NOVA - For the NeXT Workstation/NOVA - For the NeXT Workstation.iso/Newsletters/NeXTNuggetNewsDigest/vol.03.08.txt

Text File | 1992-12-27 | 19KB | 434 lines

NeXT Nugget News Digest (vol. 3, issue 8, June 30, 1992)
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Table of Contents

    I.  NeXT Appoints Bernhard Woebker VP Europe
   II.  NeXT Announces Final Private Financing Round; $65 Million
          Credit Line
  III.  NeXT Announces POSIX/GOSIP Compliance for NeXTSTEP 3.0
   IV.  Pencom Launches NeXT Training Services, NeXT Consulting
    V.  NeXTSTEP Release 3.0 Fact Sheet

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I.  NeXT Appoints Bernhard Woebker VP Europe
    New VP Completes NeXT's European Reorganization


REDWOOD CITY, Calif., June 29, 1992 -- NeXT Computer, Inc. today
announced that it has appointed Bernhard Woebker as its new vice
president of Europe.  This appointment completes NeXT's reorganization
of its European operations, which has been taking place during the
past six months.

"Attracting a world-class person like Bernhard is a real coup, and
indicative of how serious we are about Europe," said Steven P.
Jobs, NeXT's chairman and CEO.  "Several of our U.S.-based customers
are multinational companies who already have a strong presence in
Europe.  Now that we have the right European management team and
a cohesive strategy in place, we will be working with these existing
companies, as well as attracting new European customers."

Woebker, 42, assumes his new position at NeXT starting July 6.  A
well-respected manager and technologist who has spent most of his
career in Europe, the German-born Woebker was most recently Pyramid
Technology's senior vice president for Europe, the Middle East and
Africa.

"I am very excited about joining NeXT as vice president, Europe,"
Woebker said.  "NeXT leads the computer industry in object-oriented
technology, and now has significant momentum in the U.S. market.
This is an excellent opportunity to leverage both of these assets
into a European success.  In many ways, Europe is ahead of the U.S.
in understanding the value of creating custom application solutions,
and NeXT's technology can drastically reduce the cost and time of
implementing these solutions.  The opportunity for NeXT in Europe
is very large."


Other Changes in NeXT's European Organization

NeXT's European executives are now located in NeXT's country offices
in Munich and Paris, to be close to customers.  Woebker will be
stationed in the Munich office, along with Herbert Schwab, recently
appointed NeXT's head of finance and administration for Europe.
In Paris will be Paul Vais, who returns to his position as technical
director for Europe after serving as acting VP of Europe since
early February, and Randall Sosnick, responsible for legal and HR
affairs.

With several other changes, NeXT's European organization has now
been evolved to support the company's mission-critical custom
applications strategy, which focuses on delivering the benefits of
NeXTSTEP to larger organizations through a direct sales channel.

"One of my first priorities since joining NeXT has been to bring
Europe into line strategically, to duplicate the success we are
seeing in the U.S.," said Peter van Cuylenburg, president and chief
operating officer of NeXT.  "While this has necessitated significant
changes it is already working well"  We've seen stronger sales
there in the second quarter, after a weak first quarter.

"Bernhard's appointment as NeXT's vice president of Europe solidifies
our European team and strategy. Steve and I have the utmost confidence
in Bernhard's management acumen and understanding of the opportunities
now facing NeXT worldwide."


Bernhard Woebker

Woebker joins NeXT following a distinguished career in the European
computer industry.  He leaves Pyramid Technology, where he was most
recently senior vice president for Europe, the Middle East and
Africa.  In this position, he oversaw 90 people and generated sales
of $50 million in fiscal year 1991.  Before joining Pyramid, he
spent 15 years with Nixdorf Computer AG, culminating his career
there as vice president, Open Systems.  Prior to this assignment,
he was president and CEO of NCEC (Nixdorf Computer Engineering
Corporation) in Burlington, Mass.

Before joining Nixdorf, Woebker spent three years as an assistant
professor at the Institut for Computer Science at the Technical
University Hanover, where he taught various computer science courses
including compiler theory, artificial intelligence and computer
graphics. Woebker received a diploma in mathematics and computer
science from the Technical University at Hanover.

