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OS/2 Shareware BBS: 16 Announce
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1992-11-27
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DATA BASE : ALET - Page: 1
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
NUMBER 292-680
DATE 921117
CATEGORY AS47, AS10, AS40
TYPE Programming
TITLE THE IBM ULTIMEDIA TOOLS SERIES
ABSTRACT With recent advancements in personal computer hardware and
operating system technologies, rapid growth in the use of multimedia
in business applications is now anticipated. Fundamental to this
growth are multimedia application development tools. As part of
IBM's overall Ultimedia (TM) marketing strategy, the Ultimedia Tools
Series (UTS) is intended to stimulate the development of multimedia
applications by greatly simplifying the selection, procurement and
use of such tools. The Ultimedia Tools Series offering enhances the
availability and interoperability of a wide range of tools and
clarifies the relationships among them.
The UTS includes a broad selection of multimedia application
development tools, from more than a dozen independent software
vendors and IBM. They offer a full range of authoring and content
creation, capture and editing facilities. The tools are available on
OS/2 (R), Windows (1) and DOS platforms; some products are especially
suited for occasional users, others for frequent users.
The UTS is unified by specialized marketing services, a common
architecture and unique marketing deliverables.
The specialized marketing services include:
o Lead generation and qualification through telemarketing and
direct mail programs
o Pre-sale support
o Marketing
o Sales
o Fulfillment.
Conformance of the UTS products to the UTS Architecture has
resulted in improvements in cooperation and communication among the
tools. These improvements are important to end users in the many
cases when a single tool is not enough to meet the application
requirements. Further improvements can be anticipated in subsequent
releases of UTS as implementations of the architecture mature.
The unique UTS marketing deliverables are the UTS CD-ROM, a
powerful demonstration and reference vehicle; demonstrations of the
UTS Showcase Applications -- actual business applications, with clear
economic justification developed using tools from the UTS.
(TM) Trademark of International Business Machines Corporation.
(R) Registered trademark of International Business Machines
Corporation.
(1) Trademark of Microsoft Corporation.
IN BRIEF . . .
o Includes a broad selection of proven multimedia application
development tools.
o UTS specialized marketing services provide a one-stop shop for
UTS products and related multimedia products.
o The Ultimedia Tools Series and specialized marketing services
combine to simplify the development of multimedia applications.
o The Ultimedia Tools Series Architecture has raised the level of
cooperation among the member tools, should enhance user
productivity, and can help maximize the return on customer
investment in UTS tools and the applications developed with them.
o This letter describes products and services to be provided in the
U.S. IBM's international marketing units currently are selecting
appropriate sets of UTS products and services to be provided
outside the U.S. Information on the UTS products and services
selected by each unit will be provided at a later date.
OVERVIEW DESCRIPTION
USER PRODUCTIVITY
The primary objective of the UTS is to simplify the development of
business applications with multimedia content. UTS and the
specialized marketing services achieve this simplification in the
following ways:
o The UTS specialized marketing services significantly simplify the
job of selecting the tools that can meet a customer's
requirements, providing:
- A single source for the broad selection of products in UTS
- Product positioning and recommendations across all UTS
products.
o Confidence that UTS tools work satisfactorily together is
provided by the fact that the tools conform to the UTS
Architecture (Release 1). Refer to the UTS ARCHITECTURE section
of this announcement.)
BUSINESS SOLUTIONS
There is real business value in applications that feature multimedia
capabilities. These values are apparent, for example, in the areas
of training, merchandising, ordering, just-in-time guidance and
business presentations. Many applications in these areas have been
developed, and will be developed, using UTS tools. Demonstrations of
existing applications in these areas have been created to highlight
the business requirement, the role of multimedia, and the benefits to
the business. For more specific information, refer to the SHOWCASE
APPLICATION DEMONSTRATIONS, section.
INVESTMENT PROTECTION
A natural consequence of the UTS Architecture is to improve the
return on investment in multimedia applications and application
development tools. All UTS members have agreed to the architecture,
and it is the framework within which coherent evolution of the UTS
products will take place.
Specifically, the return on investment in multimedia
application development, using UTS products that follow the UTS
Architecture, will be improved in several domains:
o Skills developed for utilizing one of the products in the series
can be reused with other UTS products because the user interface
of each product follows the principles of Common User Access (TM)
(CUA (TM)).
o Media objects created with one of the products in the series can
be shared with other UTS products because of the use of standard
file formats and standard system interfaces.
o UTS tools and applications created with them can be isolated from
changes in media devices and file formats through the use of the
Media Control Interface (MCI).
(TM) Trademark of International Business Machines Corporation.
