Eagles Nest BBS 5/Eagles_Nest_Mac_Collection_Disc_5.TOAST/Other Non-Macintosh Text/PCWeek940523/PC WEEK 5-23-94

Text File | 1994-05-20 | 88KB | 1,841 lines

PC Week News for May 23, 1994. Contents Copyright (c) 1994 by Ziff
Communications Company. All rights reserved. Material may not be
reproduced or distributed IN ANY FORM without express written
permission. Contact CompuServe mailbox 72241,1776 for further
information.

================================================================

Attention: You are now reading news which is expressly prepared for
ZiffNet members. If you redistribute this file, or any part therein, on
any online service, BBS, LAN, WAN or other electronic or print
distribution mechanism, you are in violation of U.S. copyright laws--and
are subject to subsequent penalties.

================================================================

AMD chips give Compaq an edge

From PC Week for May 23, 1994 by Neal Boudette and Lisa DiCarlo

AUSTIN, Texas -- Compaq Computer Corp. leveraged an Advanced Micro
Devices Inc. processor to drop prices on home PCs last week and could
repeat the feat later this year for corporate buyers.

Compaq's Presario minitower CDS 860 houses an AMD 33/66MHz 486SX2
processor, 8M bytes of RAM, a 340M-byte hard drive, five ISA slots, and
five drive bays. Its multimedia features include a 14.4K-bps data/fax
modem, a 16-bit sound card, external speakers, a microphone, a double-
speed CD ROM drive, and local-bus graphics. The price tag reads $1,999
without a monitor.

The Presario 660 desktop unit uses the same AMD processor but has 4M
bytes of RAM (expandable to 56M bytes), a voice mailbox, a data/fax
modem, and 1M byte of video RAM. The system sells for $1,399, sans
monitor.

When AMD releases a 40/80MHz 486DX2 chip in the third quarter, Compaq
should have the same first rights on that chip as it did on the AMD
33/66MHz 486SX2 CPU powering the two new Presarios. Compaq also will be
first in line for the 40/120MHz 486DX that AMD is readying for the
fourth quarter, said industry analysts.

Those chips, like the 486SX2 in the Presarios, should give Compaq a
$100-to-$200 advantage over competing PCs with Intel Corp. chips,
analysts said.

Moreover, for several months Compaq will be the only PC maker that can
get them. AMD is now supplying the 33/66MHz 486SX2 exclusively to
Compaq.

"We are offering Compaq solutions that are not readily available on the
open market," said Bruce Smith, PC products marketing manager for AMD,
based here. "I wouldn't say Compaq will always get the pick of the
litter, but there will be more situations like this."

Intel officials said the company has no plans to offer 33/66MHz 486SX2,
40/80MHz 486DX2, or 40/120MHz DX4 processors.

Compaq could reap similar advantages with other AMD 486 chips, analysts
said.

The 40/80MHz 486DX2 will offer more performance than Intel's 33/66MHz
486DX2 but should sell for about $100 less. This AMD chip is also close
in performance to Intel's 33/100MHz DX4 but should undercut DX4 pricing
by nearly $150, analysts said.

Late in the year, Compaq could tap AMD's 40/120MHz 486DX to top even
low-cost Pentium PCs.

One corporate buyer expressed interest in obtaining AMD-based machines
from Compaq, but said that his company would prefer to wait until the
systems are market-proven.

"I would be open to going with them if there's a price advantage, but
only after they've been on the market for a few months," said Chuck
Davis, director of information systems at Eagle Industries Inc., a
manufacturer in Chicago. "With Murphy's Law, there has to be some tiny
incompatibility that could show up."

However, Compaq Vice President of Consumer Products Michael Norris said
that the Presarios are intended for the mass market and that "the AMD
processor is fully Windows-compatible."

================================================================

Apple demos software technology for Power Macs

From PC Week for May 23, 1994 by Mike McGuire and Norvin Leach

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Apple Computer Inc. last week exhorted its third-
party developers to use its latest-generation technology to create
applications that are easy to work with but exploit the strengths of the
PowerPC Macintoshes.

Attendees at last week's Worldwide Developers Conference, held here, got
updates on the latest enabling technologies, including the OpenDoc
collaborative computing architecture; System 7.5, the forthcoming
release of Apple's system-software update; and the Power Macs.

"It's time for the modern computer to get simple again," said Don
Norman, an Apple Fellow specializing in user-interface design who
described the increased complexity wrought by applications with more
functionality.

One example of Apple's future direction is the concept of real-time
collaboration. Apple briefly demonstrated such a technology when it
previewed Movie Talk. The technology was described as a foundation for
real-time collaboration and sending multimedia over networks.

Movie Talk will be an open architecture capable of running on any
transport protocol, including AppleTalk, Ethernet, TCP/IP, ISDN, and ATM
(asynchronous transfer mode).

Conference attendees viewed a demonstration of Movie Talk running video
at 30 frames per second on a prototype ATM network. Apple officials
declined to provide details as to when Movie Talk will be released.

All the 2,000-plus attendees also received alpha versions of Apple's
OpenDoc compound-document software, as well as System 7.5.

Beta versions of Apple's forthcoming System 7.5, code-named Mozart, were
distributed on CD ROM.

Due later this summer, System 7.5, which runs on 680X0- and PowerPC-
based systems, includes a scriptable Finder; PowerTalk, the client half
of Apple's Apple Open Collaboration Environment technology; QuickDraw
GX; QuickTime; and a task-centered active assistance capability called
AppleGuide.

Apple will have to depend on third-party developers to provide
applications that exploit the power of the operating system and Power
Mac, said Pieter Hartsook, editor of The Hartsook Letter, in Alameda,
Calif.

"Apple alone can only do so much, because users don't spend that much
time in the OS, [which is] what they use to get at their applications,"
Hartsook said. "It's going to be up to the developers to come up with
applications that actually deliver that ease of use."

================================================================

CA buys Ask to grow client/server base

From PC Week for May 23, 1994 by Jane Morrissey

Computer Associates International Inc. last week snapped up The ASK
Group Inc., the troubled maker of the Ingres relational database, in an
effort to gain a foothold in the client/server market.

The deal, valued at just over $300 million, gives CA synergistic
database, tools, and applications that fill long-standing holes,
analysts said. Moreover, CA gains access to ASK's ManMan/X manufacturing
technology and Ingres customers, which analysts said is the fourth
largest installed base of database users.

ASK, which has undergone a laundry list of financial and management woes
and has lost share in the database market, will be merged with CA upon
completion of the deal. ASK officials in Santa Clara, Calif., declined
to comment on the ramifications of the deal. CA officials were
unavailable for comment.

As is its habit, CA is expected to make deep cuts to make the unit
profitable and may discontinue flagging products that are viewed as non-
strategic, analysts said.

"It's very typical of past CA acquisitions," said Stephen McClellan, an
analyst with Merrill, Lynch & Co., in San Francisco. "Take a red-ink
company, buy it cheaply, cut a huge amount of cost immediately --
probably 50 percent of the employees -- which makes it a pretty nice
profit contribution." McClellan estimated that CA can turn ASK from
losing $20 million a year to earning between $50 million and $100
million.

If CA can put aggressive marketing behind ASK, the Islandia, N.Y.,
software giant might be able to gain lost momentum among customers.

"We still use Ingres for some of our scientific applications, but we've
been moving away from them for some time," said an MIS manager at a
Connecticut-based defense contractor, who requested anonymity. "Since
ASK bought [Ingres], they haven't exactly been plowing a lot of money
into R&D. It was once a strong product, but not anymore."

Analysts said there is no question CA will leverage the Ingres installed
base to sell its Unicenter client/server systems-management software.
ASK's ManMan/X Unix manufacturing software will likely be kept, they
added, given that CA has 1,000 mainframe manufacturing customers from
its Cullinet acquisition who need a migration path to Unix.

================================================================

Financially hurting Borland juggles InterBase

From PC Week for May 23, 1994 by Jane Morrissey

On the eve of reporting substantial financial losses, Borland
International Inc. hopes to follow up its pending sale of Quattro Pro by
forging another deal for its InterBase database.

Contrary to industry reports, Borland officials claim they are not
interested in selling the complete InterBase business, but rather in
finding a partner for the Unix embedded-systems implementation.
Officials said Borland is committed to holding onto the Intel Corp.
version of InterBase and to its other database offerings as the
underpinning of the company's "upsizing" strategy.

"We've said all along that the upsizing strategy requires key
relationships between the front end and the server," said Richard
Schwartz, Borland's chief technical officer in Scotts Valley, Calif.
"This requires a focus in the InterBase case on the upsizing server
platforms, which are primarily Windows NT, [NetWare], and Chicago."

Rather than a buyout, Schwartz cautioned that any InterBase negotiations
may result in licensing deals or nothing at all. One company negotiating
to buy the database is Cognos Corp., of Ottawa, which is currently an
InterBase licensee, insiders said.

One analyst said selling InterBase is only a matter of time. "It's a
smart move by them to do that before dBASE ships and put their marketing
muscle behind that," said Betty Lyter of Montgomery Securities Inc., in
San Francisco.

Borland has been losing muscle on many fronts, which is expected to be
evident in its fourth-quarter and year-end results, now due June 2 after
multiple delays. The market has interpreted the postponements as a sign
of more bad news, but Borland officials said complexities associated
with its announced restructuring, the $145 million sale of Quattro Pro
to Novell Inc., and its acquisition of ReportSmith Inc. contributed to
the delays.

