mac week v 1 n 2

TION NEWSWEEK Volume 1 May 18, 1987 SES akave as Word processing The new software. Page 16 Apple vs. IBM Which does it better? Page 28 Juggling the tasks New Finder. Page 3 Macintosh had a position in this industry beyond being just a stand-alone Microsoft enters a new phase President Jon A. Shirley focuses attention on integrated office systems. Page 3] Mac ZOOM IN MacWEEK readers who believe new platinum color will positively impact Macintosh sales Source: Creative Stratiegies/MacWEEK Desktop publishing: Developers battle in offering features BY MARY FRIEDLAND MacWEEK Staff Intense competition in desktop publishing soft- ware is causing a “features war” as Aldus Corp. and Letraset USA scramble to deliver updates of their page layout programs and Quark Inc. and Target Software Inc. are tempting users with brand-new products, The battle took on the character of a wild ‘West showdown with a “page makeup shoot- out” held recently in Philadelphia. Sponsored by the National Computer Graphics Associa- tion (NCGA), major desktop publishing devel- opers challenged each other in product demon- strations before an audience of computer See DESKTOP on Page 8 Lotus touts Mac, Galaxy BY ROBERT BUDERI Special to MacWEEK BOSTON — Buoyed by a surprise develop- ment agreement with IBM Corp. and touting a renewed commitment to the Macintosh market, Lotus Development Corp. emerged confident from its annual meeting and developer’s con- ference here. The highlight of the four-day event, which ended May 1, was the deal with Armonk, N.Y.- based IBM. The two firms will develop and market 1-2-3/M, a version of Lotus’ popular spreadsheet for IBM System/370 mainframes. IBM and Lotus also announced plans to jointly research, develop and market a series of additional products, including other spread- sheet and database applications. But even as they celebrated the IBM agree- ment, Lotus officials said it didn’t diminish the company’s commitment to Apple. To show support, the Cambridge, Mass., company broke company policy for the second time in two months by previewing its newest Mac product, Galaxy, an integrated business package. Normally, Lotus does not announce a prod- uct until a few weeks before shipping. But it showed Galaxy at AppleWorld in March and again here. “It’s a great potential market for us,” says Ed Belove, who is in charge of research and development, admitting Lotus’ limited success so far in the Mac market. “I think you'll see See LOTUS on Page 8 Courtesy of Apple Computer Inc. Mac II off the docks Volume shipments limited until summer BY GIL DAVIS Special to MacWEEK FREMONT, Calif. — On May Day the first production version of the Mac II was raffled off in front of thousands of cheering employees bused in from Cupertino, but despite the fanfare, ship- ments won’t begin in volume until late June or July. This month’s production of Mac Ils, not scheduled to be more than a few thousand units, will be sent to dealers, Apple’s national account sales representatives and corporations for evaluation, said sources close to Apple. Dealers will have display units only. “They told us the floodgates will open in June and July,” said one of ComputerLand’s largest corporate dealers,who currently has fewer than one Mac II per store. “Apple wouldn't start shipping unless (management) believed the company could get ramped up in 30 to 45 days,” saida Macintosh developer, who was told by Apple he could expect his order to arrive the June 1. Shortages of some key peripherals, especially color monitors and top of the line RT-style key- boards, reportedly are hampering orderly shipments. Apple denied there were any problems, but confirmed that the color monitors will not ship in June. A company spokeswoman said that monochrome monitors were available now, and that there is “nothing indicating any problems with the (RT) keyboard; each dealer will get one or two.” Apple is expected to ship 60,000 Mac Iis by the end of this year from its highly automated plant in Fremont, Calif. Although there is no way to predict monthly output, Apple could “ramp up production quite fast,” says Dave Penning of Dataquest Inc., a marketing research firm in San Jose, Calif. “I would suspect they can get the bugs out quite quickly because they have a highly roboticized plant One source said Apple wants to sell enough Mac II workstations by the end of this year to overtake Sun Microsystems Inc.’s installed base. The Mountain View, Calif.-based firm has shipped about 36,000 workstations and recently cut the price of its entry-level technical worksta- See MACS on Page & The alternative to markers, typesetting, spray cans, knives, triangles, press type, I-squares, stat cameras, sketch pads, layout pads, tissues, kneaded erasers, proportion scales, black pencils, red pencils, blue pencils, pens, air brushes, compressors, inks, brushes, rubber cement, art board, foam board, and reams of telephone Grapric Works] messages from | studio reps. publishing software library. It will make you, what you do, and your bottom line look better. M I ds Visit your retailer or call 800-443-7982 (in llinois 1-800-854-3767) for VISA or MasterCard orders. To py snd your VISA or MasterCard number piraton date and a check or money order for $9: 1L 60068 Aliow 3:5 weeks for TNOSCAPE ING ey or ook Ma NEW MacWEEK May 18, 1987 0 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS 16 Focus: Word Processors NEWS 6 Apple-IBM price war hinges on discounting 6 Sun slashes prices in attack on Mac/PC market Sun Microsystems cuts the price of its lowest-priced engineering workstations. 9 Mac makes strong showing at AI conference Mac generates interest at this spring’s Artificial Intelligence and Technology Conference. BUSINESS WATCH 13 What will Apple do with its stash of cash? 13 Columnist Lawrence Magid The transformation of a PC user to an avid Mac fan. 14 Mac database jumps into 4th Dimension 4th Dimension, a forthcoming Mac database, faces some tough market realities. MARKETWEEK What users say about word processors for the Mac. SOFTWARE REVIEW 17 Word Processors: Laser Author, Word, MacWrite, MindWrite and WriteNow. HARDWARE REVIEW 28 Apple vs. IBM: Which does it better? MacWEEK Laboratories compares the the newest machines from Apple and IBM. PEOPLE 30 Mackamin sees the future in OS/2 An interview with Mark Mackamin, Microsoft’s product manager for 0S/2. 31 Microsoft centers attention on office systems An interview with Jon A. Shirley, Microsoft president. New Finder juggles multiple applications at one time BY JIRI WEISS MacWeek Staff CUPERTINO, Calif. — Apple Computer Inc. plans to ship a new release of Finder, the desk- top on the Mac, in the next couple of months, giving users the ability to open multiple appli- cations on the screen but not run them simulta- neously, according to developers attending the company’s Spring Developers’ Conference. But the Cupertino, Calif., company remains tight-lipped about the new Finder despite the fact that a prototype named Juggler has been making the rounds of bulletin boards across the country. Apple will not say when Finder, re- portedly Version 6.0, will start shipping; it will not even acknowledge the program’s existence. “We do not talk about unannounced prod- ucts,” an Apple spokeswoman said. Nevertheless, an Apple marketing manager confirmed that the product would be released soon. “What they are talking about is a Finder, change in the Finder,” the manager said. The new Finder is an offspring of two pro- grams written by software wizard Andy Hertzfeld. His two programs called Switcher and Servant have offered the ability to switch between programs for the past two years, he said. That ability to open several applications at the same time and move between them without having to quit or losing your place is called “context switching.” It differs from multitask- ing, which is the ability to run more than one program at the same time. Switcher and Servant were separate utilities and, according to some developers, did not always work well. Now Apple has incorporated context switching into the Macintosh operating system itself. It is there when the machine boots up. The new Finder keeps the familiar desktop in the background, allowing the user to open as many applications as memory will allow. MacWEEK found that with the new Finder, three applications, including Excel and Microsoft Word 3.0, could be run on an SE with 1 