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Newsbytes - Internationa…ews 1983 May to 1994 June
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Newsbytes - International Computing Industry News 1994 Edition - May 1983 - June 1994 - Wayzata Technologies (5045) (1994).iso
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1984
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1991-10-04
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[***][5/8/84][***]
PCjr GROWING PAINS:
IBM sold only 20,000 PCjr computers in the first three months of 1984--
this from Egil Juliussen of Future Computing. Just last November,
Juliussen and other analysts had predicted the company would sell
500,000 PCjrs in all of 1984. Juliussen, speaking at a software
conference in San Francisco, claims IBM's "misguided" marketing campaign, targe
the reason for the PCjr's disappointing sales. Meanwhile, IBM's CEO,
John Opel, says the company is planning "new features" for the PCjr.
He wouldn't elaborate but analyst Howard Anderson of Yankee Group
says the company is considering a new, more comfortable keyboard and more
memory for the PCjr.
----
CONTACT: EGIL JULIUSSEN
FUTURE COMPUTING
RICHARDSON, TEXAS
214-783-9375
----
[***][5/8/84][***]
APPLE III FORGOTTEN:
Now that everybody's seen the Apple //c, it appears the Apple /// is
all but forgotten. Apple has dissolved its Apple /// engineering group
and not a word was said about the four-year-old machine at the gala
//c unveiling. (Updated figures, by the way, show that Apple spent not
$750,000 but $2 million on the one-day affair.) Apple spokeswoman Barbara
Krause acknowledged that the Dallas Apple /// assembly line is being
converted to a production line for //c computers but denies the company
will stop production of Apple ///s. The 256K computer now retails at
$2,300 (it cost $5,000 when first introduced.) Analysts say only about
120,000 of them have been sold in four years.
----
CONTACT: BARBARA KRAUSE
APPLE COMPUTER
CUPERTINO, CA.
408-973-2042
----
[***][5/8/84][***]
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
ALAN KAY, former chief scientist for Atari is now at Apple Computer.
Kay says he'll work on long-term planning for Apple, and "won't be satisfied
until computers are as simple to use as the pencil." Prior to work at
Atari, Kay was known for helping develop the first second-generation
personal computers at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center. He's credited
as having foreseen software "windows" and the "mouse". He hopes to
spread his research wings at Apple. JACK TRAMIEL, former President of
Commodore International, surfaced last week at Adac Laboratories of
Sunnyvale, Ca. The man credited with bringing Commodore $1 billion in yearly
sales has become the chief stockholder of Adac, a medical technology
manufacturer.
----
[***][5/8/84][***]
HARD TIMES FOR SOFTWARE:
MicroPro laid off 10 percent of its workforce, Sorcim laid off 15
percent of its workforce, Perfect Software laid off half its employees,
and all this marks a scaling-down in the software industry. Growth
has not been what was expected; advertising and marketing budgets are
eating up to 50-percent of many companies' revenues, and many are saying
a shakeout is well overdue. Over 3,000 software companies
compete for dwindling retail shelf space. Bill Bowman of Spinnaker Software, a
company which is among those doing well, expects the 3,000 to be whittled
down to only 24 companies within 10 years.
----
[***][5/8/84][***]
LASER VIDEO DOESN'T CUT IT:
Less than a year ago, the first laserdisk videogame, "Dragon's Lair" was
introduced. Already the laserdisk is being labelled "a fad who's time has
past" by many video arcade owners. "BusinessWeek" is reporting that laser
machines are only generating half the quarters of conventional video games.
Meanwhile, the arcade units are filling up warehouses; thousands
remain unsold. Apparently the laserdisk's unique graphics were not enough
to keep game players excited, plus the sophisticated machinery has a history
of break-downs.
----
[***][5/8/84][***]
OSBORNE TO TELL ALL:
Adam Osborne, founder of Osborne Computer and now president of Paperback
Software, has written a book which he contends will tell "the
whole story in complete truth and accuracy" of Osborne Computer's bankruptcy.
Having signed a non-disclosure agreement, I can't tell you the details
until the book's release (expected early this summer) but as Adam
told the SJ Mercury News this week, his tale will "spare no one".