Borland will report a significant decline in sales for its fourth fiscal
quarter ended March 31 and a substantial operating loss for the quarter
and the fiscal year, and will announce substantial restructuring
charges, said officials. The company also expects an operating loss for
the quarter ending June 30 and a decline in sales due to disruptions
caused by the restructuring, management changes, and the sale of Quattro
Pro, among other reasons.

The June quarter will be hurt by declining sales of Quattro Pro and the
Borland Office suite. Moreover, the quarter will reflect customers'
purchasing delays as they hold off in anticipation of the summer release
of dBASE for Windows, dBASE for DOS 5.0, and Paradox for Windows 5.0,
officials said.

Borland's financial situation continued to put pressure on its stock,
which last week was languishing near its 52-week low of $9.50.

================================================================

Second beta to delay release of Windows NT 3.5

From PC Week for May 23, 1994 by Mary Jo Foley

Beta testers of Windows NT 3.5 report that the operating system is
faster and more stable than its predecessor, but they have found enough
bugs to ensure that Microsoft Corp. will issue a second beta release
before shipping the final product.

Microsoft officials have said that a second beta of NT 3.5, code-named
Daytona, was under consideration. Now Beta Two is a given, said Rich
Tong, general manager of Microsoft's Business Systems division, in
Redmond, Wash. Microsoft may be ready to release Beta Two by next month,
sources said. That means the commercial release of 3.5, originally
slated for June, will be pushed back until at least the third quarter.

A significant percentage of the 26,000 NT 3.5 Beta One sites have still
not received the product, officials said. Thus far, most of the comments
about the first beta have been positive, they said.

"Once the product is up and running, it's a champ," said Grant Smith, a
consultant for Cogito Economic Systems Inc., a systems integrator in
Hillside, N.J., whose clients include AT&T Corp. and J.C. Penney Co.
"The response time is a lot better. TCP/IP is supported as a native
stack. And RAS [Remote Access Services] turned out to be an unbelievable
champ."

But getting NT 3.5 Advanced Server installed isn't as simple and
streamlined as it should be, Smith said. "I've gone through six
installs," he said. "My machine wouldn't allow it to load, so I had to
go back to 3.1. It wasn't recognizing some of the motherboards we had
built in the lab, even though [NT] 3.1 did recognize these machines."

Although the Daytona beta has been distributed on CD ROM, the
installation procedure starts with a few floppy disks, Smith said. "This
goes against the idea of NT being smaller and easier, " he said.

Another NT 3.5 Advanced Server beta tester in the Silicon Valley area
also found 3.5's performance vastly improved over 3.1's. "It's faster
than I thought it would be," said the tester, who requested anonymity.
"I can run a 16-bit app in its own memory space with no degradation. And
it's very fast on video. Like Chicago, Daytona has an applet that allows
you to reconfigure your video on the fly.

"If Daytona had the Chicago [user interface], it would be truly leading-
edge," the source added.

Microsoft officials have said the Chicago user interface will be
available on the Cairo release of NT, which is due in late 1995.

The networking support in NT 3.5 is solid, beta testers said. However,
there have been reports that some of the third-party TCP/IP stacks that
worked with NT 3.1 are not compatible with the new TCP/IP stack in NT
3.5, which Microsoft wrote, according to sources. Microsoft is not aware
of any such incompatibilities, Tong said.

Although NT 3.5 Advanced Server will make a great Internet server, some
Unix purists were miffed that Microsoft isn't supporting Internet mail.
"[Enterprise Messaging Server] is supposed to do it all," said a tester
who requested anonymity.

The lack of built-in NFS (Network File System) support is also an issue
with NT 3.5, some testers said. But one tester said third-party NFS and
PC-NFS products will alleviate this shortcoming.

"There are a lot of good third-party [NFS] products available for NT,"
said Bill Sweeney, a senior consultant with Data Focus Inc., a systems
integrator in Fairfax, Va. "And PC-NFS is a memory hog. Microsoft has
TCP/IP virtual-driver support in Chicago that's much better."

Microsoft officials are counting on NT 3.5 to win converts from OS/2,
Unix, and even the company's own Windows for Workgroups. Most early NT
adopters have been SQL Server customers interested in running a less-
expensive version of Sybase Inc.'s relational database on PCs rather
than Unix servers, industry analysts said.

================================================================

DX4 PCs show mixed results

From PC Week for May 23, 1994 by Michael Caton

Desktop systems based on Intel Corp.'s 33/100MHz DX4 processor, if well-
designed and aggressively priced, could spell trouble for 60MHz and
66MHz Pentium machines. However, of six DX4-based systems PC Week Labs
tested, only Micron Computer Inc.'s 4100 VL Magnum showed the promise of
upsetting the Pentium PCs.

In benchmark tests of Compaq Computer Corp.'s $2,998 ProLinea 4/100,
Dell Computer Corp.'s $2,598 Dimension 4100V and $2,658 OptiPlex
4100/MX, Gateway 2000 Inc.'s $2,495 P4D-100, Hewlett-Packard Co.'s
$2,649 Vectra VL2 DX4/100, and Micron's $2,349 4100 VL Magnum, we saw
surprisingly good and bad performances.

With all these systems, which began shipping within the past two months,
performance results varied depending on the subsystem configurations.

In their base configurations, each system but the Dell OptiPlex comes
with 8M bytes of RAM. The OptiPlex comes with 4M bytes. The hard-disk
capacity varies with each system.

None of these products differs greatly from other desktops in their
respective product lines. The Compaq ProLinea, for example, remains a
ProLinea, with the same slim-line case and thus the same expansion
options.

And overall, only one system presented any distinct advantage over the
others. The Micron proved significantly faster than all the other
reviewed systems and nearly as fast as a 66MHz Pentium-based desktop.

Features/Expandability

Each vendor sent its multimedia configuration for this review -- each
system came with a sound board and CD ROM drive. However, the systems
don't come with many features that corporate buyers might be drawn to,
like integrated Ethernet or SCSI.

The one distinguishing feature of the OptiPlex is the inclusion of a
video memory upgrade capability, which allows users to run Windows in
higher resolution or with more colors. And all the systems but the
Micron come with a three-year warranty, which will appeal to corporate
buyers (the Micron has a one-year warranty).

Both the ProLinea and the Vectra systems have a slim-line chassis that
limits their expandability. The Vectra has only two single in-line
memory module sockets, as opposed to the ProLinea's four, so we gave it
a lower-than-acceptable rating.

The remaining systems use larger desktop cases, which translates into
more slots and more open drive bays. We appreciate that both Dells
combine the 3.5-inch and 5.25-inch floppy drives in a single bay.

Performance

The performance of these systems ranged from slightly slower than
expected to impressively quick. Most surprising, however, is that the
slowest, Dell's Dimension, and the fastest, Micron's 4100 VL Magnum, use
the same VL-based motherboard.

The choice of video adapter and disk drive differentiates the two
systems. The Dell comes with a Number Nine Corp. #9GXE64 DRAM (dynamic
RAM)-based accelerator board and a Western Digital Corp. Caviar 2340
hard-disk drive, while the Micron uses a Matrox Graphics Corp. Ultima
Plus video RAM-based video board and a Conner Peripherals Inc. CFA540A
hard drive. We swapped these components between the two systems and ran
the benchmarks again. The Dell then became the fastest system and the
Micron the slowest.

As a point of reference, we tested a Gateway P5-66, which has a 66MHz
Pentium CPU and a fast STB Systems Inc. Lightspeed-PCI DRAM-based video
controller card. The Micron nearly matched the Gateway Pentium system in
our benchmarks, showing that a good design will net Pentium-like
performance from a DX4 processor.

The Micron's speed comes at a price, however. Adding the Ultima Plus
video controller, 8M bytes of RAM, and a 540M-byte hard drive boosted
the price to $2,999.

The ProLinea also performed slowly in our benchmark testing, while the
Dell OptiPlex, Gateway P4D-100, and HP Vectra all performed fairly well.

User Ergonomics/Serviceability

With the exception of the Gateway P4D-100, all of the systems have
acceptable keyboards and monitors. As we've stated in other reviews, the
macro capabilities of Gateway's keyboards are too easy to accidentally
turn on.

We could more quickly and easily reach and replace components in the
Compaq, HP, and Micron systems, but none of the systems proved
exceptionally easy or hard to service. We liked that we could open the
HP and Micron cases by just removing one screw. Opening the Dell
Dimension was harder because it required sliding the case all the way
off the system chassis. Likewise, we spent a little too much time
opening the Gateway case because of an excessive number of screws
fastening the case.

Testing Methodology

PC Week Labs tested Compaq's ProLinea 4/100 (with a 525M-byte hard
drive), Dell's Dimension 4100V (with a 340M-byte hard drive) and
OptiPlex 4100/MX (with a 528M-byte hard drive), Gateway's P4D-100 (with
a 540M-byte hard drive), HP's Vectra VL2 DX4/100 (with a 340M-byte hard
drive), and Micron's 4100 VL Magnum (with a 540M-byte hard drive) using
the Winstone 94 Version 1.0, PC Bench Version 8.0, and WinBench 4.0
benchmarks.

Compaq, in Houston, can be reached at [phone]; Dell, in Austin,
Texas, at [phone]; Gateway 2000, in North Sioux City, S.D., at
[phone]; HP, in Palo Alto, Calif., at [phone]; and Micron,
in Nampa, Idaho, at [phone].

================================================================

Excel 5.0 gets passing grade from users

From PC Week for May 23, 1994 by Ted Smalley Bowen

Although the upgrade has been deemed relatively stable, users of
Microsoft Corp.'s Excel 5.0 for Windows have noted performance hits
associated with OLE 2.0 and report that many of the spreadsheet's
advanced functions need refinement.