Mbyte of memory. Users will be able to jump as well as cut and paste between applications with a click of the mouse. The new Finder also will keep track of which applications are open, listing them under the Apple menu. ‘The new Finder, however, does not offer the ability to download a database while work- ing on a spreadsheet, for example. Context switching lets only one application run at a time; the others remain open but inactive. But not having true multitasking should not matter very much, Hertzfeld said. “Multitask- ing is a buzzword that does not mean a lot to Apple’s spinoff software firm still a mystery DON CLARK Special to MacWEEK When IBM decides to market a program, soft- ware companies do not get on the phone and lambaste its CEO. John Sculley should be so lucky. Apple, with its smaller installed base and strategy of pioneering new technology, must play a much more active role in identifying and nurturing new programs in key areas. This longtime dilemma, most observers believe, was a major factor in Apple’s recent radical step of setting up an independent soft- ware company to take over sales of existing programs, fund its own applications develop- ment and help small third-party developers. The significance of the April 28 announce- ment was underscored by the fact.that William V. Campbell will leave Apple to become presi- dent of the new venture. As executive vice president for U.S. sales, Campbell was among Apple’s top five executives. Another mystery was the timing. The new venture was announced before it had a name, a specific charter or a funding plan — only a vague statement of Apple's intent to transform the venture within about a year from a wholly owned subsidiary to an independent company. Apple’s announcement came one day after Lotus Development Corp. and IBM Corp. dis- closed an alliance under which Lotus would help develop new database and spreadsheet programs for IBM mainframe computers. Following the announcement, Sculley admitted concern about major software vendors porting Mac applications to the IBM world. “The seeds of this were sown because Apple felt it could not depend on Microsoft for its applications software,” says a source. “Would you want to depend on a company that’s doing IBM’s systems software?” Another source said motivation for the spinoff plan was to smooth waters troubled by the Silver Surfer (4th Dimension) episode. Ashton-Tate, which is working on its own Macintosh database, led objections to Apple's plan to market the competing French-designed database. Ultimately, Apple backed off, and head evangelist Guy Kawasaki left Apple to market Silver Surfer through startup Acius Inc. But Apple's new venture only goes part way in meeting software companies’ fears of competition. Indeed, the new company will start out in the top 10 of software companies, with such advantages as Apple’s existing distri- bution channels and name recognition. “There are two ways to look at this,” Camp- bell says. “The good side is you are no longer competing against the Apple logo. The bad side is this is another viable entity that will compete in the software market.” Initial reactions by other software firms were mixed. On one hand, several firms wel- comed an end to the battle with Apple’s label. Executives at Microsoft and Lotus cautiously approved Apple’s stated focus on publishing the work of small developers on new applica- tions, which would tend to minimize conflict with existing products. Yet others will be watching closely to see how the new theory is put into practice. Competition and other forms of conflict seem inevitable, some say, with a company that will remain under strong Apple influence for the foreseeable future. il users... It’s the name for a number of capabilities, many of which are already available.” Numerous printer spooling pro- grams already allow users to work on one program while printing from another, satisfying perhaps the most pressing need, he said. True multitasking capability for the Mac may be far down the line, according to Robert Curri- er, director of product develop- ment for Alpha Microsystems Inc. of Santa Ana, Calif. Cur- rier, who attended the devel- opers’ conference, said Apple would have to do a major rewrite of its oper- ating system because it was not written with multitasking in mind. For true multitasking, Apple is looking at its version of the UNIX operating system, A/UX, to be released sometime this month. i “Our goal was simple: capable writing tool mind saying,we've Charles Simonyi, Chief Architect, Applications, Microsoft Corporation. We weren't looking for incremental improvements. We were shooting for a quantum leap. Not a word processor but a document processor. A tool which would exceed every expectation and overwhelm every standard. From now on, when people define what software should do for the production of documents, they'll point to this: Microsoft” Word Version 3.0 for the Apple® Macintosh” On Word, everything you need to structure a document is integrated into the program. Starting up front with the outliner. Followed by style sheets which you can quickly set up to standardize and recall the formats you use repeatedly. Then a built-in spelling checker proofreads for you when you’re finished. Because speed is of the essence, we made Word a rocket. It scrolls faster, saves faster. And you cart out-type it. Because there’s a big, diverse world out there, Word easily shares automatically converts files created with the IBM® PC version of Wo supports DCA protocols for exchanging formatted files with minis, and dedicated word processors. a Finally, what you see on screen will look superb on paper. Word will to graphics. And exploit the capabilities of laser printers beyond a has gone before. ee But the most powerful feature of all is its accessibility. Wor in either Short or Full mode. The first, a concise, basi producing instantly. The second, a comprehensive me capacities. es That’s Word for the Macintosh. Not just the best 1 computer, but the most effective tool of persuasion ev Microsoft Word is available for the IBM PC and Microsoft isis‘ In Washington State Microsoft and the Microsoft logo are registered trademarks Macintosh is a trademark of Apple Computer, Inc. IBM is a Jo create the most ever devised. | dont succeeded.’ MacWEEK May 18, 1987 NEWS Apple-IBM price war focuses on discounting BY ROBERT BUDERI Special to MacWEEK Institutional discounting, special bids and advanced manufacturing will be the keys to who will win the IBM-Apple price war. Head-to-head, the Mac II is cheaper than IBM's top-of-the-line Model 80 in a simple comparison of retail prices. The Mac II, outfitted with a 40-Mbyte hard-disk drive and a 13-inch color monitor, is priced at $6,996 — $1,500 less than a similarly equipped IBM Model 80. To get compara- ble capabilities on the Model 80, a $795 math coprocessor and a $685 12-inch color monitor must be added to the base price of $6,995 — features standard on the Mac I. But because of advanced assembly tech- niques for its new Personal System/2 line, IBM especially is expected to have a lot of leeway in discounting — for volume and retail sales. Industry watchers indicate that Apple's retail price advantage may be mini- mal or non-existent for volume buyers. Traditionally, IBM has used a two-tiered pricing structure with dealers. At the low end are “B” dealers, who receive a 32 per- cent discount. But the corporate darlings are “C” retailers, who, according to one long-time dealer, get a 40-percent savings by selling more than 5,000 PCs a year. The scenario for companies buying directly from IBM is more complex. Sources say the direct sales discount runs from a low of about 10 percent to an offi- cial maximum of 34 percent. Exceptions are made for government and education sectors, which receive minimum discounts of 30 percent, says Bill Lempesis, a research analyst with Dataquest Inc. And even the maximum 34 percent isn’t set in stone. Industry consultant Seymour Merrin, president of Merrin Resources of Southport, Conn., and a former Apple, IBM and Compaq dealer, says IBM plays the special bid game with very high-volume customers or where it believes the market potential is great. To further complicate matters, IBM counts terminals, PCs and mainframes in total purchases. The result is a vast array of tables that can overwhelm the customer. Apple discounts differ in form but not much in