OVERVIEW
TODAY'S ENVIRONMENT
Today's multimedia environment is characterized to a large extent by:
o Dramatic recent advancements in PC hardware and operating system
technologies and decreases in price
o A growing recognition of the value of multimedia in business
applications
o A growing number of multimedia application creators and
developers.
Based on those characteristics, rapid growth in the use of
multimedia in business applications is anticipated. Key to this
growth are multimedia application development tools. Unfortunately,
prior to UTS, the utilization of these tools was limited by a number
of inhibitors. In particular, it was still difficult to:
o Match application development tools with application requirements
o Get tools that work together
o Find a wide selection of tools available in one place, at a
competitive price, with prompt availability
o Find competent guidance on product selection from the wide range
of available tools.
There are three major elements in the UTS offering that help to
minimize the inhibitors identified above:
o Broad UTS product line
o UTS Architecture
o Specialized UTS multimedia marketing services.
Information about these important elements is presented in the
following three sections, entitled, respectively: UTS Products; UTS
Architecture; and UTS Specialized Marketing Services.
UTS PRODUCTS
Following is the roster of products in UTS Release 1. The roster
includes products of each type of multimedia application development
tool; that is, authoring, graphics, audio, video and utility. It
also includes a selection of tools for each personal computer
operating system: DOS, Windows and OS/2.
PRODUCTS IN RELEASE 1 OF THE IBM ULTIMEDIA TOOLS SERIES:
D W O
O I S
S N 2 Tool Name Company
Authoring
D LinkWay (TM) Live! IBM
D Media Master 2.5 Vision
Imaging
D MEDIAscript DOS Application
Design Tools Network
Technology
D Quest 4.0 Allen
Communication
D Studio XA Mammoth
Micro
Productions
W IconAuthor AimTech
O MEDIAscript OS/2
Professional Edition Network
Technology
O MEDIAscript OS/2
Desktop Edition Network
Technology
D W O
O I S
S N 2 Tool Name Company
Authoring (Presentation)
D Storyboard (TM) Live! V2.0 IBM
D Multimedia Studio Vision
Imaging
W Animation Works Interactive Gold Disk
Graphics
D Lumena Time Arts
D PC Paintbrush 5+ ZSoft
W Professional Draw Gold
Disk
W Painter Fractal
Design
W Sketcher Fractal
Design
W PhotoFinish ZSoft
W Publisher's Paint Brush ZSoft
O Publisher's Paint Brush ZSoft
O Color Tools Time Arts
Audio
W Master Trax Pro 4 Passport
Designs
W Trax Passport
Designs
Animation
D Animator Pro Autodesk
D Multimedia Explorer Autodesk
Video
W Personal Picture Processor Montage
Group
Utilities
D Mannequin HumanCad
W Mannequin Designer HumanCad
W AddImpact! Gold Disk
This roster of products will change over time; for example,
new products may be added, and release 1 products may be superseded
by new releases. This evolution will be managed in an orderly manner
and the UTS CD-ROM, the key UTS promotional deliverable, will be
updated to keep in step.
Selling prices of these products are available from
MediaSourcery.
The IBM products in UTS are being announced concurrently or
have been announced previously. Specifically:
PROGRAMMING
PROGRAM NAME ANNOUNCEMENT
Being announced concurrently:
Storyboard Live! V2.0 292-675
Previously announced:
LinkWay Live! 292-048
Additionally, it is IBM's intent to include the following IBM
multimedia tools for OS/2 in UTS when they are available:
o IBM Ultimedia Builder/2 (Authoring)
o IBM Ultimedia Work Place/2 (Utility -- Content manager)
o IBM Ultimedia Perfect Image/2 (Image enhancement)
Availability dates for these three products will be announced
following their beta test program.
(TM) Trademark of International Business Machines Corporation.
UTS ARCHITECTURE
It is frequently necessary to use several, complementary tools to
meet the requirements of a particular application. Unfortunately, up
to now, it was very likely that the products that provided the
desired function wouldn't work together at all or would work together
only after delay and frustration. Consequently, integration of UTS
products is a crucial element in the UTS crusade to simplify the
development of multimedia applications. The developer requires tools
with complementary function to work together, to cooperate.
Capabilities in several areas can contribute significantly to
the required cooperation. Those areas are:
o File sharing
o Direct manipulation of objects
o Clipboard copy/paste
o Enabling DDE for applications
o Common look and feel.
The UTS Architecture addresses the above areas by specifying a
minimum level of integration called "cooperative tools"; all tools in
UTS release 1 must provide this level of integration.