An interim release of Excel 5.0 anticipated this summer is expected to
focus on performance tuning and minor bugs.

"I'd rather see some performance tuning. Bells and whistles are nice,
but in a corporate setting, you need things to work," said Bill
Vannerson, user services supervisor at the Blue Cross Blue Shield
Association in Chicago.

However, other users said they would trade off some performance to gain
added functions.

"Excel may seem a little bit slower, but the new features are worth
those [performance losses]," said Hank Perkins, program manager at
Dynamic Analysis Inc., in Huntsville, Ala.

The interim release, Excel 5.0a, now in beta and expected to be
announced at Comdex this week, will smooth the application's
implementation of VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) and OLE (Object
Linking and Embedding) 2.0 and address some automation problems,
according to sources familiar with the release.

"They're fine-tuning things. There have been no showstoppers, but there
are some automation problems. For example, the first release of VBA
didn't have enough testing time," said Donald Baarns, president of
Baarns Consulting Group Inc., in Sylmar, Calif. "But in over 90 percent
of the cases, they're making it work as originally planned, as opposed
to adding features."

However, the release will not update the Excel query engine, which is
borrowed from Access 1.0. That query engine has been faulted for slow
performance. The query engine used in Access 2.0 should find its way
into Excel next year, said Microsoft officials.

Excel 5.0a may also include additional Wizards for graphing and
charting, which will present users with suggested chart and graph
formats depending on the type of data to be displayed. Although likely
to be included in the Excel 5.x feature upgrade, the new Wizards could
potentially be delivered with 5.0a, since they are not part of the
application's core feature set, according to sources.

Users say improved data-handling features are a reason to upgrade to
Excel 5.0.

"They've improved the data-handling capabilities with the auto-filter
feature, improved the retrieval of external sources, and made charting
more intuitive with the ability to drag-and-drop series [of numbers].
It's the way users think," Vannerson said.

But while users like the new data-handling capabilities, difficulties in
converting existing macros to VBA remain.

"I've been dealing almost exclusively with development in Visual Basic.
In that realm, many of the tools are shaky," said Daniel Gasteiger,
editor of The Spreadsheet Advisor in Allston, Mass. "I've been
experiencing Unrecoverable Application Errors, in particular, calling
data link libraries with Visual Basic code.

"I've modeled codes after macros that work fine in Excel 4.0. I
redeveloped them to look identical in 5.0, and I get lots of crashes,"
Gasteiger said. "Doing what looks like a one-to-one translation still
causes system crashes. I'm finding that the whole VB environment is way
too complex."

"There's a translation issue [with older macros and VBA], but some
people aren't used to working in a programming language. They're
accustomed to running a macro recorder," said Mike Drips, a technical
consultant with GTE Corp. in Tampa, Fla. "In most cases, it's easier to
write a new macro than to do a translation. The bottom line is that VBA
is part of technological forward movement."

"They can position Excel as a high-end development tool because when you
go to something like PowerBuilder or any other tool, you're responsible
for the user interface," Baarns said. "With Excel, you have a model for
the interface, so the end-user is just working with an extension of
known tools."

================================================================

The Week in Review

From PC Week for May 23, 1994

In an effort to improve integration between its desktop applications and
its Notes groupware, Lotus will preview this week an upgrade to
SmartSuite. Expected in the upgrade are 1-2-3 Release 4.1, Approach 3.0,
Ami Pro 3.1, and Organizer 1.1. SmartSuite 3.0 will also feature Startup
Desktop, a set of prepackaged Notes applications, sources said.

An alliance between Informix and Prism this week will ease the way for
administrators managing large data warehouses. Prism's Warehouse Manager
will allow administrators to extract, integrate, and transform data for
the purpose of warehousing and will also let data be moved from a source
database to a target database from a variety of vendors supported by
Prism's software.

The Tiger technology Microsoft previewed last week is more than just a
media server; it will likely form the basis for a fault-tolerant file
system for Windows NT, officials said. The Tiger subsystem could be
folded into NT or packaged as an application service, and could ship as
a refresh update to NT 3.5. The 3.5 version, code-named Daytona, is not
likely to ship until the third or fourth quarter, because Microsoft
plans another round of beta testing beginning in June.

ALR this week will unveil two minitower PC lines aimed at buyers
interested in mass-storage solutions. Each machine houses six storage
bays, three PCI expansion slots, and a choice of processors. ALR has
also begun shipping its Express line of low-priced, entry-level PCs that
are built to order with a choice of CPUs, monitors, and hard drives.

With mobile PC users clamoring for more interaction with their offices,
Nomadic Systems last week released an upgrade to its file-
synchronization package. SmartSync 2.0 supports filtering of data and
offers users the ability to share files with NetWare clients using IPX
protocols, which Nomadic says will enable faster file transfers. The
software will also be compatible with packet radio, infrared
transmissions, and cellular modems.

When IBM ships its 25M-bps ATM adapters and workgroup switches this
summer, it will include LAN-emulation software, making it possible to
run installed LAN applications over the cell-switching ATM circuits. The
software will also enable LAN-attached devices to communicate with ATM-
linked devices, such as servers, officials said.

Additions to Borland's development tool suite, expected next month,
include a DOS extender package, called PowerPack for DOS, and an upgrade
to its C++ compiler. PowerPack for DOS will give developers access to
more than 640K bytes of memory and to Windows dynamic link libraries, as
well as the ability to recompile 16-bit DOS applications as 32-bit
applications. The C++ upgrade includes bug fixes, a new utility for the
Turbo debugger, and enhancements that let the tool run under Windows NT,
Windows 3.1, the forthcoming Windows 4.0, and OS/2.

Several companies will unveil at DB/Expo this week products supporting
the Open Database Connectivity data-access specification. Q+E Software
will announce drivers for several platforms; PageAhead Software will
unveil its SimbaEngine C/S for accessing non-SQL data on Unix servers;
and Visigenic Software will introduce an ODBC software development kit
for Informix, Oracle, and Sybase databases. Despite the wave of new
products, some critics contend the technology is slow and cumbersome.

When Dell releases its first-quarter earnings this week, the
significance of the results, expected to be positive, will be an
indication of how well the company was able to clean up its act. Last
summer, the high-flying direct marketer was hit with a $75 million loss.
The company's energies since then have been focused on streamlining the
organization; revamping development, inventory, purchasing, and
manufacturing; and adding some new, but experienced, managerial blood.

================================================================

Comdex -- Wraps coming off Windows 4.0 beta

From PC Week for May 23, 1994 by Mary Jo Foley

REDMOND, Wash. -- Microsoft Corp. has refined the feature set of Windows
4.0 sufficiently to publicly demonstrate it at Comdex/Windows World in
Atlanta this week, but not enough to begin pressing Beta One disks.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates will put Windows 4.0 through its paces in
a 10- to 15-minute demonstration during his Windows World keynote speech
Monday morning.

As of last week, however, Microsoft had not yet incorporated its
InfoCenter universal E-mail client into Windows 4.0, code-named Chicago.
Microsoft officials said InfoCenter may not make it into Beta One, but
they maintain that it will be part of Windows 4.0 when it ships by the
end of the year.

Microsoft also has not pinned down how it will let users select Windows
3.x services and conventions, such as a separate File and Program
Manager, instead of Windows 4.0's combined File/Program Manager, said
Richard Freedman, lead product manager with Microsoft's Personal
Operating Systems division, in Redmond, Wash.

"We're trying to decide how to show the separate Program Manager and
File Manager," Freedman said during a briefing at Microsoft's
headquarters here last week. "But there will be no magic button allowing
you to switch from 3.1 to Chicago." Microsoft may create a default icon
that would allow users to choose 3.1 views, he said.

Microsoft has substantially simplified the Windows 4.0 user interface
since it was first previewed at the company's Professional Developers
Conference, in Anaheim, Calif., last December.

When users start Windows 4.0, they will see three icons: InfoCenter, My
Computer, and Network Neighborhood, plus a Start button on the status
bar, Freedman said. Explorer, the advanced file manager Microsoft
demonstrated at the developers conference, is no longer part of the
default user interface; it is now an option under My Computer, designed
for advanced users.

My Computer allows users to browse their PC files and resources, and
Network Neighborhood allows users to access resources on their immediate
workgroups, regardless of the network provider. For one user, the new
interface alone won't be compelling enough to upgrade to Windows 4.0
when it ships.

"Chicago is interesting, but we're still just getting our users upgraded
from DOS to Windows 3.1," said Richard Byrnes, data systems coordinator
for the Los Angeles County Administratively Unified Courts in Los
Angeles.

"I'm not even convinced yet we need to go to Chicago," he said. "We
still need that killer app."

Since the beginning of May, Microsoft has shipped prerelease Beta One
disks to 400 or 500 of its most active beta testers, said Freedman.
Microsoft's goal still is to begin shipping Beta One to 10,000 testers
before the end of this month. However, few analysts believe the next
Windows 4.0 beta will ship before June.

Separately, Hilgraeve Inc. will announce at Comdex this week that the
core code in its forthcoming $149 HyperAccess 2.0 communications
software will be included in Chicago as an applet. The Monroe, Mich.,
company's upgrade, which is due this summer, adds support for
Microsoft's Winsock TCP/IP interface as well as Internet and Dialog
sessions.

EDITOR'S NOTE: A screen shot of Windows 4.0 will be available on Monday,
May 23 in PC Week Forum Library 10, Hot News, in .GIF format (GO
PCWEEK). The file is CHICGO.GIF.