results. Sources say the Cupertino, Calif., firm offers dealers the same maxi- mum of about 40 percent. For direct sales, the situation is more straightforward than IBM’s. An oil company buyer says Apple offers a 28 percent discount for buying about $500,000 worth of equipment a year and a 32 percent savings if the figure reaches $1 million. But Apple, too, will negotiate. Very large volume customers are getting at least 38 percent off. And in its stronghold of educa- tion, discounts run much deeper. Apple's See DISCOUNT on Page 9 Sun slashes prices in attack on Mac/PC market BY JIRI WEISS MacWEEK Staff MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Sun Microsys- tems Inc. slashed the price of its lowest-priced engineering station to $4,995 — a move that analysts say is the first round in an attack by workstation makers on the encroaching PC market. The 40-percent price cut greatly reduces the price advantage that Apple Computer Inc.'s Macintosh II would have enjoyed over work- stations. A basic Mac II_ will sell for $3,895. Sun’s price cut is a part of an overall strategy to move into the business market, according to Vicki Brown, manager of the technical comput- ing group at International Data Corp. (IDC) in Framingham, Mass. Other major workstation vendors are offering or planning to offer lower cost products. May- nard, Mass.-based Digital Equipment Corp. introduced a $10,500 model in February and Palo Alto, Calif.-based Hewlett-Packard announced a $7,800 low-end model at the end of April. Apollo Computer Inc. of Chelmsford, Mass., also said it plans to expand its low-end product line, but declined to say when a new model would ship. The sudden drop in workstation prices is viewed by analysts as a sign that what were previously considered to be the separate worlds of PCs and technical workstations are merging. Analysts say the overlap started last year when workstations like the Sun gained the abil- ity to run MS-DOS applications. The recent announcement of the Mac Il and the IBM Per- sonal System/2 Model 80 promise workstation- like graphics at near-PC prices. “What we are talking about now are desktop systems — period,” Brown says. But arguing that the workstation and PC mar- kets are now one and the same is going too far, according to Brad Smith, an analyst with Dataquest Inc. of San Jose, Calif. At first glance, a workstation such as Sun’s low-end Model 3/50M offers similar hardware to the Mac II, Smith says. Both emphasize high-resolution graphics and work on the 68020 microprocessor. “The specs may be sim- ilar, but if you look at the products carefully, you see that they are intended for an entirely different market,” Smith says. The Suns offer an entry into a line of work- stations that can give users processing power of upto4 million instructions per second (mips) as well as special hardware to speed up the pro- cessing of 3-D color graphics. The Mac II, with the power of 2 mips is, by contrast, Apple’s top-of-the-line computer. Features such as the 19-inch monitor and built-in support for the Ethernet network that are standard on the Sun are add-ons for the Mac II. Even the resolution on the Sun 3/50M is higher — 1,152 by 900 pixels vs. 640 by 480 pixels on the Mac II. Sun workstations are designed to work under the UNIX operating system on a network with a file server rather than as a stand-alone machine, says Arun Taneja, Sun’s senior prod- uct marketing manager. Sun’s basic price does not even include a disk drive. Mac IIs don’t work without one. The biggest strike against the Sun, however, is that the number of engineering workstations being shipped is still small. IDC says that Sun shipped 14,000 units in 1986; in 1987 that number is expected to grow to 25,000. IDC expects 40,000 Mac Ils to ship in the same period. Within a year after the Mac II starts shipping, See SUN on Page 9 = @ ez os A > su Sun 3/50M Apple Macintosh II IBM Personal System/2 Model 80-071_ COMPUTER Processor Type MC68020 MC68020 80386 Clock Speed 15 MHz 15.67 MHz 16 MHz Memory Cycle Time. 270 nanoseconds ‘Not published 80 nanoseconds Mips 15 20 12 Floating Point 16.67 MHz MC68881 (opt) 15.6 MHz MC68881 (std) 16 MHz 80387 (opt) Memory (minimax) 4 Mbytes 1-8 Mbytes 1-16 Moytes DISPLAY Color Monitor Size 1Biinch, 640- by- 480 pixels ‘1B inch 1024- by- 768 pixels Monochrome Monitor ‘19 inch, 1152- by-900 pixels ‘2inch, 640- by- 480 pinels {2inch 640- by- 480 pixels MASS STORAGE Disk (minvmax) 71-282 Mbytes 40-80 Moytes 44-230 Mbytes Cartridge Tape 60 Mbytes 40 Mbytes 55 Mbytes Floppy (min/max) 360 Kbytes-1.2 Mbytes 800 Kbytes 1.44 Mbytes (3.5 inch) PRICE $9,995" $11,500 monochrome system $15,745 monochrome system $12,000 color system** $18,335 color system"** “Includes: hardware —71-Myte hard disk, 60-Mbyte cartridge tape backup, 4 Mbytes of RAM, 19-inch monochrome monitor, sofware — UNIX, C, Pascal, Fortran, SunPRO development environment, Ethernet, ‘Surwiew windowing. “includes hardware — 80-Mbyte harddisk, 60-Mbyte cartridge tape backup, 4 Moytes of RAM, 12nch monochrome monitor, 13-inch color monitor; software — AUUX, C, Fortran, Toobox.. “Includes: hardware — 71-Mbyle hard disk, 55-Mbyte cartridge tape backup, 4 Moytes of RAM, 12-inch monochrome monitor, 16-inch color monitor; software — OS) Extended Eaition, Development Tool Kit, C, Fortran, Pascal 3260. 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Learn the strengths and weak- nesses of each item we evaluate. Shop “on the disk” in our Micro Discount Mall. Subscribe now and save. You won’t believe the low price! Satisfaction is guaranteed — or your money back. You'll be amazed at just how much comes on every UPTIME disk. X Make the very next one yours. Fill out X the coupon. For immediate service ‘ call toll-free: 1-800-437-0033 ' anytime, day or night. MacWEEK May 18, 1987 NEWS Lotus touts new Macs, Galaxy LOTUS continued from Page I other things from us in the future.” In lining up more solidly with Apple, Lotus is spilling more about Galaxy. The company is minimizing its ties with Jazz, which was intro- duced with great fanfare in 1985 but has gener- ally been considered a disaster. Galaxy offers the same six applications — worksheets, graph- ics, word processing, database, forms and com- munications — and the ability to connect docu- ments among them as Jazz. But plans for Jazz were abandoned last year after a disappointing response to the latest version, 1A. So came the idea for Galaxy, which Lotus claims is vastly superior in speed and power. “It’s an outgrowth, or an evolution, from Jazz,” Adam Hertz, Galaxy development manager, told developers at the conference. The success of the Mac Plus and the promise of the SE and Mac II, gives Lotus fur- ther reason for optimism. “The hardware platform is real attractive to us,” says Pam Campagna, product marketing for Macintosh software. “We didn’t have the luxury of the Mac Plus before.” Unlike Jazz, the new product will have the ability to directly read and write Lotus 1-2-3 PageMaker ships BY MARY FRIEDLAND. MacWEEK Staff SEATTLE — On April 29 Aldus Corp. announced the filing for a public stock offering, and the following day began ship- ping the long-awaited 2.0 version of Page- Maker for the Mac. Aldis filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to initially offer 2.04 million shares to the public; 1.35 million shares will be sold by Aldus, and 690,000 shares will be sold by company sharehold- ers. Alex, Brown & Sons Inc., an investment banking firm, and Montgomery Securities will co-manage the offering. Aldus expects the initial offering price to be between $14 and $16 a share. The market is ripe for going public, according to an Aldus official. Other soft- ware stocks such as Microsoft Corp. and Lotus Development Corp. are trading at all- time highs. Revenues raised by the sale will propel future development projects, which the offi- cial would not disclose. The second major development at Aldus, the release of PageMaker Version 2.0, priced at $495, came two months after the company’s original projected release date of March I. Industry analysts attribute the delay to Aldus’s increased focus on Page- Maker for the IBM PC. Version 2.0 offers greater flexibility than Version 1.2 in laying out pages. The maxi- mum document size has been expanded to 128 pages. Columns and blocks of graphics and text have “handles” which the user can conve- niently “grab” to move and shape the ele- ments