Bernhard has served as a Board member for both the OSF (from its
inception through 1991) and X/Open (1989-1991) consortia.


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II.  NeXT Announces Final Private Financing Round; $65 Million
     Credit Line

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:        Allison Thomas
                Allison Thomas Associates
                [phone]
                [phone]


NeXT Announces Final Private Financing Round
$65 Million Credit Line Available

REDWOOD CITY, Calif., June 29, 1992  -  NeXT Computer, Inc. announced
today that it has secured further private financing, in the form of a
$55 million credit line from Canon Inc. and a $10 million credit line
from Steven P. Jobs, NeXT's chairman and CEO. This is expected to be
the final round of private financing that NeXT will require.

NeXT may draw upon these credit lines as needed.  At a future Initial
Public Offering (IPO) of NeXT's stock any funds borrowed under these
credit lines would convert to equity in NeXT at the IPO valuation.

"Canon has been a long-term partner of NeXT, and this financing is
just one more example of their commitment to our success," said Steve
Jobs.

"NeXT is now fully funded." said Peter van Cuylenburg, NeXT's
president and COO.  "These credit lines are the perfect financing
instruments for NeXT.  They provide more than we require to fund our
anticipated growth, yet give us the flexibility to use as little
additional funding as possible.  Any funds used would convert to
equity at the valuation achieved at an IPO, without any premium or
discount."

NeXT continues to capture leading-edge customers with its highly
acclaimed object-oriented NeXTSTEP software and hardware.  Recently
published industry data from International Data Corp. (IDC) placed
NeXT fourth in desktop workstation shipments in 1991, ahead of both
IBM and SGI.  NeXT estimates that that it has achieved 20 percent
market share in the commercial workstation market, about half of its
estimate of Sun Microsystems' market share.

"We entered the commercial workstation market less than 18 months ago
and our market share is already half of Sun's, and growing," said
Jobs.  "Watch for us to continue taking market share away from Sun."

NeXT Computer, Inc. designs and markets the industry-acclaimed
UNIX-based NeXTSTEP object-oriented software environment, and
designs, manufactures and markets workstations that run NeXTSTEP.
NeXTSTEP and NeXT workstations are used by medium and large
organizations to develop and deploy mission-critical applications,
using both custom and shrink-wrapped software.  NeXT is headquartered
at 900 Chesapeake Drive, Redwood City, California, 94063.

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III. NeXT Announces POSIX/GOSIP Compliance for NeXTSTEP 3.0

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: NeXT Computer, Inc.
         John Synk, [phone]


NeXT Announces POSIX/GOSIP Compliance for NeXTSTEP 3.0

WASHINGTON, D.C., June 25, 1992 - NeXT Computer, Inc. announced today
that it will offer full POSIX and GOSIP compliance for NeXTSTEP 3.0
for federal government and other customers that require these
standards.  Providing a version of NeXTSTEP that completely supports
these standards allows NeXT to compete for the entire range of
federal hardware and software procurements that mandate POSIX and
GOSIP.

"NeXT products have tremendous appeal to government users, and with
this announcement NeXT becomes a full-fledged player across all
federal markets," said Fred Giordano, regional federal sales manager
for NeXT.  "POSIX and GOSIP compliance, and the interoperability they
provide, are important components of NeXT's overall strategy of
combining industry standards with NeXTSTEP's innovative
object-oriented system software. These standards are key additions to
NeXTSTEP 3.0, which will provide the broadest set of interoperation
tools available from any workstation vendor."

NeXT also announced it plans to support the C2 government
specification for security of a computer's operating system from
unauthorized penetration. NeXT products supporting POSIX, GOSIP and
C2 standards for NeXTSTEP 3.0 will be available in Q4 1992.  Details
on pricing and distribution will be announced at a later date.


POSIX  and GOSIP Standards Required by Federal Government

POSIX, or Portable Operating System Interface, is a generic operating
system interface and environment definition based on, but not
restricted to, the UNIX operating system. The goal of the POSIX
standard is to allow any software application developed under POSIX
to run on any computer system that is compliant with POSIX.  POSIX
compliance is currently required for most federal RFPs.