================================================================

SQLWindows update features extensible objects

From PC Week for May 23, 1994 by Anne Knowles

Gupta Corp. plans to demonstrate at DB/Expo in San Francisco this week
SQLWindows 5.0, an upgrade to its development software that includes
extensible objects for more easily creating applications.

Version 5.0 includes a suite of 60 extensible objects that company
officials said will reduce the need to write code and, as a result,
speed development time.

"In the past, people have said SQLWindows was very powerful but not very
easy to use," said Umang Gupta, president and CEO of the Menlo Park,
Calif., database and tools maker. "With 5.0, SQLWindows is still
powerful and now the easiest to use."

SQLWindows is a SQL development environment that enables developers to
create Windows front ends for accessing SQLBase data and external
information -- via gateways -- stored in IBM DB2, Informix OnLine,
Oracle7, Sybase SQL Server, and other databases.

The software's QuickObjects feature includes data-source control
objects, presentation objects, and commander objects for accessing data.
Other developers are working on other object types, said Matt Miller,
Gupta's senior director of product marketing.

"QuickObjects makes it possible to be productive right away," said Tony
Ruggiero, vice president of FrontEnd Systems Inc., a developer of class
libraries for SQLWindows, in Fairfax, Calif. "That has always been a
weakness of SQLWindows in comparison to [Powersoft Corp.'s]
PowerBuilder."

SQLWindows 5.0 also lets developers create applications that access data
from non-relational data sources such as Lotus Development Corp.'s
Notes.

SQLWindows 5.0 will be available in July directly from Gupta and through
resellers. The Corporate Edition, for teams of developers, is priced at
$3,395; the Network Edition, for individual developers, is $1,995.

================================================================

Mead to bow out of online arena

From PC Week for May 23, 1994 by Kimberly Patch

Feeling the pinch of the changing service-provider landscape, Mead Corp.
-- which has delivered online legal, business, and medical information
for 20 years -- is planning to off-load its Mead Data Central unit.

Elizabeth Russo, vice president of communications, confirmed that the
Dayton, Ohio, company will attempt to sell Mead Data Central within a
year and concentrate on its core paper business.

"We believe it's an ideal time," said Russo, who said the unit
represents about 11 percent of Mead's total $4.7 billion business.

Given the flurry of activity surrounding the information highway and the
new generation of online services, Mead is smart to jump out of the
business, according to analysts.

"They're getting out at a time when a lot of their information is losing
value," because of the growing base of online services, said Mark
MacGillivray, managing director of H&M Consulting, in Sunnyvale, Calif.

One indication that Mead's databases are no longer worth their high
prices -- as much as $250 an hour -- is the U.S. Department of Justice's
decision to publicly release large portions of the Juris electronic
legal-research service.

Juris contains much of the federal-court information that Mead sells
through its Lexis service.

The Juris information was released under a freedom-of-information
request by Tax Analysts, a non-profit electronic publisher in Arlington,
Va., which plans to publish tax-related information contained in Juris
on CD ROMs. Tax Analysts will also make the information available to
other information providers, officials said.

Russo said Mead expects to find a buyer "that would have strategic
synergies with Mead Data Central -- it could be somebody in the
information industry, the computer industry, or the communications
industry," she said, declining to discuss current negotiations.

A technology-oriented buyer would be able to more quickly leverage the
information, adding value in the form of better GUIs and search tools,
analysts said.

The most logical buyer would be an information provider with
complementary products, said Paulette Donnelly, editor of Electronic
Information Report, an industry newsletter in Wilton, Conn.

"There's a lot of speculation about who would want to buy them -- AT&T
or one of the [Regional Bell Operating Companies], or a big software
company that wants to get into the information business but doesn't have
an expertise in the legal business," Donnelly said.

The most logical buyer, however, would be a publishing clearinghouse
that has more online expertise than Mead, she added.

Russo said the company hopes the divestment process will be complete
within a year.

Mead Data Central includes the Lexis/Nexis online services; Michie Co.,
a legal publisher of CD ROM and other regulatory materials; Jurisoft,
which publishes legal software; and Folio, a CD ROM database company.

================================================================

IBM melding PCs into a single, modular line

From PC Week for May 23, 1994 by Michael R. Zimmerman

IBM Personal Computer Co., ramping up a dramatic new strategy, this fall
will merge its new Performance Series ValuePoints and PS/2 lines into a
single family of PCs that support both Micro Channel and ISA buses
through a universal motherboard design.

IBM's move is an effort to lessen the confusion that surrounds
multibrand strategies, said sources close to IBM. The result, company
officials said, will be less confusion for buyers and a revitalization
of the division's fatigued sales.

IBM will offer the upgradable machines built to order, which, along with
the universal motherboard design, will reduce overhead, cut costs, and
rein in prices.

IBM, which over the past two years has adopted multibrand strategies
similar to those from Compaq Computer Corp. and Dell Computer Corp.,
believes corporate buyers have been stymied by the profusion of brands.

Some users support that belief.

"We don't like different branding; it's confusing," said Eddie Tinsley,
systems engineering project manager at Rouge Steel Co. in Dearborn,
Mich. "You have to take special pains to find out, for example, what a
[Compaq] Presario is next to another PC. In addition, [specially branded
PCs] lead you to believe you're going to get more than what you really
want."

In the past two years, Tinsley's company migrated to Gateway 2000 Inc.
PCs because of their low prices and the ability to custom-configure each
machine. "They offer an excellent PC shell, and we basically know what
we want in them," said Tinsley.

Build-to-order manufacturing "cuts cycle times and increases
availability," said Bruce Claflin, the PC Co.'s new general manager of
product and brand management. The core of that setup, IBM's universal
SelectaBus motherboard, "will reduce cost and increase flexibility,"
Claflin said.

IBM has not yet decided on a name for the merged ValuePoint-PS/2 family.
Sources said that, when finalized, the name will be given to the home-
oriented PS/1 as well, giving IBM the single cross-market brand it
wants.

The new line will feature an extensive component menu from which users
can select options, including chassis sizes, processors, and bus types
and architectures.

The groundwork for the single-family effort was laid last week with the
release of the new Performance Series by IBM ValuePoint line.

"The Performance Series announcement is telegraphing our building-block
strategy of the future that will unfold down the line," said Claflin,
declining to discuss details.

At the heart of the new family is the SelectaBus motherboard, which
offers high performance and extensive expandability, said IBM officials
at their Somers, N.Y., headquarters.

Most notable of the SelectaBus' features is its support for both the
Video Electronics Standards Association VL-Bus and Intel Corp.'s
Peripheral Component Interconnect local-bus designs. As the name
suggests, the SelectaBus allows users to select whichever local-bus
design they want in a riser-card configuration.

But IBM is taking upgradability beyond the local bus. For example, the
5-volt SelectaBus board can be tweaked to support 3.3-volt processors
via an attachable voltage regulator.

The Performance Series will be offered in either slim-line SpaceSaver,
full-sized, or minitower chassis and will offer a range of X86 CPUs,
from the 25MHz 486SX (upon special request) through the 50/100MHz
486DX4. The line starts at $1,560 for a VL-Bus-based 33MHz 486SX
SpaceSaver with 4M bytes of RAM and a 270M-byte hard drive.

================================================================

Top 10 Network Interface Cards Index

From PC Week for May 23, 1994 by Terry Tam

Just as the number of workstations configured with Ethernet or Token-
Ring network interface cards increases in corporate America, so do the
number of players providing faster and lower priced offerings.

To ease network administrators' task of researching the numerous NICs
(network interface cards) released each week, PC Week Labs and ZD Labs
are joining forces to examine the price and performance characteristics
of all NICs submitted to PC Week Labs.

By eliminating these two factors, buyers can focus on other factors,
such as the brand name, configuration, drivers, and so on.

PC Week Labs NIC Index

Every week, the PC Week Labs Top 10 NIC Index will focus on a single
topology (either Ethernet or Token-Ring) and a single bus type (either
ISA or EISA).

Our initial tests will include both Ethernet and Token-Ring topologies,
including both ISA- and EISA-bus NICs. ISA-bus NICs will be tested as
workstation NICs; EISA NICs will be tested as file-server NICs.
Additional adapters, including PCMCIA- and PCI-bus types, will be
incorporated into the Netweek NIC Index as we expand our testbed to
accommodate them.

Testing Methodology

All tests are performed using ZD Labs' NetBench 2.1 on a 50MHz Compaq
Computer Corp. Systempro XL 486, equipped with 32M bytes of RAM and
configured as a file server running Novell Inc.'s NetWare 3.12.

NIC throughput is recorded using NetBench 2.1's "NIC Throughput Test,"
which measures maximum throughput in block sizes including 64 bytes, 128
bytes, 256 bytes, 512 bytes, 1,024 bytes, 2,048 bytes, and 4,096 bytes.

Our workstation testbed consists of a single NetWare 3.12 file server
configured with an Eagle Technology Inc. NE3200 EISA Ethernet NIC or a
Madge Networks Inc. EISA Smart RingNode, connected to a single
workstation and configured with the NIC to be tested.

Our file server testbed consists of a single NetWare file server
configured with four of the Ethernet or Token-Ring EISA server NICs to
be tested. Each segment of four is connected to a Cabletron Systems Inc.
Ethernet or passive Token-Ring Multistation Access Unit. Each of the 16
workstations are configured with either an Eagle NE2000 Ethernet NIC or
a Proteon Inc. 1392 Token-Ring NIC.

Each server NIC test measures the throughput of single-segment and four-
segment configurations, using NetBench 2.1. Novell's STAT.NLM is used to
measure CPU utilization during NetBench 2.1 tests.