on a page. Ml and Symphony files using cabling or a network like TOPS (1-2-3 also requires a communica- tions package). Data files from Jazz will run on Galaxy, and Lotus will provide upgrade kits at minimal charge. Lotus won't discuss Galaxy’s pricing, except to say it will compete with existing Macintosh software. The conference was used partly to convince developers that Galaxy’s command language will produce custom applications. The approxi- mately 70 people attending the two Galaxy development seminars did seem impressed. Lotus reports strong interest from retailers, corporate customers and user groups, but industry watchers seem to be adopting a wait- and-see attitude. For one thing, Galaxy may come too late to shove aside well-established products like Excel and OMNIS 3. A formal Galaxy announcement is expected this summer. Shipment will begin three to six weeks later. At that time, the unknowns will begin to be addressed, One of them is the new product’s final name. “Galaxy,” the company confirmed, has already been trademarked. il Mac IIs off the dock MACS continued from Page 1 tion dramatically. ‘Two highly anticipated MS-DOS coproces- sor boards — the Mac 86 and Mac 286 — promised by AST Research Inc. of Irvine, Calif., won’t be shipped this month as expect- ed, says Don Etter, AST’s manager of technical support. ‘Customers won’t be able to obtain the 8086 coprocessor for the Mac SE or an 80286 copro- cessor for the Mac II until July at the earliest, he says. A recent survey of 10 Apple dealers found only 19 orders for the Macintosh II. Dealers report a reluctance to place orders for the new “open” Mac, although general interest is run- ning high, especially among corporate cus- tomers. “We've had lots of enthusiasm for the Mac IL, primarily from publicly held companies,” says John Mattson, manager of two Computer- and stores in South Dakota. “One commodities tracking firm wants it for color graphics, while a publishing company is looking for enhanced graphics capabilities.” Both companies have placed $500 deposits for the 32-bit machines, which probably won't be available until August. Another dealer enthusiastic about the Mac TLis Sally Chag, who has worked for three years in corporate sales at InfoMax Computer in San Francisco. “T think the Mac II will make a very large impact on the corporate market because of its connectivity with MS-DOS computers. This ability to exchange data with MS-DOS net- works will allow people who really want a Macintosh at work and who have some say over what they get to be listened to more seri- ously,” she says. Dealers who sell the Mac II to corporations may push the product because it represents more potential profits, says Tracy Rees of a Computerland franchise in San Diego. “Since the Plus and SE have few real options, it’s very easy to compare prices, which keeps our profit margins lower than on IBM products,” he says. “But with the openness of the Mac II, you can configure the slots in dif- ferent ways, which makes price shopping much more difficult.” But because the Macintosh II is not avail- able, Rees isn’t pushing it yet. ll Desktop publishing: Developers battle to offer features DESKTOP continued from Page 1 graphics professionals. A features face-off is brewing among con- tenders. Holding out to see what competitors would offer, none met expected shipping dates. Seattle-based Aldus promised to deliver Page- maker Version 2.0 on April 15, then postponed delivery until April 29. Miami-based Target Software has aggres- sively promoted Scoop for the past six months, but pushed back its release date again from May 1 to June 1. The 3.1 release of Paramus, N.J.-based Letraset’s Ready,Set,Go!, formerly marketed by Manhattan Graphics of Valhalla, N.Y., and rumored to be released in April, has not yet been announced. XPress, the new package from Quark Inc. of Denver, originally slotted for a September 1986 release, shipped on March 26. Without dramatically changing Pagemaker, Aldus has improved many features that users of the 1.2 version found inhibiting, such as small document size and limited control over the size and spacing of type. Priced at $495, the new version compensates for a lack of text editing features with the ability to import and export files to and from Microsoft Word 3.0. Aldus claims it won’t enter the features war. Early users of Pagemaker 2.0 had hoped for greater enhancements in precision and control. Still, users praise Aldus for continuing to pro- mote industry-standard formats, flexibility in page layout and customer support. Quark XPress, priced at $695, is loaded with flashy layout features. Since its March release, Control Data, The Denver Post and The Wall Street Journal have bought the pro- gram. Publishing professionals praise the program for its flexibility in placing blocks of text and its powerful control over style, sizing and spac- ing of type. Quark President Fred Ebrahimi claims XPress, winner of the NCGA shoot-out, is superior because it does spot color separation and offers the greatest precision in placing text. Bove and Rhodes’ insiders’ report, Desk- top Publishing, suggests that Quark’s victory at the shoot-out was really one of best demos. Reviewers Tony Bove and Cheryl Rhodes, however, gave equivocal ratings to XPress’ automatic features. Automatic text wrap, for example, doesn’t allow the user to control the distance between text and the picture it wraps around, making “automatic” a handicap. Target Software has aggressively promot- ed Scoop, its desktop publishing contender. Ads for Scoop accuse Pagemaker of being “for squares.” Priced at $495, Scoop purports to have all the features of competing packages as well as greater control over text, graphics and layout. But Target has fallen short on delivery. And acompany official declined to cite indepen- dent users who have evaluated the system. Manhattan Graphics plunged into desktop publishing last year with its highly acclaimed Ready,Set,Go! In January it sold worldwide marketing and distribution rights to Letraset, a leading supplier of graphics design products. Letraset has not announced a price or shipping date for the 3.1 upgrade. Ken Abbott, president of Manhattan Graph- ics, described development under way on the product; “The 3.1 version will have major functional improvements over Version 3.0. It will support arbitrarily-sized pages (page size is the major limitation in the 3.0 version) and built-in style sheets will make the system much easier to use.” Version 3.1 also will contain a spelling checker and numerous layout features. The new bang-up features of the publishing programs — wrapping text around pictures, printing text in the shape of an object, expand- ing and condensing type — are slick. But industry analysts suggest that those fea- tures may be overkill. Analyst Joan-Carol Brigham of International Data Corp. in Fram- ingham, Mass., says that many features are use- ful only to very sophisticated publishers. “Most users don’t care if they can kern (close the space between letters) to one-hun- dredth of (a centimeter). What they want is a system that produces nice-looking pages and is easy to use,” she said. Laying out text is now the users’ primary concern, Brigham says. “(Although) the Macintosh is excellent at graphics, typical corporate users are not graph- ics oriented.” Apple, which once heavily advertised Pagemaker, appears to no longer be backing a clear favorite. Pagemaker, XPress and Ready,Set,Go! have all played leading roles in Apple ads and promotions. Apple is encouraged by what it has seen of Scoop, says John Scull, emerging markets man- ager at the Cupertino, Calif., company. Apple sees burgeoning desktop publishing markets beyond page layout. According to Scull, increased sophistication in desktop publishing has spawned four distinct application areas: traditional page layout, increasing in power and flexibility; artwork and illustration, ripened by extremely precise draw- ing software; document processing, with spe- cialized software for anything from a comic book to a proposal; and presentation materials, such as slides and overlays, which will benefit from the color capabilities of the new wave of Macintoshes, Will the market support all of this season's page layout contenders? “There is definitely room in the market for several products,” Scull says. “With the variety of options that (the contenders) offer, there is no