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Apple Developer News


April 18, 1997, No. 53


MARKETING OPPORTUNITIES


Demos Needed for a WWDC Tools CD

TAG Marketing is creating a CD-ROM disc filled with Mac OS developer tools, utilities, and application demos that will be distributed at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). This CD provides you with an affordable way to place your product in the hands of the people most likely to use them. TAG Marketing will manage the production of the CD and its delivery to the conference. All product demo files are due by April 25. Contact John Armstrong at mrktwiz@scruznet.com or 408-336-4255 as soon as possible to reserve space on the CD.

Five megabytes of demo space cost U.S.$ 495 per product. If your demo requires more than 5 MB of space, call for special pricing. TAG Marketing can also gather your demo files from your web site for an additional U.S.$ 150 if you send site addresses (URLs) to TAG Marketing by April 25. Logo sponsorships are available, and participants' logos will be displayed prominently on the CD. All fees must be received by May 2. For technical questions, contact Karl Goin at kgoin@best.com or 408-305-1351. You can send demo materials to the following address: WWDC CD, TAG Marketing, 10200 Love Creek Road, Suite #100, Ben Lomond, CA 95005.

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Learn About Apple Comarketing Programs at WWDC

One of the best ways to find out about 1997 Apple marketing plans and comarketing programs is to attend the WWDC Marketing Forum, held Monday, May 12. This all-day session will provide you with a top-level overview of Apple's hardware and software marketing strategy, as well as business reasons for developing for Apple platforms. Apple executives will present marketing plans for education, home office, engineering/scientific/design, enterprise, consumer/games, and publishing market segments. Mac OS hardware licensees will discuss their marketing plans and projections. And Apple senior management and staff will be on hand to discuss issues and answer your questions. The U.S.$ 250 forum-only registration fee includes lunch on Monday, which will feature a talk by Apple vice president Guerrino De Luca, and access to the WWDC keynote session on Tuesday, May 13.

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PRODUCTS AND TECHNOLOGIES


The Washington Post Reviews eMate 300 and PowerBook 3400c

In the April 14 (Monday) issue of the Washington Post, product reviewers Victoria Shannon and William Casey spoke highly of two new Apple products--the eMate 300, an affordable mobile computer for the education market, and the PowerBook 3400c, Apple's top-of-the-line color portable computer.

On the eMate 300, Shannon writes: "It's hard to picture and appreciate the eMate's form and function without holding it in your hands, opening and closing the lid, playing around with the keyboard and the stylus (by which you can write directly on the gray-scale LCD screen), faxing a memo or connecting to the Internet. I got one universal reaction as I carried around and worked with an eMate for a week: 'Oh, wow--cool'--usually followed by, 'What is it?' I gave them the tricorder-laptop lunch box line."

Casey sums up his thoughts on the new PowerBook: "The 3400c is not a radical departure from what came before it. Instead, it embodies the best of what 1997 technology can deliver in terms of high performance and usability. In concrete terms, it offers virtually all the power and convenience of a desktop computer packaged in a modest-sized unit. That sounds like hyperbole, but it's a computer that for me fulfills--at long last--the promise of the last two PowerBooks I bought, both of which turned out to be satisfactory but not the over-performing near-desktop machines I'd imagined."

For a technical overview of the new PowerBooks, see the article, "New PowerBook 3400 is Fastest Ever" in the April 1994 issue of Apple Directions, posted at this site:

http://devworld.apple.com/mkt/informed/appledirections/apr97/powerbook.html

For a vast directory of product and compatibility information, visit the PowerBook web site:

http://powerbook.apple.com

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OTHER DEVELOPER NEWS


Adobe Will Support the Rhapsody OS

MacWEEK writer Matthew Rothenberg recently interviewed Adobe Systems President Charles Geschke, and during this interview, Geschke affirmed Adobe's commitment to the Mac OS platform. Geschke predicted that after a transition period, all the company's professional software will be Rhapsody-native. Geschke said he assumes that in two or three years, "our apps will all be on Rhapsody, and there wouldn't be any concept of another Apple operating system at that point."

Geschke also anticipates an easy transition to Rhapsody's Display PostScript imaging model, which is based on Adobe's own technology.

To read the complete MacWEEK article, see this web site:

http://www.zdnet.com/macweek/mw_1115/nw_geschke.html

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A Macintosh Web Server Survives a Hack Attack

A Swedish company, Infinit Information AB, had so much faith in the security of its Macintosh 8500 web server that the company made a daring challenge to hackers worldwide: Infinit offered a reward of more than U.S.$ 13,000 to anyone who could break into the server and change something on the Infinit home page. Two months later (from February 10 to April 10, 1997) the server remains secure, along with the reward money.

Infinit's server configuration consists of a Macintosh 8500 computer and the Apple Internet Server Solution upgraded with WebStar 2.0. There are no firewalls or router filters on board. For those of you interested in this type of programming challenge, Infinit is planning to restart this contest in a few weeks.

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Apple Posts Quarterly Financial Results

Apple just announced financial results for the company's fiscal 1997 second quarter, which ended March 28, 1997. Revenues for the quarter were U.S.$ 1.6 billion, compared to U.S.$ 2.1 billion in the quarter which ended December 27, 1996 and U.S.$ 2.2 billion in the quarter which ended March 29, 1996.