How To Read the NIC Index

The PC Week Labs Top 10 NIC Index lists the top 10 NICs by performance
and by price.

The performance bar chart ranks the top 10 NICs, measured by the
Performance Index. The Performance Index for a workstation NIC is the
averaged throughput of a NIC as tested by NetBench 2.1 with block sizes
ranging from 64 bytes to 4,096 bytes.

The Performance Index for a server NIC is the averaged throughput of a
NIC divided by the CPU utilization, as tested by NetBench 2.1 and
STAT.NLM, with the same range of block sizes.

The Price Index is determined by the manufacturer's suggested list
price. Actual price may vary by manufacturer and distribution channel.
The Price/Performance Index is determined by dividing the appropriate
Performance Index (i.e., workstation or server performance result) by
the NIC's list price. Future PC Week Labs NIC indices may include
Government Services Administration or street pricing, to better
represent a variety of purchasing habits.

In our ranking of ISA-based NICs, 3Com Corp.'s EtherLink 3C509 was the
performance leader, followed closely by Farallon's EtherWave PC/ISA.
However, in terms of our Price/Performance Index, neither one of those
cards fell into the top 10 -- instead, Xinetron's 321TCL and Compex's
ENET-16 Combo/VP came out on top, by virtue of their comparatively low
prices. The Xinetron card was ranked tenth in our Performance Index.
Buyers, then, can consider the Xinetron card to be a good buy, as well
as a good performer

Submitting NICs for Testing

All NICs submitted to PC Week Labs for testing are included in the PC
Week Labs NIC Index.

For instructions for submitting NICs for testing or for additional
information on testing methodology, call PC Week's automated fax-back
hot line at [phone], ext. 700.

The PC Week Labs NIC Index was designed by Terry Tam, Technical
Director, PC Week Labs; the PC Week Labs NIC Index is managed by William
F. Katz, Sr. Technical Analyst, PC Week Labs, and Huy Nguyen, Technical
Specialist, ZD Labs.

EDITOR'S NOTE: A complete list of all NICs tested by PC Week Labs and ZD
Labs is available on ZiffNet in PC Week Forum Library 2, Labs/Netweek
(GO PCWEEK). All NIC information, including manufacturer, model,
software drivers, price, Performance Index, Price/Performance Index, and
complete NetBench results are included. The printed PC Week Labs Top 10
NIC Index is a subset of the larger index available in the PC Week
Library.

================================================================

New Novell CEO prepares for changes, consolidation

From PC Week for May 23, 1994 by Jane Morrissey

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- With Novell Inc. set to finalize its acquisition of
WordPerfect Corp. in less than 30 days, new CEO Robert Frankenberg has
taken control, preparing the networking and application giant for a
shakeout.

Despite Frankenberg's intentions to study the business for 90 days,
Novell insiders said Chairman Ray Noorda has become increasingly removed
from operations, with his successor orchestrating his own game plan,
which will include bringing in new lieutenants and instituting layoffs.

WordPerfect, of Orem, Utah, will initially be run as a wholly owned
subsidiary, but "gradually we will consolidate worldwide," said David
Bradford, Novell's senior vice president and corporate counsel at last
week's Technology Strategies conference here. The first areas where this
will be evident are sales, operations, finance, and other general and
administrative departments, he said.

Head count is also an obvious concern, because Novell has about 5,000
employees and WordPerfect has roughly the same. "Naturally, there will
be some consolidation," Bradford said.

In addition to reworking Novell's organization, Frankenberg is expected
to bring in his own management team. Anticipation of these changes has
caused some chaos internally, sources said, as employees from the top
down jockey for position.

Bradford said the atmosphere inside Novell is nothing more than
uncertainty, which would be associated with any merger.

Other Novell executives said they agreed with Frankenberg's moves. "Bob
has full control," said one Novell executive, noting that Frankenberg
needs to assert his authority through a reorganization that unifies
Novell's collection of fiefdoms.

With WordPerfect and Frankenberg based in Provo, Utah, sources said they
see a power shift away from Novell's California-based executives, Chief
Operating Officer Mary Burnside and Chief Financial Officer Jim Tolonen.
Kanwal Rekhi, Novell's chief technology officer and a board member also
based in Silicon Valley, started a two-month sabbatical two weeks ago
and is not expected to return.

On top of these changes, Novell continues to explore other software
acquisitions, sources said. "Novell is trying to buy its way into being
bigger than Microsoft," said one source close to Novell. "WordPerfect
isn't the end; it's the beginning."

Bradford denied that Novell has any negotiations in progress, other than
two or three equity deals, whereby Novell would own 5 percent to 10
percent of a company. He also said Novell is looking to ramp up its
AppWare application-development efforts.

Sources expect Novell to create a new tools division and to fill it with
technology acquired from leading tool makers. Borland International Inc.
is a natural choice, given the companies' ongoing talks, as are Symantec
Corp. and Gupta Corp. Symantec, Gupta, and Borland officials claimed
there are no deep discussions with Novell under way.

On the flip side, Novell continues to be the target of merger/buyout
rumors. Lotus Development Corp. is rumored to still be interested in
making a deal with Novell, despite being spurned in the past and losing
out on the WordPerfect deal. Bradford said there are no talks of equity
stakes or merger deals between Novell and the Cambridge, Mass., company.

A Lotus-Novell-AT&T Corp. deal seems unlikely at this point, sources
said, since the companies are not even working together on their related
projects.

AT&T, which owns a minority stake in Novell, is again rumored to have
approached Novell with an attractive offer. Nothing of the sort has
taken place, and any talks in the past were "exploratory and
preliminary," Bradford said.

"I've taken a pledge I will not go out and do any deals for at least
nine months," he said.
================================================================

Attention: You are now reading news which is expressly prepared for
ZiffNet members. If you redistribute this file, or any part therein, on
any online service, BBS, LAN, WAN or other electronic or print
distribution mechanism, you are in violation of U.S. copyright laws--and
are subject to subsequent penalties.

================================================================

Intel plans online/cable links

From PC Week for May 23, 1994 by Kimberly Patch

Intel Corp. is taking on the role of information highway facilitator,
putting together an ambitious strategy to link PCs to online services
via cable lines.

Intel's cast of partners, announced last week, includes cable companies
such as Tele-Communications Inc. and Rogers Cablesystems Ltd., online
service providers such as America Online and Prodigy, and online
software and information providers, including Compton's NewMedia, Delphi
Internet Services, and the Microsoft-TCI Programming Channel. The deals
are non-exclusive; other cable and online providers can offer competing
services, officials said.

Using cable adapters to be built by Intel and General Instruments Corp.,
users will be able to plug PCs directly into cable lines to dial in, for
example, to CompuServe, download content from a cable company, and fax a
document simultaneously, said Avram Miller, vice president of corporate
business development for Intel, in Santa Clara, Calif.

The cable adapters will support a 10M-bps channel for incoming data,
images, or video; however, they will provide a slower, 64K-bps outgoing
channel. Both speeds are considerably faster than current 14.4K-bps or
28.8K-bps phone-line modems. Eventually, the cable connection will
support transmission speeds of 45M bps incoming and 1.5M bps outgoing,
Miller said.

Intel will also provide routers and servers as well as modulators for
cable companies' networks. To round out the plan, system integrators
will operate server farms that will store the content.

Field tests in five to 10 locations will begin during the next six
months. The commercial service will be ready near the end of 1995,
Miller said.

The effort should increase demand for the faster CPUs needed to support
broadband applications such as real-time video, said Miller. "We're
trying to make sure all the pieces are there so [broadband computing]
will take off -- we're making the computer the bottleneck," he said.

Users and analysts applauded the plan, but were skeptical about the
delivery schedule. "This is [what] the online companies and users are
asking for," said Lisa Thorell, director of client/server systems for
Dataquest Inc., in San Jose, Calif.

Users need faster online access and the ability to switch back and forth
between online services, said Harry Morgan, general manager of Imperial
Printing Co., in Irvine, Calif. Though it sounds "intriguing, I hear a
lot of things that sound intriguing," Morgan said. "The question is
whether it will come to fruition."

================================================================

Comdex -- Intel debuts audio software

From PC Week for May 23, 1994 by Erica Schroeder

A host of multimedia products for videoconferencing, high-performance
graphics, and audio will be shown this week at Comdex, including new
software technology from Intel Corp. that will allow users to play back
wave-table audio without specialized hardware.

Intel's technology, code-named Satie, allows users to get high-quality,
wave-table synthesis audio playback at a much lower cost than current
techniques, which start at about $200.

The first licensee of Intel's technology is audio-card maker Integrated
Circuit Systems Inc., said sources close to ICS. The company will
release its WaveFront VS implementation in a PCMCIA audio card, called
Audio Advantage, from its Turtle Beach Systems subsidiary. Audio
Advantage will be priced at $150.

ICS, of Valley Forge, Penn., also will offer WaveFront VS as a chip to
PC makers to allow them to build in Musical Instrument Device Interface
audio support on 486 and Pentium PCs.

Also at Comdex:

-- InSoft Inc. will show Communique for Windows, which offers video,
application-sharing, and shared-whiteboard capabilities. The $1,995
package includes software, a microphone, a video camera, and a video-
capture board, according to officials of the Mechanicsburg, Pa.,
company. Communique will ship directly from InSoft in August and will be
compatible with the company's Unix versions.

-- Okisori Co. Ltd. will unveil a $150 video-decompression board that
allows users to play back 30-frame-per-second, full-screen compressed
video. The CD Vision board is available now directly from Okisori, said
officials of the Korean company.