reason why two or three of them can’t suc- ceed.” MAC makes s BY STEVE ROSENTHAL Special to MacWEEK LONG BEACH, Calif. — Macintosh comput- ers and applications made a strong showing at this spring’s Artificial Intelligence and Tech- nology Conference. Though machines designed to run the LISP artificial intelligence (AI) programming lan- guage and general-purpose workstation prod- ucts remained the preferred hardware platforms for AI work, a number of developers predicted a preference for Macintosh would increase at shows later this year. The late April conference is an annual showcase for commercial AI tools and applica- tions. Along with 30 conference sessions, the show featured an exhibit hall with close to-five dozen firms displaying their wares. Apple Computer Inc. itself didn’t actively participate in the gathering, but lent moral sup- port by letting Expertelligence of Santa Bar- bara, Calif., call its booth the “Apple/Expertel- ligence” location. Expertelligence, in turn, showed both LISP language products and a LISP-based user-interface builder product run- ning on the Macintosh II. According to Robert Reali, a software engi- neer at Expertelligence, his firm’s offerings are the only complete LISP system available for the Mac. The $1,195 environment supports full Common LISP (an industry-standard for LISP implementations) on Macs. On the Mac II, he says, the system should nearly equal more expensive, dedicated systems or workstations. “With the advent of the Macintosh II, we'll be like the Symbolics or the Sun,” he says. Franz Inc. of Berkeley, Calif., reportedly has a LISP compiler and environment for the Mac in development, but officially the compa- ny would confirm only that it supports work- stations at the Sun Model 50 level and higher. However, Michael Craney, marketing represen- tative, said: “We have a Mac II (back at the office), and it’s there for a purpose.” In the AI tools category, Human Intellect Systems of Mountain View, Calif., was show- ing its Instant Expert System on the Macintosh. The U.S. version of the French program for creating expert systems based on “direct rule entry” (a system where the user specifies a series of if/then statements) has been shipping for several months. Level Five Research of Indialantic, Fla., says it’s also working on a Macintosh expert- system shell. According to company President Henry Seiler, the Macintosh version is being done at the request of several large clients. ALP Systems of Salt Lake City says its Iliad rong showing at AI conference decision support system is aimed at the medical profession for training. Currently in beta test- ing, the product is made up of a decision-sup- port engine and specialized knowledge bases. The product is targeted at universities, with site license prices ranging from $4,950 to $49,000. Neuron Data of Palo Alto, Calif., makers of ahigh-end AI system called Nexpert, did not show the Macintosh version of its product at the conference, concentrating instead on the AT and MicroVAX implementations. Neuron founder and CEO Patrick Perez said the Mac version is being upgraded to use the enhanced capabilities of the Macintosh II. Applications Automated Reasoning Corp. of New York had an advanced end-user product running on the Mac — an automated test equipment (ATE) system that used embedded AI seg- ments to optimize the testing process. The $5,000 to $15,000 Micro IN-ATE system makes full use of the Macintosh user interface. “For factory applications, you need fast results,” says Richard Cantone, president of the firm. The Mac, he says, proved easy, fast and inexpensive enough to make this kind of automation widely available. Mac Competition According to analyst Tom Schwartz from Mountain View, Calif., who spoke at several sessions at the conference, the Macintosh will be competing against three types of machines in the AI marketplace. Machines designed to run LISP, including those from Texas Instru- ments Inc., Symbolics Inc., and Xerox Artifi- cial Intelligence typically run the fastest in these applications, but cost much more. General-purpose workstations, such as those made by Sun Microsystems Inc., Apollo Com- puter Inc, and Hewlett-Packard, have the power to do AI work as well as other applications. Advanced PCs, mostly those based on the 80386, also are contenders for Al-driven pur- chases, especially as more minicomputer and workstation tools are written in portable lan- guages like C that can be brought over to PCs. This increased portability leads some major Al developers to put an increasing amount of their efforts into PC-class products. It may, however, be a while before a true AI mass market emerges. The Long Beach show drew a small crowd, but both exhibitors and investors will be looking carefully at the trend at the next big AI show — the Seattle meeting of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence this July 13-17. MacwWEEK NEWS May 18, 1987 Sun slashes prices, attacks Mac-PC market SUN from page 6 Apple is expected to be among the top three engineering workstation vendors, according to Douglas Cayne, vice president and director of personal computer services at the Gartner Group, a Stamford, Conn., consulting company. The reason Apple will be a top engineering workstation vendor is that a Sun won’t be found next to the IBM PS/2 Model 80 and Mac Tin the local computer store anytime soon. Sun and other workstations are mostly sold by an in-house sales force and through OEMs. Sun is searching for another distribution channel, “but it is too early to speculate on what will happen,” a Sun spokeswoman said. Market share aside, the price and capabilities of the Sun give corporate customers even more to think about when making purchasing deci- sions. Cliff Hodges, manager of Chevron Corp.’s computer group, which purchases about 100 PCs a month, says his company is busy juggling the new IBM systems, the clones, the Macintosh SE and the Mac II. “We haven’t fig- ured our direction yet. Sun hasn’t been a part of it, but maybe they should be,” he said. Despite Sun’s apparent technical advantages and comparable price, the Mac has an edge because of the wide range of software available for it, according to Raymond K. Neff, assistant vice chancellor for information systems and technology, University of California, Berkeley. The university plans to buy more than 100 Mac Ils, he said, even though it has an installed base of about 1,000 Suns and is being offered the workstations at $1,000 less than the Mac II. Vernon Keenan, a systems programmer at Genentech Inc. of South San Francisco, Calif., says that his company is not considering the Sun because the UNIX world lacks user-friend- ly databases like OMNIS 3 Plus from San Mateo, Calif.-based Blyth Software Inc. or Helix from Odesta Corp. of Northbrook, Ill. Apple-IBM price war DISCOUNT from page 6 general policy is not expected to change for the Mac II. Direct sales of new IBM products will also use existing rate tables. But IBM is not playing its normal game with dealers. Instead, it has targeted a select group called the Authorized Advanced Products Dealers. IBM says most of its 2,200 authorized dealers have been provi- sionally accepted, but JoeAnn Stahel of Store- Board Inc., a Dallas-based research firm, says only a fraction will ultimately be certified. To qualify, dealers must receive special train- ing from IBM and support a variety of products like the Token-Ring Network. While IBM won't discuss sales quotas, Stahel says dealers must sell eight of each of the new models, including the high-end Model 80, per month. But even more changes could be in store from Big Blue. The key for the U.S. market lies in IBM’s 550-acre assembly site in Boca Raton, Fla. The new PS/2 computers are assembled from continuous flow lines — meaning parts are shipped in a steady stream to avoid ware- housing costs. Many components, like key- boards and disk drives, are interchangeable. With this flexible manufacturing process, IBM can produce any of the eight model configura- Until recently, the engineering workstation market has been limited to engineers designing aircraft and automobile parts, or displaying models of air flow around aircraft wings, with the data downloaded from mainframes. Today, engineering workstations are begin- ning to be used by technical professionals in business as well. Recently, Sun and DEC won large contracts in the world of finance. Sun is shipping $1 million worth of workstations to the international securities firm Morgan Stan- ley and Co. DEC has landed a $30 million deal with Citicorp Investment Bank. Sun is also moving into the desktop publish- ing market from which it says it received 16 percent of its revenues in 1986. In desktop pub- lishing, there can be no comparison in sophisti- cation between Cambridge, Mass.