, improves large network scalability, provides enhanced mail features, and through SoftPC, supports enhanced-mode MS-DOS & Windows applications. "NEXTSTEP Release 3.3 combines the robustness of mainframe operating systems with the flexibility of PCs, making it the best environment for enterprise-wide deployment of object-oriented custom applications which are typical of NeXT's corporate customers," said Eric Chu, product marketing manager at NeXT Computer, Inc. NEXTSTEP Release 3.3 Offers New and Enhanced Features Keeping pace with new PC technologies, NEXTSTEP Release 3.3 includes additional support for new standards such as PCI and ISA Plug & Play. Release 3.3 also includes support for PCMCIA, Advanced Power Management and 8-bit color. With the appropriate drivers, these features provide the foundation to support popular portable computers. Release 3.3 comes bundled with more than 50 device drivers to support a wide variety of peripherals. These new features simplify the task of hardware configurations and enable NEXTSTEP to run on a larger variety of Intel-based desktop and portable systems. To ease the task of system administration, the installation of NEXTSTEP in large sites has been improved. With new capabilities such as network install and network bulk upgrade, system administrators can now install NEXTSTEP through a network server without requiring a CD-ROM drive. Templates can also be configured so that all systems built from the server inherit the same configurations. NeXTmail has been significantly improved in Release 3.3 to give users greater flexibility in how electronic mail is accessed, managed and stored. New MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) support enables NEXTSTEP users to send and receive multimedia messages with users of other popular e-mail applications through the same intuitive NeXTmail interface. NEXTSTEP Release 3.3 also includes an updated version of SoftPC. SoftPC 4.0 for the NEXTSTEP/Intel operating system from Insignia Solutions, Inc. will support popular enhanced-mode Windows applications, including Aldus PageMaker 5.0 and WordPerfect for Windows 6.0. SoftPC is available through Insignia Solutions and is bundled as a 30-day trial with NEXTSTEP 3.3. It is priced at $249 with upgrades for $69. NEXTSTEP Developer Release 3.3 Enters Beta NEXTSTEP Developer Release 3.3, now in beta, is optimized to enable developers to build enterprise-wide, client/server production applications for Intel, Motorola, PA-RISC and SPARC architectures. The product also includes a new Foundation Kit and increased C++ support. Specifically, NEXTSTEP Developer Release 3.3 simplifies application development by allowing developers to create multi-architecture executables which run on all four architectures supported by NeXT. For example, the compiler allows developers to create executables for Intel, Motorola, Sparc and PA-RISC processors from any of these machines. The result: applications can be installed on a network, yet run on any of the four architectures. NEXTSTEP Developer Release 3.3 also includes a C++ compiler which allows developers to create C++ objects, as well as Objective C objects. The improved compiler enhances C++ support and includes multiple inheritance and templates. NEXTSTEP Developer 3.3 continues to also support Objective C++, NeXT's integrated Objective C & C++ compiler. As part of NEXTSTEP Developer 3.3, NeXT will include it's Foundation Kit which provides significant leverage to developers by greatly simplifying the task of programming basic functions. Foundation provides the building blocks upon which OpenStep and NeXT's Enterprise Objects Framework is built. Foundation provides unicode capable string objects, collection objects such as arrays and dictionaries, notification and archiving objects as well as objects for interacting with the file system and other OS features such as threads and processes. Additionally, Foundation provides a powerful object allocation strategy which simplifies many APIs. This allocation strategy is used throughout OpenStep and Enterprise Object Framework. Pricing and availability NEXTSTEP Release 3.3 for Intel and Motorola processors is available now for $799 with upgrades priced at $199. NEXTSTEP Release 3.3 for PA-RISC and SPARC processors will be available in mid-1995 for the same price. NEXTSTEP Developer Release 3.3 for Intel, Motorola, PA-RISC and SPARC will be available in mid-1995. Pricing will be announced at that time. NeXT's Distributed Client/Server Environment NeXT is the first company to provide a completely integrated object-oriented enterprise-wide client/server computing environment to Fortune 1000 and government organizations. With NEXTSTEP Developer, Enterprise Objects Framework, Portable Distributed Objects and NEXTSTEP/OpenStep, customers use proven and tightly-integrated technology to develop, integrate databases, distribute and deploy custom applications throughout a heterogeneous computing environment. NeXT Computer, Inc. NeXT develops and markets the award-winning NEXTSTEP object-oriented software for industry-standard computer architectures. Customers use NEXTSTEP's advanced object environment to rapidly develop and deploy custom, enterprise-wide, client/server applications. NeXT is headquartered in Redwood City, California, and has offices in North America, London, Paris, Munich and Tokyo. # # # # NeXT, the NeXT logo and OpenStep, NEXTSTEP are trademarks or registered trademarks of NeXT Computer, Inc. All other trademarks mentioned belong to their respective owners. =END=