As previously indicated, the company incurred two large charges of a non-operating nature during the quarter. Pursuant to generally accepted accounting principles, the company recorded a charge of U.S.$ 375 million for the write-off of in-process research and development activity related to its February 4, 1997 acquisition of NeXT Software. Additionally, the company recorded a charge of U.S.$ 155 million to increase reserves to cover the costs of restructuring activities previously announced by the company on March 14, 1997. Aside from the charges for restructuring and the write-off of in-process research and development, operating expenses for the quarter were U.S.$ 489 million, down U.S.$ 32 million from the December quarter and down U.S.$ 65 million from the year ago quarter.

Apple's total loss for the quarter was U.S.$ 708 million, or U.S.$ (5.64) per share, compared to a net loss of U.S.$ 120 million, or U.S.$ (.96) per share in the December 1996 quarter and a net loss of U.S.$ 740 million, or U.S.$ (5.99) per share, in the year-ago quarter. Exclusive of the charges for restructuring and the write-off of in-process research and development, the company's current quarter loss from operations was U.S.$ 186 million, or U.S.$ (1.48) per share.

"While the operating results are disappointing, we made significant progress toward executing our strategic plans during the quarter," said Apple chairman and chief executive officer Dr. Gilbert F. Amelio. "We've streamlined our organization and narrowed our focus, we're divesting non-core assets, and we're executing a plan to reduce annual operating expenses by U.S.$ 500 million. We've also made great progress toward strengthening Apple's competitive position by introducing several exciting new products to the market, and we've completed the NeXT acquisition, paving the way for delivery of our modern OS, code-named 'Rhapsody.'"

Claris Corporation, Apple's wholly-owned software subsidiary, achieved record-breaking revenues of U.S.$ 70 million during the quarter. Revenue growth was driven in large part by an unprecedented level of operating system upgrades to Mac OS 7.6, introduced in January.

To read the complete press release, see this web site:

http://product.info.apple.com/pr/press.releases/1997/q3/970416.pr.rel.q297.html

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Steve Jobs to Host Informal Chat at WWDC

Steve Jobs will host an informal chat at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference on the morning of Friday, May 16. This open-microphone forum will provide developers with an opportunity to talk live with the founder of both Apple Computer and NeXT Software. Since conference deadlines are fast approaching, act soon to make sure you can take part in this educational and inspirational event.

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NEW SOFTWARE RELEASES


Cyberdog 2.0 Is Downloadable

The latest version of Cyberdog, Apple's integrated Internet software suite that will be integrated into Mac OS 8.0, is now downloadable from this web site:

http://cyberdog.apple.com/download/dodownload.html



PowerTalk Migration Tools, Version 1.0

In response to the discontinuation of PowerTalk in Mac OS version 7.6, Apple has assembled documents and tools to help you migrate your code away from this technology. You can use the Business Card Exporter to transfer personal catalog (business card) information to a tab-delimited text file or to a format used by several popular e-mail programs. You can use the AppleMail Reader to read AppleMail documents when PowerTalk is not installed.

(Note: As of Nov. 19, 1997, this software could no longer be found on Developer World. This news item remains here for historical purposes.)



Claris Emailer, Version 2.0

The new version of this powerful e-mail management tool is now shipping. For product and ordering information, see this Claris web site:

http://www.claris.com/products/claris/emailer/site/emailer.html

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EVENTS


Apple at Seybold Seminars, April 22 to 25

Apple will be participating at the Seybold Conference, held at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York. Here's a list of some of the Apple-sponsored events that will take place at this conference:

For more details on the Apple's Seybold activities, see this web site:

http://product.info.apple.com/pr/media.alerts/1997/q3/970410.pr.alrt.seybold.html



Java Developer Camps, April through July

Mac OS developers interested in learning more about Java, the open, hardware-independent programming language supported by Apple, may want to take one of the many Java programming "camps" that are being run by Sun Microsystems this summer. Session titles include Java Security, JDK 1.1--State of the Art Java Development, and Distributed Objects and Java. Each camp costs U.S.$ 249, or U.S.$ 600 for a package of three camps. For more details, visit this web site:

http://www.sun.com/developer/newcamp.html

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WebBytes--POINTERS TO MORE NEWS AND SOFTWARE


New Mailing List for Mac Java Developers

Steve Roussey, the manager of Kantara Development's component software search service (called PartBank), has set up an Internet mailing list for Java developers who want to add OpenDoc-like features to Java (such as the ability to mix and match user-level components). To subscribe, send an e-mail message to majordomo@partbank.com, and include this text string in the body of the text:

subscribe mix-and-match-java your name here

end

For more information, contact Roussey at steven.roussey@partmerchant.com or visit the PartBank web site:

http://www.partbank.com/



MacKiDo's PowerPC Processor Overview

The MacKiDo web site has just posted an informative description of all the different PowerPC microprocessors, a timetable on when each version will ship, and information on why some PowerPC microprocessors are better than others.

http://www.mackido.com/Dojo/PPC_whichisbetter.html



A Color LaserWriter Web Site

Technical support gurus may want to note the address of Jonathan Goldman's new web site that archives tips and techniques for keeping Apple Color LaserWriter printers performing at peak efficiency:

http://www.mrg-co.com/colorlasersection/CLaserPage.html

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To provide feedback on the technologies discussed in this issue, send e- mail to the appropriate contact:


Copyright (c) 1997 Apple Computer, Inc. All rights reserved.

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