-based Inter- “The fight between Sun and Apple is on, but is not a battle of equals.” leaf’s Workstation Publishing Software running on a Sun and Seattle-based Aldus Corp.’s Page- maker on the Mac, says Dataquest’s Smith. “Tnterleaf is much more professional.” The extra capabilities of the Sun, however, can be expensive. Sun’s low-end workstation is a barebones system, Smith said. A Sun set up to run a sophisticated publishing program such as Interleaf’s may cost nearly $10,000. The fight between Sun and Apple is on, but it is not a battle of equals, says Cayne. “I don't see how Sun can go head-to-head on a hard- ware price performance basis against a com- pany that produces millions of units a year, has a very broad retail distribution and a large num- ber of third-party applications,” he says. Ill focuses on discounting tions on the same line at the same time — another cost saver. IBM also controls costs by producing more itself. While most components for the PC were built by third parties, four-fifths of the Model 80 is built in-house. ‘The computer giant will not comment on such issues, but the high-end Model 80 can be produced for $910 (including a low-end monochrome monitor and a hard-disk drive), which retails starting at $6,995 plus $250 for the monitor, estimates Rick Martin, a research analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. in New York. Costs are expected to fall even fur- ther as the price of Intel Corp.’s 80386 micro- processor falls. “We would expect that by year’s end, prices for the whole line would be a minimum of 10 to 15 percent below where they are right now.” He estimates it costs $400 to $500 to produce a Mac II (not including a hard disk drive). Its retail price is $3,898 without hard disk ($5,498 with hard disk) plus $399 for the monitor. But pricing is only part of the picture. Much of the decision of whether to buy the Mac II or the Model 80 boils down to a choice of envi- ronments — and the software available. ll MacWEEK May 18, 1987 EDITORIAL PUBLISHER’S LE’ When we first set out to create MacWEEK, we envisioned a publication that would transcend the ordinary — a newsweekly that would set a new standard for others to follow. What you are holding in your hands is a bold step in an auspicious direction. MacWEEK is the first publication to report specifically and exclusively on the rapid proliferation of a new generation of personal computers — workstations. We define a workstation as a computer based on an ultra-fast microprocessor, the central chip that makes a computer tick, with at least | million bytes of memory and the ability to display | million pixels (dots) on the screen. In addition, workstations generally feature the same easy-to-use graphic interface pioneered by ground- breaking research at Xerox’s Palo Alto “Tf your needs call for more power than a Mac II can deliver, it would be a disservice to You to not present all the options.” Research Center (PARC) in the early 70s. When combined, these advanced elements result in a system architecture that delivers precisely what today’s productivity- oriented users demand: a computer that is both powerful and extremely easy to use. What does all this have to do with the Mac? The MacWEEK moniker reflects our deference to the Macintosh as the most well- established computer epitomizing the workstation concept. Apple Computer developed the first mass-market computer to embody drop-down menus, icons and a mouse — graphic tools popularized by PARC. The milestone introduction of the Macintosh Plus heralded the first under- $3,000 machine that, with minor modification, could be turned into a 3M workstation: | million bytes, | million instructions per second (mips) and | million pixels. The new Macintosh SE and the Macintosh II, in particular, will only accelerate the process of familiarizing business users with the effortless flexibility of graphic workstations. But MacWEEK is more than just Macintosh. Unlike other machine-specific publications, MacWEEK preserves its editorial integrity by reporting on the entire spectrum of the workstation market. In MacWEEK you will find late-breaking coverage on Apollo, DEC, HP, NeXT, Stellar, Sun, Symbolics and a host of other [TER bright and far-sighted companies. As a responsible manager in charge of a wide range of expensive computer equipment, you would expect no less from a sophisticated and visionary publication. If your specific needs call for more power than a Mac II can deliver, it would be a disservice to you to not present all the options. That’s a revolutionary concept among machine-specific publications. But then workstations are no ordinary computers. And MacWEEK is no ordinary newsweekly. In fact, MacWEEK is the first weekly publication of any serious magnitude entirely Hl EDITOR J.T. Johnson NEWS EDITOR Jonathan Littman ART DIRECTOR Laslo Vespremi produced on the Macintosh. That’s another quantum step forward in this day and age of : workstation publishing. At MacWEEK, we MANAGING EDITOR Lorri Gon not only report on the latest technology, we ) i SENIOR EDITOR embrace tt Michael Goodwin Ina future issue, we will explore in depth how we are able to electronically paginate 30,000-plus words each week using one Mac Plus, 23 Mac SEs, one AppleShare fileserver, two LaserWriter Pluses and two Linotronics. For now, enjoy ASSOCIATE EDITORS, Carol Farron, Charles Hoblitzelle ASSISTANT ART DIRECTOR Melody Kean Haller CONTRIBUTING EDITORS John Edwards, Lawrence Magid, Henry Norr, MacWEEK. — Michael Tchong Steve Rosenthal, C. J. Weigand STAFF REPORTERS Mary Friedland, Jiri Weiss COPY EDITORS t ¢ ime! Shari Anderson, Brenda Benner T T [] __ EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS Juliannette Matzinger, Clair Whitmer OFFICE MANAGER Karen Brannan ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANTS ‘Tamara Gargus, Leslie Saperstein ___ INFORMATION DIRECTOR Emily Brower PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Barri Klingaman PROMOTION DIRECTOR Cynthia L. Ahart PUBLISHER Michael Tchong Editorial and advertising offices: srannan, Sonfrando CaNT 907 aTS882-150 Classified ad placement and inguiries: 5211 S. Washington Ave., Titusville, Fla. 3278 Patch Communications CHAIRMAN Glenn Patch PRESIDENT/CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Michael F. Billings VICE PRESIDENT/CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER Donald F. Welk PP, © VICE PRESIDENT/BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Linda Rew ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT Sherry Allison ot | GROUP PUBLISHER Richard F. Govatski _ DIRECTOR OF MARKETING Kevin Mulligan MacWEEK (ISSN 0892-8118) is published weekly, except for two weeks at year-end, by MacWEEK Inca subsidiary of Patch Communications, $211 S. Washington Titusville, Fla. 32780. Single copy pri including first class postage: §3. One subscription rates: U.S. $15, Canada/Mesico US $150, Intemational: US $300 (airmail). A\ ‘orders must be prepaid, Second-class post Dy — | _ fending at San Francisco, Cali, and at adn post off Laslow Vespremi Subscription inquiries should be direct Grelation, Mac WEEK. 5211S. Washington ss chang Titusville ive weeks for order and Fla., 32780. Please allow @ processing. Tt ent jou no ry with Apple Computer Inc eh are ice Apple and Maci emarks of Apple Compare ne, Ene contents copyright © 1987 EEK Inc.,a division of Patch Communications ne. All igh reserved. Material in this publication may not be reproduced in any form without permission. 