-- Matrox Graphics Inc., of Dorval, Quebec, will introduce the $599 MGA
Impression Plus 64-bit graphics accelerator, with support for VideoLogic
Inc.'s PowerPlay64 video accelerator using the VESA Media Channel.

-- ATI Technologies Inc. will debut its 64-bit graphics card, the
Graphics Xpression, based on the company's mach64CX processor. The $299
card, to ship in Peripheral Component Interconnect and VL-Bus
configurations next week and ISA next month, offers true-color
resolutions at up to 800 by 600 pixels, said officials at ATI, of
Thornhill, Ontario.

-- Media Magic Inc. plans to introduce its $399 RoadRunner Simultaneous
Communications Manager. The board combines 19.2K-bps fax operations,
digital answering machine capabilities, and 16-bit audio-board
functions. The RoadRunner board will ship in midsummer through dealers,
said officials of the Austin, Texas, company.

================================================================

OS/2 NetWare client remains problematic

From PC Week for May 23, 1994 by Larry J. Seltzer

Novell Inc. was wise to update and improve the NetWare Requester for
OS/2. Few programs have wasted more of our time at PC Week Labs --
recent versions of the OS/2 client program had a nasty habit of crashing
OS/2.

With the new Version 2.1, however, some problems remain and we hesitate
to declare the program stable without performing a great deal more
testing, especially as we still have evidence of some stability
problems.

In PC Week Labs tests of Version 2.1 of the NetWare Requester for OS/2,
its operation on various ISA, EISA, and Micro Channel systems appeared
stable. We experienced only one instance of a stability problem that had
also plagued earlier versions: A folder crashed and was terminated by
OS/2, which reported that the folder had stopped sending messages.

Oddly enough, the one system on which we observed this stability problem
was the only one on which we had applied the most recent IBM OS/2
corrective service, or upgrade.

Novell's new NetWare client is supported on all versions of OS/2 2.x,
from 2.0 with its second corrective service pack onward. However, it is
only tested and certified on OS/2 2.1 raised to corrective service level
XR6200, and XR6300 for OS/2 for Windows.

These two corrective services raise OS/2 and OS/2 for Windows to Version
2.11. As the OS/2 for Windows CSD (Corrective Services Diskette) did not
ship in time for testing, only one of our test systems was at 2.11, and
it was the one that died on us twice.

This particular system was a Compaq Computer Corp. ProLinea 4/33 with an
Eagle Technology Inc. NE2000 adapter. (At this writing, an IBM official
has stated that the next OS/2 CSD will be available "very soon.")

More than one system exhibited a problem new to the NetWare Requester
for OS/2. The anomaly, which appeared inconsistently among the affected
systems, was an inability to shut down OS/2 after the preferred server
had crashed during the OS/2 session. All applications and windows would
close, but the NetWare Requester's OS/2 shutdown command simply returned
us to the desktop, and Ctrl-Alt-Delete appeared to do nothing.

Installing the new client is not excessively difficult, but it does
harbor a few rough edges.

For instance, we were clearly warned at the end of the client-software
installation procedure that we had to set whatever DOS_LASTDRIVE value
in DOS and Windows sessions that we wanted connected to the network to
one letter less (say, K) than the log-in drive we wanted for the network
(say, L). This is a tedious task on OS/2, and we would have appreciated
an offer to help us with the process.

We also found it unnecessary and rather stupid that the installation
program insists that those who opt to download the client software and
make their own installation disks must assign the appropriate volume
label for each disk.

Finally, we were peeved to see that the list of supported adapters --
puny in prior versions -- has not grown. For instance, 3Com Corp.'s
EtherLink III (3C509) NIC is common in the Labs as well as the real
world, but it is not among the bundled drivers. (A 3C509 driver, which
we have had some problems using with previous versions of the NetWare
Requester, is available on 3Com's CompuServe forum.) Drivers can be added
to the standard list on the install disks by merely editing a text file
and copying the needed driver.

Other Changes

Some minor changes have been made in how DOS and Windows sessions
connect to the network. In some circumstances, DOS sessions must now
load NETX.EXE and TBMI2.COM.

A NetWare Targeted Services Agent program accompanies the new client. PC
Week Labs was able to perform a server-based backup of the workstation
using this agent. The new client also supports Remote Initial Program
Load clients, but we did not test this feature.

In a welcome change, Novell has moved the NetWare Requester for OS/2
documentation from a proprietary help program to OS/2's excellent INF
hypertext format.

Users have numerous ways to obtain Version 2.1 of the NetWare Requester
for OS/2. It may be downloaded from Novell's NetWire forum on CompuServe
by entering GO NOVFILES and selecting the "Client kits" and "OS/2"
choices. The Requester also may be obtained over the Internet by
anonymous ftp from ftp.novell.com in the
/pub/netwire/novfiles/client.kit/os2 directory.

Finally, IBM or Novell resellers will provide it for $99, or potential
users can call Novell at [phone]. The part numbers are
00662644018034 for the 3.5-inch disks and 00662644018935 for the CD ROM
version.

================================================================

Comdex -- Microsoft to demo Excel, Word for NT

From PC Week for May 23, 1994 by Michael Vizard

Windows NT will celebrate a subdued first anniversary at Comdex this
week, as Microsoft Corp. demonstrates 32-bit beta versions of Word and
Excel alongside 16 applications from third-party vendors.

The new versions of Word and Excel -- Microsoft's first native desktop
applications for NT -- will be positioned as complementary tools for
applications running on NT servers. They will support NT's long file
names, user-level security, and multithreaded print jobs.

Originally promised for the first half of the year, the applications
won't ship until 30 days after the next release of Windows NT, code-
named Daytona, which has been delayed until at least the third quarter.

Holding up NT application deployment is the lack of support for 32-bit
Object Linking and Embedding 2.0, which is expected to arrive as part of
Daytona. But even after Daytona ships, Microsoft still has to convince
IS shops to adopt NT as a platform for client/server applications.

"The ramp-up on NT has definitely been slow," said Noah Ross, chief
technology officer for Cap Gemini USA, in New York. "Our clients still
have a wait-and-see attitude."

"Right now, we use NT to develop applications that will run on Windows
3.1," said Brad Hoyt, an analyst with Price Waterhouse in Chicago. "But
none of our clients are using it."

Only 540 of the more than 2,000 applications ISVs are developing for NT
-- which Microsoft officially launched with much fanfare at Comdex last
May -- have shipped to date. And most of those applications were
developed using Win32s, which allows developers to tap a subset of Win32
to run applications on both NT and 16-bit Windows 3.1 platforms.

"Microsoft likes to hide behind that particular smokescreen; most of the
NT applications are being written in either Win32s or Win32c for
Chicago," said John Donovan, an analyst with WorkGroup Technologies
Inc., in Hampton, N.H. "For serious computing you need applications that
use the full Win32 API."

Microsoft claims to have "commitments" for 1 million NT units from
pending multiyear projects. In addition, major NT applications from
Lotus Development Corp., Intergraph Corp., and Micrografx Inc. are
expected to ship this year.

Nevertheless, the limited number of NT applications, which developers
have been working on for close to three years, is hampering its bid to
unseat NetWare, Unix, and OS/2 as the primary servers for client/server
applications. More than 2,000 OS/2 applications are available today,
while well over 15,000 Unix applications exist, said Paul Cubbage, an
analyst with Dataquest Inc., in San Jose, Calif.

Microsoft expects users working with large data sets and high-end
client/server applications that need pre-emptive multitasking clients to
favor the industrial-strength versions of Excel and Word on NT, said
Robbie Bach, general manager for Microsoft Office, in Redmond, Wash. But
some users say they still aren't ready for that "strength."

"We're using Windows and NetWare right now and are leaning toward OS/2
for the long term," said Bob Ness, an analyst at Thermo Electron Corp.,
in Waltham, Mass.

================================================================

Paging -- baby steps into wireless

From PC Week for May 23, 1994 by Steve Hamm

Paging isn't just for drug pushers and traveling salesmen anymore. At
least, that's the fond hope of a handful of venturesome computer and
communications companies. They're not content to wait around for two-way
data communications to catch fire. Instead, they're betting that
alphanumeric paging and mobile computers are a match made -- if not in
heaven -- at least in the celestial reaches of the 900MHz band.

Apple led the charge late last year. It introduced a paging card and
messaging service for Newton. Now, Hewlett-Packard (with its HP StarLink
messaging service) and BellSouth (with the Simon personal communicator)
pray the half-step of one-way messaging will strike a chord with
corporate and small business customers.

A potentially huge market beckons. BIS Strategic Decisions forecasts
that in five years there will be an installed base of about 5.5 million
advanced paging units. Many will be connected to computers. Talk on the
street backs BIS up. "When we go to our customers to sell them pagers,
they tell us they want alphanumeric paging to their laptops," says Jean
Coppenbarger, manager of marketing communications for MobileCom, a major
paging carrier.

The sales pitch seems compelling enough. With paging, mobile workers can
receive short E-mail messages, application updates, and news or stock
information through PCMCIA cards attached to their notebook computers,
organizers, or PDAs. And all of this comes in a small, easy-to-use, and
affordable package.

But paging isn't perfect. Customers still have to track down a phone to
respond to messages. And handling a PCMCIA card is a bit more daunting
than answering a beeper.

Data paging's early history isn't encouraging, either. Motorola missed
the sweet spot when it introduced its EMBARC messaging service and
NewsStream paging receiver two years ago. Tandy, for instance, gets so
little demand for NewsStream that it stocks the receiver in a warehouse
rather than in Radio Shack stores. "This was an initial product to get
people's feet wet," acknowledges Sandra Humphrey, a Motorola marketing
manager.