GOSIP, or Government Open Systems Interconnection Profile, is a set
of hardware-independent networking protocols and tools designed to
work across diverse computer platforms, replacing the variety of
competing network protocols with a consistent standard.  GOSIP
compliance is currently required for most federal RFPs.

"Support for GOSIP is part of NeXT's continuing commitment to
providing organization-wide interoperability," Fred Giordano said.
"NeXTSTEP 3.0 system software, for example, also includes integrated
support for AppleTalk and Novell NetWare support.  GOSIP adds an
additional and significant building block to this collection of
connectivity tools."

About NeXT Computer, Inc.

NeXT Computer, Inc. designs, manufactures and markets professional
workstations based on the revolutionary NeXTSTEP object-oriented
system software.  NeXT computers are used by medium and large
organizations to develop and deploy mission-critical custom
applications, which can run alongside a robust suite of advanced
productivity applications.  NeXT is headquartered at 900 Chesapeake
Drive, Redwood City, California, 94063.  The Washington, D.C. office
is located at 1650 Tysons Blvd., Suite 650, McLean, VA 22102.

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IV. Pencom Launches NeXT Training Services, NeXT Consulting

For more information:

        Pam O'Neal      Doug Cooper/Paula Johns
        Pencom Software Cooper/Iverson Marketing
        [phone]  [phone]
        [e-mail]  [e-mail]


PENCOM LAUNCHES NeXT TRAINING SERVICES, NEW NeXT CONSULTING TEAM;
Joint Activities With NeXTedge Planned

AUSTIN, TX - June 29, 1992 - Pencom Software is doubling its staff of
NeXT engineers in order to launch a training and consulting team
specifically dedicated to serving both developers and end user
organizations equipped with workstations from NeXT Computer, Inc.
Already a NeXT-authorized systems integrator as well as a NeXT
software developer, Pencom has added the new services in order to
capitalize on the growth NeXT has recently experienced in key
vertical markets, particularly the financial services industry.

The new training services will be performed in some cases with
NeXTedge, NeXT's service and support group, which Pencom will assist
with post-sales support and possibly other activities that will be
announced at a later date. "Pencom has been involved with NeXT on
many levels -- as a customer, a product developer and as a co-bidder
on several projects," said Ed Taylor, President of Pencom Software.
"We are excited to embark upon a whole new relationship with NeXT
through our expanded services."

Pencom also plans to initiate NeXT-specific training courses in
various regions across the country. The courses will be designed for
software developers looking to create applications for NeXTSTEP,
NeXT's object-oriented development environment and graphical user
interface.

Consulting Group To Aid Large End Users

Pencom's consulting services group is available immediately to
perform a broad range of  functions, including high-level design and
rapid prototyping, applications development, database design and
development, networking and other services designed for NeXT end
users. The company is targeting these services toward end users who
have just purchased multiple systems from NeXT. Consulting engineers
are available to work with clients on site at locations throughout
the country, or they can coordinate with the client from any one of
Pencom's five nationwide offices in New York, Austin, San Jose,
Boston and Reston, VA.

Pencom has already begun hiring engineering professionals in order to
augment its team of NeXT experts. It is anticipated that the
financial industry will demand a large percentage of the group's
services, although other vertical industries are also requesting
Pencom's NeXT expertise more and more.

"The financial market is an important commercial market for NeXT
and always a place where technological innovation occurs," said Jim
McCrory, NeXT's Financial Services Marketing Manager. "Our
relationship with Pencom adds significantly to the depth of services
available to NeXTstep customers on Wall Street."

Established in December, 1991, Pencom's NeXT integration team
recently won a bid from New York City-based Organization Resources
Counselors, Inc. (ORC) to design and implement a new corporate
computing environment that combines NeXT Computer Inc.'s NeXTstation
Turbo computer with IBM's RISC System/6000.

In addition to its system integration, training and consulting
services, Pencom is the developer of co-Xist, a software product that
allows NeXT users to run industry standard X Window applications on
NeXT workstations. Pencom Software is a division of Pencom Systems,
Inc., a New York-based firm providing software engineering and
manpower resources to Fortune 500 companies and leading computer
firms since 1973.  Currently the largest recruiting firm
specializing in the Unix/open systems market, Pencom employs over 400
people and maintains a large heterogeneous network of workstations
including more than 45 NeXT machines.