1986, 1987 Software Ventures Corporation i : ; = THE NEW YORK TIMES “MicroPhone is a breakthrough in communications software...” LOS ANGELES TIMES: : en ; “The program is more sophisticated and easier to use than any...on either the PC or the Mac’ MACWORLD: “brings together the best traits of every Mac communications program: INFOWORLD: “MicroPhone is the easiest communications package we've seen” With reviews like these who needs advertising? They say the best advertising is word of, mouth, So we're reprinting some of the multi- tude of words that have already been said about MicroPhone communications software for the Macintosh. And what they’re saying, universally, is that MicroPhone—created by Denni —has far outdistanced all its predece: That for the novice, MicroPhone is the sim. plest telecom software ever devised. That for the expert, MicroPhone is the most powerful. On-line for the lazy. MicroPhone gives you the means to create infinitely elaborate macro (automated) rou- tines with infinite simplicity. Its powerful script language is written in plain English, and it also features a recording mode that watches, saves, and repeats what you do. So no programming skills are required. The upshot is that MicroPhone will save you time, hassle, and on-line fees by auto- mating virtually every operation you now have to key by hand. Log on procedures. File transfers. And, for a good example, E-mail retrieval routines. ‘Ata single command from you, Micro- Phone will dial your E-mail service, give your ID number and password. Navigate its way through the labyrinth to your mailbox. Check for mail. Log off if there is none. And if there is, MicroPhone will collect, print, and save all messages to your disk. Then, politely log off. Let's get technical box. (© 50 to 57,600 Baud '* Scripts Invoked by ‘* Supports XMODEM ‘Button YMODEM Menu Asal Command fey 1K BLOCKS: '* Scripts have full logic constructs ‘MAGBINARY * Works with ALL Macintosh ‘MACTERMINAL 1.1 models & LaserWrter + Emulates TTY + Works with all async modems v152 (Hayes included) vr100 * Includes Switcher & + Copture file On/On CompuServe subscription ‘Printer On/OH ‘Includes text editor licensed ‘Auto fog on scripts for infor. from Dreams of the Phoenix Ine. ‘mation utilities provided * Documentation by Neil Shapiro _ ™ WARE ReESS SHORE VeESNSD =U If you prefer, you can direct MicroPhone to initiate this sequence simply by inserting the disk. Or automatically, at any specified time, day, night. Or at regular intervals. Anything else you need to do, from collect- ing stock quotes to sending and receiving files, is just as simple. Try it out at home or office. You can find out firsthand just what a remarkable program MicroPhone is. Without risking a cent. We give you a thirty-day moneyback guarantee, no questions asked. Which is virtually unprecedented in software. Z Since MicroPhone is not copy fe protected, we obviously have vast Wy confidence both in our program. And in you. ( Communications Software for the Macintosh is MacUser Editor's Choice Award 2907 Claremont Avenue Suite 220 Berkeley, CA 94705 415-644-3232 1] 2 MacWEEK May 18, 1987 PageMaker tops best-selling software list AMBLER, Pa. — IMS America Ltd., a leading market research firm, reports PageMaker was the best-selling software Macintosh program in February. Max Maw, an analyst at IMS’ computer market division, says Macintosh software sales in general were severely depressed in February. “However, there was a strong predominance of graphic and publishing software,” he says. IMS, which tracks what stores are buying from both direct and indirect sources, produces monthly reports that show distribution and sales of computer products through retail specialty stores, From a selected sample of 500 U.S. stores, which includes 317 chain stores and 183 independent stores, IMS physically audits store invoices and projects them to a universe of 5,106 specialty stores comprised of 2,451 chain stores and 2,655 independent stores. The sample stores must carry at least two hardware systems from different manufacturers as well as software. They must also have a storefront location. Because the data is based on unit movement into, and not out of, retail stores, IMS essentially monitors what dealers project sales will be and not what is actually selling. Also note that because of the storefront requirement, the data does not reflect mail order sales. Top 25 Software Bestsellers (Units): 1. PageMaker — Aldus 2. Microsoft Works — Microsoft 3. MacLightning — Target 4. Microsoft Word — Microsoft 5. SuperPaint — Silicon Beach 6. Excel — Microsoft 7. MacDraw — Apple 8. MacDraft — Innovative Designs 9. Print Shop — Broderbund 10. FullPaint — Ann Arbor 11. Switcher Construction Set — Apple 12. Flight Simulator — Microsoft 13. Cricket Draw — Cricket 14. MacTerminal — Apple 15. MacWrite — Apple 16. File Maker Plus — Forethought 17. MacinTax — SoftView 18. Copy Il Mac — Central Point 19. Cricket Graph — Cricket 20. More — Living Videotext 21. File — Microsoft 22. MacServe — Infosphere 23. Dollars & Sense — Monogram 24. MacGolf — Practical Computer 25. OMNIS 3 Plus — Blyth ‘Source: 1987 IMS America Ltd HP LaserJet printers will support PostScript BY JIRI WEISS MacWEEK Staff BOISE, Idaho — Adobe Systems Inc.'s PostScript page description language received another boost recently when Hewlett-Packard Co. announced it will open its LaserJet printers to third-party printer control languages. ‘The announcement by Palo Alto, Calif.- based HP is in response to the recent announcement by IBM Corp. that it would ‘support PostScript in its new line of Personal System/2 computers and demands from LaserJet users for the fancy fonts, scaling and rotation that PostScript provides, according to Robert Fennell, senior industry analyst with Dataquest Inc.’s Printer Industry Service in San Jose, Calif. “We feel there should be multiple alternatives for the end user when it comes to choosing a page description language,” an HP spokeswoman said. HP says that as many as half of its installed base of 400,000 users may be interested in an upgrade to PostScript. The upgrade will likely come in the form of add-in boards for the PC or, in the case of the newer LaserJet Series II, for the commun- ication slot in the printer itself, an HP official says. The exact form of the upgrade will be left to third-party developers. But the cost of the upgrade, which will have to include at least 1 Mbyte of extra memory, is likely to be high — perhaps more than $1,000, Fennell says, making it highly unlikely that the LaserJet II will become a cheaper alternative to Apple Computer Inc.’s LaserWriter printer. The LaserJet II without an upgrade retails for $2,495; the lowest LaserWriter street price recorded by Dataquest was $3,600 in March. In addition to PostScript, LaserJet I printers will continue to support Imagen Corp.'s Document Description Language, which gives users control over an entire document rather than a page at a time. HP also announced that it is beefing up its own printer command language, PCL, which has the largest installed base of any printer command language, according to Fennel. With HP’s plans about implementing its new strategy unclear, the biggest winner has been Adobe. After the HP announcement, Adobe’s stock prices rose $2.75 to $48.50 per share. “We are very happy about the announce- ment,” Steve MacDonald, Adobe’s vice president of sales and marketing, said. il New MCI Mail program handles graphics WASHINGTON — MCI has mailed announcements to its phone customers touting the new program DeskTop Express that will shortly be available to all MCI Mail subscribers who use a Macintosh. Apple Computer Inc., MCI Communications Corp. and Dow Jones and Co. teamed up to introduce the new software package designed to let Macintosh users send and receive graphics and text via MCI Mail. ‘The program lets the MCI Mail subscriber use the full range of already established MCI services and adds the ability to send graphics created directly on the Mac. Tn addition to this previously impossible task, the program makes the process of transmitting text or graphics much easier for the person accustomed to the Mac. The program connects directly with the MCI mainframe computers, translating the company's communications language into the Macintosh format. Thus, users don't need to go through the usual MCI menus but can stick to the familiar Mac menus and icons. The first interactive communications program for the Macintosh, Desktop Express eases many of the formatting and text transmission difficulties of sending electronic mail, say MCI officials. Scheduled to be available in June from MCI and Apple dealers, the list price is $149. The package will work with any Macintosh with at least 512 Kbytes. With the Macintosh II, Desktop Express will transmit color graphics. The program requires two 400-Kbyte drives or one 800-Kbyte drive. ll PRIAM to produce Mac hard-disk systems BY GIL DAVIS Special to MacWEEK SAN JOSE, Calif. — PRIAM, a major hard disk manufacturer for IBM computers, plans to produce its own Macintosh 40- , 100- and 230- Mbyte hard-disk systems in June. PRIAM is already a leader in supplying Small Computer Standard Interface (SCSI) hard drives of 30-Mbyte to 85-Mbyte capacity for OEMs for IBM PCs and ATs, says a spokesman for PRIAM. More large disk-drive manufacturers will joi the growing Macintosh system market, predicts Jim Porter, an industry analyst with Disk/Trend Inc. in Los Altos, Calif. “PRIAM’s interest in this market verifies the impact desktop publishing is having on the computer industry in general, and the Macintosh world in particular,” he says, “(Desktop) publishing creates a need for great amounts of disk storage. PRIAM wants to fill that need.” Cambridge, Mass.