What's changed? For starters, PCMCIA cards have finally arrived.
Motorola's NewsCard made its debut on the Newton late last year, and
Wireless Access and Socket Communications are beginning to deliver
paging cards right now. The cards are compact (Wireless Access' doesn't
even extend out of the PCMCIA slot). They're power misers, and they
retail for a relatively inexpensive $250.

Creative marketing also provides a lift. Vendors are intent on making
the complete data-paging solution very easy to afford. Apple, for
instance, leases the Newton, a card, software, and local paging service
for $49.95 a month.

Apple is practically giving the package away, but with good reason. It
expects that paging -- aggressively marketed -- will help build demand
for the slow-selling Newton. "We're looking for users who want a
communications solution first and a PDA second," says Allan White,
director of telecommunications marketing for Apple's PIE group. White
says the bundle has sold well since Apple initiated an advertising
campaign two months ago.

With Apple as their mentor, other computer makers are putting together
bundles of products and services that make it easy for customers to sign
up and use paging. HP, for example, just launched HP StarLink, a
business that offers data-paging services to buyers of 100LX PDAs.

HP plays the unaccustomed role of integrator. The company brands the
product and sells it through computer dealers. National Dispatch Center
in San Diego serves as HP's back shop. It distributes paging cards,
arranges matchups between customers and paging companies, dispatches
messages, and delivers stock prices, sports, and business news to
subscribers. "We're making it a simple, purchasable product," says Clain
Anderson, product manager for HP StarLink. "You don't have to buy each
part in a different place."

Observers expect other computer companies to embrace the service
business model. In addition to helping them sell computers, they get a
piece of the recurring service revenue. Playing the integrator role also
puts them in the driver's seat for managing a web of complicated
relationships with device makers and service and information providers.

In other cases, computer manufacturers will be content to let partners
make the sale. IBM, for instance, manufactures the Simon communicator.
But it relies on BellSouth Cellular Corp. to distribute Simon and
related services (including paging) through a direct sales force of
1,000 people and mass-merchandise partners such as Sears and Circuit
City.

It's not clear yet which channels will work best for data paging. Apple
wants to hawk its bundles wherever pagers are sold. But Positive
Communications, a service wholesaler, is betting that the only
successful channels initially will be computer retailers, office supply
stores, and catalogs. "We won't be selling PCMCIA cards through Macy's
anytime soon," says CEO Bruce Maxwell.

All this confusion could hurt. The industry's scattershot approach to
marketing and distribution might scare off customers -- causing them to
delay purchases. There are other hurdles, too. Major software vendors
are only beginning to page-enable productivity applications. Value-added
resellers need to develop vertical paging applications. And, if
customers start signing up for paging in large numbers, they might be
disappointed by message traffic jams on paging networks that were built
to handle only short bursts of information.

Still, the barriers to success in paging are lower than those faced by
advocates of two-way wireless. In that arena, engineers haven't yet
figured out how to squeeze two-way radios into Type 2 PCMCIA cards. The
lower-tech paging solution is a good way to get people used to wireless,
says Robert Brown, AST's mobile computing product manager. "Then, later,
you can migrate them up to two-way data." We'll know soon if paging's
backers can look forward to a migration -- or a migraine.

================================================================

Comdex -- IBM to showcase OS/2 updates

From PC Week for May 23, 1994 by Mark Moore and Mary Jo Foley

IBM this week will unveil the first beta version of its successor to
OS/2 for Windows, demonstrate OS/2 for PowerPC, and showcase some of its
interactive voice applications at Comdex in Atlanta.

The OS/2 for Windows successor, code-named Warp and commonly referred to
as Personal OS/2, is geared toward the first-time Windows or OS/2 user
and is faster, more compact, and easier to install than its predecessor,
according to company officials. Warp is scheduled for shipment in late
summer or early fall, according to sources close to IBM.

Warp will include a fast-load option for Windows programs, Presentation
Manager as a full 32-bit subsystem, and DOS settings that let users
allocate DOS system resources. It will also have an updated version of
IBM's Workplace Shell interface, including three-dimensional icons and a
color palette.

But the first beta version will not have icon automation, which lets
icons execute specific program functions rather than just open an
application. Icon automation will be added to the second beta version,
sources said, but the release date for this beta is uncertain. Warp will
run with a previously installed copy of Windows and be able to run
Windows programs with native OS/2 applications.

IBM will also announce products based on what officials have called
their "human-centric" application strategy for the consumer and mobile
markets. These experimental applications are activated by interactively
voicing commands to a talking head displayed on the screen.

================================================================

Price wars can get downright `ex-Spence-ive'

Rumor Central from PC Week for May 23, 1994 by Spencer F. Katt

Price wars. Spencer loves 'em. That $600 database program suddenly
becomes a $99.95 giveaway, complete. The vendors blame their bonehead
competitors and then lay off a bunch of their code pounders, claiming
they are slimming down for the competitive '90s. The newly displaced,
and now outraged, coders call the Katt and spew the company's innermost
secrets. It makes the rumor business worthwhile.

Spence was having these deep thoughts while reviewing the purloined
business plan for Serif, the maker of desktop-publishing package Page
Plus. Version 3.0 is about to be introduced at the very special price of
$0 -- the big-goose-egg method of marketing, drawn from Computer
Associates' Simply Money.

"I wonder how Quark and PageMaker will distance themselves from this
below-bargain-basement pricing," pondered the Puss.

Spencer was also wondering how far the newly (re)warmed relationship
between Microsoft and IBM would go. IBM is porting more than just NT to
the PowerPC. It also is helping Microsoft move SQL Server, Systems
Management Server (Hermes), and even Word and Excel to the PowerPC
platform. Even more interesting are negotiations going on between IBM
and the NT team at Microsoft. IBM wants to move its human-centric APIs
(once called Charlie, now called Fred ... is Lou G. next?) to run on top
of NT on the PowerPC. If Microsoft accepts, IBM's human-centric GUI
would be available as a Win32 extension. Meanwhile, IBM is working with
more than 120 ISVs to port their apps to run on NT on the PowerPC.
Microsoft hasn't had much luck getting ISVs to port to NT; looks like
IBM will do better.

And NT on HP's PA-RISC? After HP flogged the engineers who finally
managed to work their way through the frame pointers, stack growth, and
other obscure items of system architecture, the port was actually
finished a month ago. The reward for the engineering effort was an HP
marketing maven stating in classic marketspeak, "We haven't decided to
productize it yet; put it on the shelf for now." Fears about
cannibalizing Unix sales and the slow uptake on NT have shelved the
port.

Compaq's server group, which has been looking at servers that would
accommodate processors including PowerPC, Alpha, and SPARC, is ready to
introduce a rack-mounted ProLiant 8000 that can accommodate eight to 32
Pentium processors. A PowerPC version could be next. Alpha is dimming as
a Compaq option.

Despite hearing some grumbles, Spencer liked the methodology behind
IBM's ThinkPad Proven ploy. The "Proven" doesn't seem to mean lab-proven
in some kind of extensive compatibility test. More like Proven in the
sense that you've shown your loyalty to IBM by not peddling a competing
product.

Apple's licensing plans are moving forward, at least into the Japanese
market. Sony is planning to sell Mac TVs in the fourth quarter -- that's
an all-in-one 680X0 Mac with a built-in TV tuner. Canon is trying to get
a license to System 7, and Pioneer wants to sell its own line of Macs,
private labeled and offered in an array of fashionable colors, at its
retail outlets in Japan.

Spence was alerted by beeper mail carrying a message that IBM's HR
department was scurrying to find out the details on Sculley's Spectrum
compensation. Could the John and Lou Show be casting? Spence didn't
know, but John needs a job and Lou needs a friend in the PC biz.

================================================================

Apple, Symantec share PowerPC compiler technology

From PC Week for May 23, 1994 by Norvin Leach

Apple Computer Inc. and Symantec Corp. last week announced a technology
exchange that will lead to both companies selling the same Power
Macintosh C++ compiler, packaged in different development environments.

Apple will license Symantec's front end -- the parser technology that
handles the code semantics -- and Symantec will license Apple's code
generator, linker, and debugger.

Both firms will benefit from the swap, said David Neal, director of
Macintosh tools for Symantec, of Cupertino, Calif. Apple will be able to
replace its current compiler front end, which is based on AT&T Corp.'s
outdated CFront, and Symantec will gain access to Apple's technology for
generating optimized code.

Meanwhile, MetroWerks Inc., of Montreal, last week beat Apple to the
punch with the release of CodeWarrior, a native PowerPC C/C++ compiler.

The $199 Bronze edition of CodeWarrior will include a compiler that runs
on the original Mac and on the PowerPC and produces code for the 680X0
Mac. The $299 Silver edition will include a compiler that runs on both
platforms and produces code for the PowerPC. The $399 Gold edition will
run on both platforms and will produce code for both platforms.

================================================================

Breaking News

From PC Week for May 23, 1994

Emulation Woes Force Apple To Rethink 603 by MacWeek staff

After several months of disappointing emulation tests, Apple Computer
Inc. has canceled plans to include the current version of the PowerPC
603 chip in any Macintosh.

Instead, Apple is pushing PowerPC partners IBM and Motorola Corp. to
develop a faster version of the chip that insiders are calling the 603+.

Apple has tested two versions of the 680X0 emulator on the 603 chip,
sources said. The first, based on the software that ships with current
Power Macs, delivered only 60 percent of the speed of the emulator
running on a 601 chip. The second, an experimental emulator that sources
said delivers up to twice the performance of current emulation software
running on a 601, managed to boost performance only 5 percent on the
603.