Also, the details about former Osborne President Robert
Jaunich are so controversial that the book still doesn't have a
publisher.
----
CONTACT: ADAM OSBORNE
PAPERBACK SOFTWARE
BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA
415-644-2116
----
[***][5/8/84][***]
COMPUTER MAGAZINE SHAKEOUT:
Adscope reports that the number of ads in four of the biggest computer
magazines fell 8% this year compared to a growth rate of 39% last year.
What does this mean? It means that too many computer magazines are
competing for revenue. At least five publications have disappeared in
the last four months--they include Desktop Computing and MicroDiscovery.
There are now approximately 150 computer magazines published. Granted,
a few, such as Personal Computing, have increased their ad rates, but
most haven't and are competing for the revenue available.
----
CONTACT: SHEILA CLARKE, V.P.
ADSCOPE
GOLDENDALE, WASHINGTON
206-773-5701
----
[***][5/8/84][***]
MAY 10 OR THEREABOUTS:
Look for a new Hewlett Packard portable computer to be introduced.
It's called the "110" and is a battery-driven 256K computer with a
built-in LCD display and no disk drive. Rumored to cost about $2,995,
the "110" will run MS-DOS software.
----
CONTACT: ROY VERLEY
HEWLETT PACKARD
PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA
415-857-1501
----
[***][5/8/84][***]
WORKSLATE NOT WORKING:
It was featured on the cover of the American Express catalog
and was introduced with much fanfare last Christmas, but Convergent
Technologies' Workslate Computer has sold only a fraction of the volume
projected. Shareholders were told initial estimates of 110,000 sold
in '84 were "unrealistically high" by president Allen Michels.
The unexpected and disappointing sales of the $1,195 Workslate, the
company's only consumer product, will not force any immediate action
at Convergent. Officials plan to wait another six months before making
a decision on whether to discontinue the product.
----
CONTACT: ALLEN MICHELS
CONVERGENT TECHNOLOGIES INC.
SANTA CLARA, CALIFORNIA
408-727-8830
----
[***][5/8/84][***]
IN BRIEF--
KAYPRO has dropped PERFECT SOFTWARE, instead going with MICROPRO to
bundle software with its computers. WordStar, MailMerge, CalcStar,
DataStar and SuperSort will be among the software bundled with the Kaypro
2, which sells for $1,295.
--KAYPRO has also signed an agreement with
GREYHOUND CORP. to form a nation-wide computer rental program called
KAY PRO-RENT.
--ATARI chairman James Morgan is discussing a joint
venture in home electronics, or sale of controlling interest in Atari
with N.V. PHILLIPS CORP., a multi-national based in the Netherlands.
Morgan calls the talks "ongoing since the Fall."
--APPLE IIC, a book
written by Danny Goodman, was written by the author in just 9 days
(some kind of record!) before some 200,000 copies were printed by
Simon & Schuster.
--BANK OF AMERICA has ended its five-month test of
"HomeBanking" and will expand the service beyond Northern California to
the rest of the state. B of A says 8,000 customers have enrolled in
the program; the goal is to bring 25,000 into the fold by year's end.
--The blood flows at ACTIVISION where, despite the fact that nearly
half the staff was eliminated recently, losses totalled $33.6 million
for the fiscal year ending March 31. Despite the losses, the company
plans to release new floppy-disk based games for home computers.
----
[***][5/8/84][***]
WORST COMPUTERS OF THE YEAR:
Franklynn Peterson & Judi K-Turkel recently invited their 6 million
readers to nominate the best and worst computers of 1983. The results
are in, and the pair report Worst buy #1 is the Adam home computer from
Coleco, dubbed the "Adam Bomb" because of its myriad of technical
problems. Worst buy #2 is anything from Texas Instruments because
T.I. "left its 99/4A customers with lots of expansion boxes and
nothing to put into them." Worst buy #3 is Continental Software's Home
Accountant Program which reportedly has too many "bugs". W.B.#4 is
Panasonic's Personal Computer JR-200U which has almost no software
written for it.