     For more information, contact Pencom Software, 9050 Capital of
Texas Highway North, Suite 300, Austin, Texas 78759. Telephone:

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V. NeXTSTEP Release 3.0 Fact Sheet

Product Overview:

NeXTSTEP Release 3.0 is a new generation of NeXTSTEP object-oriented
system software.  NeXTSTEP, the only object-oriented system software
currently shipping, greatly speeds the development of
mission-critical custom applications up to five times faster than
with competing environments.  In addition, the NeXTSTEP graphical
user interface lets mere mortal users take advantage of the powerful
custom and shrink-wrapped applications written for the platform.

Among the most significant enhancements of NeXTSTEP Release 3.0 are
additional software objects that commercial and in-house developers
can use to create their applications.  Release 3.0 bundles three
major new object kits, and third-party developers already market more
than 100 additional objects aimed at a wide range of specialized
tasks.  Because NeXTSTEP is completely object-oriented, all these new
objects fit seamlessly into the development environment, making the
real promises of object-oriented computing available for the first
time on any commercial platform.

NeXTSTEP Release 3.0 also adds a number of new connectivity,
communications and other standards to the already standards-rich
environment of NeXTSTEP Release 2.


 **********************************************
 **** Highlights of NeXTSTEP Release 3.0: *****
 **********************************************


 - New objects for the NeXTSTEP library, plus enhanced
    object-oriented technologies

 - Database Kit (DBKit), which provides a single, consistent
    interface to SQL databases from multiple vendors; extends the
    power of NeXTSTEP's object-oriented capabilities to the
    development of database applications

 - 3D Graphics Kit (3DKit), based on the RenderMan standard for
    photorealistic rendering and interactive manipulation of 3D
    models, enables easy integration of three-dimensional graphics
    into existing NeXTSTEP applications

 - Distributed Objects, which extends the simple yet powerful
    messaging model used between objects within a NeXTSTEP
    application to messaging between different applications and
    across a network

 - Object Links, a multimedia hyperlinking system based on
    Distributed Objects that enables documents to share dynamic
    information

 - PhoneKit, for taking advantage of high-speed voice and data
    transmission over ISDN as well as analog lines

 - Even more support for standards

 - Bundled Novell Client and AppleShare Client software, for
    accessing file servers and PostScript printers on NetWare and
    AppleTalk networks

 - Macintosh file system support

 - Improvements to DOS file system support

 - ISDN networking support (with inexpensive external hardware by
    Hayes Microcomputer)

 - CD-ROM support (includes ISO 9660, High Sierra, RockRidge and
    Macintosh formats)

 - PostScript Level 2 integration, which adds support for calibrated
    color output, imaging filters for faster printing and pattern
    support

 - Pantone Matching System, the premier standard for specifying
    colors in printed output

 - Expanded ability to share files, printers (from various vendors),
    fax modems and CD-ROM drives among networked users

 - Seamless client operation with all leading high-quality servers
    (e.g., Auspex, DEC, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Pyramid, Sequent, Sun,
    Teradata)

 - Global computing, automatically

 - Integrated foreign language support, so that all applications
    shipped with NeXTSTEP computers to be set by the user for
    English, French, German, Italian, Spanish or Swedish (in Japan,
    NeXTSTEP users will be able to work in both English and Japanese)

 - Other enhancements

 - Integration with NeXT's 360 dpi, four-color Color Printer

 - An integrated, multimedia on-line hypertext Help system

 - Multimedia file compression

 - Additional network administration tools


Compatibility:  Any application written under NeXTSTEP Release 2 will
run in Release 3.0, and will automatically take advantage of many
Release 3.0 features.

Availability:  August, 1992

Media:  Installed on the hard disk of all computers shipped with
NeXTSTEP 3.0; also included on a CD-ROM disk for back-up. Upgrades
shipped on CD-ROM disk or as a right-to-use license.

Pricing: Contact your local NeXT dealer or reseller

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