The prime cause of emulation performance problems is cache. The 603 has
half as much on-board Level 1 cache memory as the 601. Further, unlike
the unified cache used on the 601, the 603 splits the cache between
instructions and data, leaving little space for the cache-intensive
process of executing emulated code.

Sources agree that the shift will delay the introduction of the first
entry-level and portable Power Macs, some of which were scheduled to
ship as early as next January.

Officials at Apple, of Cupertino, Calif., declined to comment.

Lotus, Microsoft Plan Shadowing Support for NDS

Lotus and Microsoft plan to provide shadowing support for Novell's
NetWare Directory Service in their forthcoming messaging servers.

Shadowing refers to directory synchronization, letting E-mail
administrators maintain a single user database. This is different from
native support, which requires directories to be subordinated or
replaced by NDS.

IBM To Release Wireless Ethernet Cards

IBM will release its wireless LAN products next month, after
demonstrating the products for more than a year, company officials said.
Micro Channel, ISA, and PCMCIA adapter cards will be available, as will
software add-ons for OS/2 and Novell servers.

Partners Ready Online Platform

IBM, Apple, and Scientific Atlanta are readying a blueprint for an open,
online architecture aimed at interactive multimedia services.

The "glue" for the architecture -- which is designed to span devices
such as settop boxes, game machines, and personal computers -- will be
Kaleida's ScriptX. Apple's OpenDoc and IBM's SOM and DSOM software are
also slated to be part of the architecture.

At the same time, Kaleida is considering more layoffs, sources said. In
addition, Scientific Atlanta is considering taking a stronger role in
Kaleida and may completely absorb the development effort and staff.

Dell Recalls Color Display

About 63,000 of Dell's Model DL-1460NI 14-inch Super VGA color monitors
are being recalled due to internal components that may overheat and
cause a fire hazard. Users should look for the model number on the back
of the monitor and call Dell at [phone] to arrange for pickup and
repairs.

================================================================

Comdex -- Lotus previews SmartSuite

From PC Week for May 23, 1994 by Ted Smalley Bowen

Lotus Development Corp. will give select customers at Comdex this week
an advanced look at SmartSuite 3.0, an upgrade primarily geared toward
improving the suite's Notes integration.

The upgrade, which will provide a common installation program for the
suite's applications, includes 1-2-3 Release 4.1, code-named Raptor,
Version 3.0 of the Approach database, and closer ties to Lotus'
communications products, said sources familiar with the upgrade. It also
will include Ami Pro 3.1 and Organizer 1.1. Of the component
applications, only Approach will support Object Linking and Embedding
2.0.

The upgrade's Startup Desktop, a set of canned Notes applications built
around the suite's individual applications, will enable users to execute
common business tasks, sources said.

A SmartSuite/Notes bundle, due this summer, will include Notes FX-
enabled third-party applications, according to sources.

Lotus also is expected to add its ScreenCam multimedia screen recorder
to the suite, sources said. ScreenCam is currently available separately
and as part of the multimedia version of 1-2-3 Release 4.

Other than sites looking to better integrate their Lotus applications
with Notes, SmartSuite 3.0 might have little to offer Lotus' installed
base, one user said. "We'll bypass this upgrade, especially as a non-
Notes shop," said Scott Brady, systems manager for Holland America
Westours Inc. in Seattle. "For us, it's becoming a question of when to
upgrade and how to handle our licensing on the network."

Krystyna Filistowicz, an analyst at Dataquest Inc., in San Jose, Calif.,
said, "It's in Lotus' interest to keep SmartSuite in the news, since
marketing and positioning are often more important than the technology,
but there's no huge compelling reason for users to upgrade to 3.0."

================================================================

NetWare 4.x causes support crisis

From PC Week for May 23, 1994 by Eric Smalley

As Novell Inc. charges into the corporate market armed with NetWare 4.x,
users are finding that the complexity and immaturity of that network
operating system are exposing cracks in Novell's support organization.

Novell's traditional approach of relying on third-party organizations to
carry the bulk of the company's support load is drawing users' ire as
they find many of Novell's support partners ill-prepared to handle
NetWare 4.x. And users are meeting obstacles when they turn directly to
Novell.

"It's continually a nightmare to contact Novell," said Rick Kingslan,
CNE (Certified NetWare Engineer) and senior network administrator for
Physicians Mutual Insurance Co., of Omaha, Neb. "Being a CNE doesn't
seem to carry any weight with them anymore. In this last instance it
took two weeks to get a call back."

Novell openly discourages users from using its direct-support hot line.
"We've dealt directly with Novell on some of the more serious problems
we've had," said Bill Shaw, manager of planning for Hillsboro County,
Fla. "They're kind of unfriendly. They seem to want you to go through
the resellers."

Novell's technical-support telephone hot line receives 75 percent of its
calls from strategic and channel partners, 15 percent from other
partners, including OEMs, and only 10 percent from users, estimates
Dataquest Inc., of San Jose, Calif.

Also, Novell recently reduced its NetWire staff, a move that
disappointed some users who used the online service to access Novell
personnel. Novell executives and volunteer system operators on NetWire
assert that NetWire is supposed to be for user-to-user support.

Such changes should be expected as the industry as a whole faces the new
challenge of supporting enterprise LAN internetworks, said Chad Allred,
director of services marketing for Novell, in Provo, Utah. "In a growing
industry like this, there are a lot of new services and technologies,"
Allred said.

The networking giant is moving to correct the problem by working with
respected organizations like Hewlett-Packard Co.'s North American
Response Center, which received the NASC (Novell Authorized Service
Center) designation last week.

The NASC program was begun less than a year ago to ensure that Novell's
service partners were trained to support NetWare 4.x. Novell has signed
up approximately 1,040 NASCs, according to Dataquest. NASCs are required
to have at least two Enterprise-Certified NetWare Engineers and two CNEs
on staff and provide two-hour response time during business hours.

However, some users would like to speak directly with Novell. Novell
"needs to bolster direct support," said Kingslan. "If someone is willing
to pay the $150 to call in, Novell better provide the service it's
advertising."

Whatever the avenue of support, Novell needs to move faster, said
Jeffrey Kaplan, an analyst with Dataquest.

"The concern we have is that they may not be investing enough" in
support, Kaplan said. Although Novell is moving between 100 and 150
people from other sections of the company to the support organization,
it needs more, he said. Novell has 600 technical-support personnel,
according to Dataquest estimates.

Some frustrated users are turning, ironically, to IBM for NetWare to
avoid Novell or reseller support.

"I had a choice between red-box and blue-box [NetWare], and the pricing
was exactly the same," said Mark Ziemba, network coordinator for the
Oneida Indian Nation of New York. "The plus is I'm able to get an IBM
person on the phone much quicker than I can a Novell person."

================================================================

Unravelling the riddle of client/server support

This PC Week for May 23, 1994 by John Dodge

The improbability of smooth network and application support in the
client/server world has to scare the most fearless IS manager. Sizewise,
networks grow arithmetically. Problemwise, they grow astronomically.
Predictability? Forget it. Such is client/server life today.

One network administrator says he longs for the simple days of only
crashed server disks, mismapped drives, missing databases, and volumes
that won't mount. He can even deal with Murphy's Law stuff like power
surges, a large copier that shook so much it shorted out a nearby
network segment, a roof that leaked on cables, and upside-down NIC
switches. Relatively speaking, these quirks are easily diagnosed and
quickly resolved. Naturally, they happen on weekends in nice weather
when the fish are biting.

More onerous are problems associated with the routers, hubs, and
increased reach of the wire. Broadcast storms, which in the old days
could be localized on your small network, now have broader implications
for the LAN, WAN, and everything that connects to them. Think about it.
With its explosive popularity and decentralized administration, the
Internet could someday turn into networking's black hole.

Last week, PC Week's LAN, for no traceable reason, triggered a NetBIOS
broadcast storm that whacked servers from Munich to California and
everything in between. Sometimes problems such as this take network
segments down for hours. Thanks to a sniffer and a database identifying
each network segment, the problem was corrected quickly. But the ever-
present potential for widespread disaster sits there like a time bomb.

Where problems can be directly traced to NetWare 4.x, Novell should
modify its support apparatus to reflect the evolving client/server
environment. No longer can Novell rest its hopes on third parties for
support. But the support burden shouldn't be shouldered by Novell alone.

"When I have Thomas-Conrad adapters, Chipcom hubs, Cisco routers, and
NetWare, I don't know where the problems are coming from," moans an
administrator. Support is a cooperative proposition.

IBM Chairman Lou Gerstner says the company can't afford to load up major
accounts with on-site system engineers anymore. This pricey model worked
when there was only one game in town. Microsoft is trying to emulate and
refine the Novell third-party model. Novell, with its myriad of third-
party programs -- CNE, ECNE, CNA, NEAP, NAEC -- as well as third-party
programs provided by third parties, continues to evolve.

Sooner or later, some group will figure out what the correct mix of
support options is for client/server applications flung far over
expanding networks. Whoever does should apply for a patent.

Who's got a grip on enterprise network support? Who's letting it get
away from them? Internet ([e-mail]), CompuServe
(72241,303), or MCI Mail (239-3520).
================================================================

Attention: You are now reading news which is expressly prepared for
ZiffNet members. If you redistribute this file, or any part therein, on
any online service, BBS, LAN, WAN or other electronic or print
distribution mechanism, you are in violation of U.S. copyright laws--and
are subject to subsequent penalties.

================================================================