The UTS Architecture has been defined by the IBM Ultimedia
Tools Series Technical Committee; members are representatives of the
individual products, from IBM and from the independent software
vendors. The architecture is formally documented and is available on
written request to:
Chairman, UTS Technical Committee
1055 Joaquin Road
Mountain View, CA 94043
The UTS Architecture also describes a level of integration
beyond that mandated for release 1, called "open tools." The UTS
Technical Committee will determine which elements of this higher
level will be mandated for future UTS releases.
UTS SPECIALIZED MARKETING SERVICES
MediaSourcery, Inc., Mountain View, CA, has been contracted to
perform specialized marketing services for UTS. MediaSourcery is
dedicated to multimedia and will provide these services for not only
the products in the UTS but also related multimedia products from IBM
and other vendors. They can be reached now at 1-800-228-ULTI
(228-8584).
Depending on your multimedia application development
requirements, your IBM representative may choose to use the services
of this channel in building a proposal for you, or may recommend that
you go directly to MediaSourcery.
MediaSourcery is unique in the multimedia marketplace because:
o It carries all UTS products.
o It specializes in multimedia software.
MediaSourcery provides services that greatly simplify the
selection and acquisition of the required multimedia application
development tools.
o Pre-sale support, from product positioning to recommendation of
the tools and configurations needed to address particular
application requirements to information about possibilities for
training and post-sale support for individual products
o Prompt shipment, usually within 24 hours of receiving the order
o Ability to execute either cash (via credit card or check) or
charge (via purchase order and invoice) transactions
o Accessibility via 1-800-228-ULTI (228-8584)
o Competitive prices.
MediaSourcery is open for business from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.
(Pacific time), Monday through Friday, except holidays. Capabilities
are based on experienced multimedia personnel and a sophisticated,
online telemarketing system. The telemarketing system, in turn, is
founded on several key data bases:
o Product information; complete information on each UTS product
o Application references
o Relevant business partners.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ABOUT UTS PRODUCTS
You can learn more about the products in the UTS and about some of
the business-justified applications developed with them by asking
your IBM representative or MediaSourcery for the following
deliverables:
o UTS CD-ROM
- Tutorial on multimedia application development
- Product selection and positioning capability based on a very
attractive navigation engine and a storehouse of information
on all dimensions of each UTS product.
- Three views of each product:
-- Product overview presentation
-- Product demonstration and guided tour
-- Sample copy of the product for evaluation and
demonstration.
- Multimedia glossary
- The ability to print a fact sheet for a selected product.
The UTS CD-ROM is designed to run on a DOS platform; even
so, some of the product demonstrations and sample copies will
require their native Windows or OS/2 platforms
The UTS CD-ROM is an exceptional vehicle that will greatly
simplify your investigation, selection and purchase of multimedia
application development tools.
o Showcase Application demonstrations show the business value of
real business applications developed using UTS products; the
demonstrations include the following.
- Background on the company and the business requirement
- How the requirement was met with multimedia
- Demonstration of a subset of the application
- Benefits statements.
A selected number of these demonstrations will be
available at Fall '92 COMDEX across a range of application
categories; for example training, just-in-time guidance, business
presentations and speaker support, point of information and
merchandising. Further information is available from
MediaSourcery.
TRAINING
Training on individual products in UTS is as provided by each product
owner. This training may be available in any of several forms
self-training via video or computer-based training or tutorials
packaged with the product or, for the more complex products,
classroom sessions of appropriate duration.
Contact MediaSourcery for up-to-date information on the
training available for specific products.
RELATED MULTIMEDIA PRODUCTS TO BE MARKETED BY MEDIASOURCERY
As described above, MediaSourcery specializes in the marketing of
multimedia application development software. In addition,
MediaSourcery will market a selection of multimedia hardware features
and options such as a natural complement to the UTS software
products; they are required by the many customers whose present
configurations do not include the appropriate multimedia features.
Following is the initial roster of these related multimedia
products:
PART
PRODUCT NAME NUMBER
M-Motion Video Adapter/A 95F1091
Video Capture Adapter/A 92F3380
M-Audio Capture/Playback
Adapter/A (MCA) 92F3378
M-Audio Capture/Playback
Adapter (ISA) 92F3379
ActionMedia II Display
Adapter (MCA) 69F9732
ActionMedia II Display
Adapter (ISA) 69F9730
ActionMedia II Capture
Option 69F9734
CD-ROM Drive II Drive 6451104
CD-ROM Drive II Drive
Kit A 6451145
CD-ROM Drive II Drive
Kit B 6451146
TouchSelect Add-on Panel
for 12-inch display 91F7951
PS/2 TV 2460001
127MB Optical Drive 6450162
Optical Drive Kit A 6451126
This set of multimedia hardware feature products will change
over time; for example, as technology evolves, new products will be
added and existing products will be superseded.
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