-based General Computer, one of the oldest producers of hard-disk systems for the Macintosh, says PRIAM’s entry into this market represents a strong trend. “Tf you look at the number of PC peripheral producers that have entered the Macintosh arena in the past six months, you'll find it’s a considerable number,” said John Ison, marketing director for General Computer. “They're waking up to the fact that the Macintosh is a very serious business machine that represents a lot of opportunity for both users and suppliers.” Ison says General Computer has a 30-month start on developing hard-disk hardware and software for the Macintosh. ‘The SCSI market is especially attractive because Apple’s new Macintoshes require high-capacity, super-reliable hard-disks to store increasing amounts of valuable information, according to PRIAM officials. In the IBM-AT world, PRIAM sells hard- disk systems ranging in capacity from 40 Mbytes to 230 Mbytes. PRIAM sells more of these subsystems than any other manufacturer, according to the company. ll Makeasy connects Macs with VAX/VMS JIRI WEISS MacWEEK Stafff SARATOGA, Calif. — Macintosh users will soon be able to to run programs on Digital Equipment Corp.’s VAX/VMS computers without having to learn the VMS operating system, according to Eurosoft International Inc., a company representing European software makers in the United States. ‘The software connectivity package, called Makeasy, introduced at the MacWorld show in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, last month by an Italian company, list Srl, turns the Mac into a terminal that communicates with a host over a standard terminal connection or AppleTalk. Makeasy is designed for large companies that want to use Macintoshes and DECs in the same environment, said Bill Sullivan, Eurosoft’s product manager. “This way you can choose the best tool for the job. Many large corporations have invested in VMS,” he says, “And they tend also to be the companies that are now buying Macs.” Makeasy allows users to run multiple VMS applications and Mac programs from windows on the screen. Many common VMS applica- tions have icons associated with them, so they can be clicked open like other Mac programs, Complex VMS commands are displayed in menus. A user can configure required options without learning the commands. Makeasy users can upload and download any file by dragging an icon from one window to another. This also means users can overcome the storage limitations of a Mac hard disk by storing files on the host. The package also allows access to any printer on the network and the ability to send electronic messages. ‘The package also emulates the VT100 terminal, which allows the Mac user to perform any task that can be done on the mainframe terminal, Sullivan says. Makeasy may be distributed in the United States as early as July, although the timing, pricing and method of distribution are still being negotiated, according to Sullivan. ll LAWRENCE MAGID Editor's Note: Lawrence Magid, a senior analyst with The Seybold Group in San Jose, Calif., and a nationally syndicated columnist for the Los Angeles Times, joins MacWEEK as a regular columnist. “T could hear their thoughts: ‘Real men don’t use icons.” For the past two years, I’ve been suffering from a progressive disease — creeping Mac-ism. | fought it hard. As a long-time PC user, the last thing I wanted was to scrap my investment in hardware, software, data and knowledge. What's more, I love my PC and take great pride in the enormous accomplishment of having mastered its operating system and some of its most challenging business programs. I don’t mean to brag, but I guess I’m part of that elite corps of PC “power users.” Istill use my PC/AT, especially when I need to review new software and peripherals, but for the most part, I’ve given up all that power and prestige for a machine that was once best described as “cute.” Some of my friends still can’t believe my transformation. No one ever said it, but I could hear their thoughts: “Real men don’t use icons.” ‘The transition from the Mac to the PC didn’t happen overnight and it still isn’t complete. 1 got a Mac 512K shortly after it was introduced, but I mainly used it to test software and play with various graphic programs. Its most practi- cal use was to prepare overhead transparencies for my “Fully Powered PC” seminar. Last year I bought a Mac Plus. Its larger capacity drives and memory was a big improvement, but it still wasn’t enough to tempt me to forgo all the IBM PC software and data files I had amassed since early 1982. But late last year two developments began to change my view of the Mac. The first was a Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) hard disk; the second was the introduction of Microsoft Word 3.0. Thave some criticisms about the new version of Word, but it is much more powerful than any other Macintosh word processor currently on the market. As far as the Mac is concerned, it does for writers what Excel did for number crunchers. Word is the first of a new breed of serious Macintosh word processors. I’m anx- iously awaiting my evaluation copies of Word- Perfect and FullWrite, which promise greater power. A hard disk is indispensable for busi- ness use and that’s reflected in the SE’s option- al internal hard disk. I’m not sure 20 Mbytes is sufficient, but it’s a step in the right direction. Aside from reviewing PC software, my tran- sition to the Mac is almost complete. There are a few PC applications that are unavailable on the Mac, but for the most part, I’m happy with my Macintosh software library. Almost every program I use on the PC has a counterpart on the Mac that is as good or better. Most impor- tantly, Mac programs have similar interfaces. Learning new software is a breeze compared with the PC. That’s why I’m eager to review Mac software and dread breaking open a new PC program. | recently reviewed similar com- munication programs for both the PC and Mac. I mastered the Mac program in about 15 min- utes, with barely a glance at the manual. It took acover-to-cover reading of the documentation, several hours of practice and two phone calls to technical support before I was proficient on the PC version. Yech! Another benefit of the Mac is the ease with which data can be moved between applications. Nearly every program is able to use the Clip- board to read and write text and graphics. On the PC, you're lucky to be able to exchange text between programs. It’s rare when you can move graphics, Even database, spreadsheet and mail merge files are far more interchangeable on the Mac. Most programs are able to save and load standard text files with fields separat- ed by tabs or commas. While this convention is also available on the PC, it is not universally ‘supported or as easy to use. Ironically, the one thing I prefer about the PC is the MS-DOS operating system. No, I don’t prefer the C> prompt to the Macintosh desktop, but I do like the speed, flexibility and reliability of good old MS-DOS. What I miss mainly when using the Macintosh is the way it’s possible to customize the MS-DOS inter- face to meet the user’s needs. DOS comes with the facility to create “batch files” stored on the disk, that can be sequentially implemented by typing a command. Tused to work with an office manager who was an occasional PC user. She had no desire to master the intricacies of MS-DOS, the Mac, or any other operating system. What she wanted was a customized interface for using about three application programs. After I set up her system, all she had to do was turn on the machine and type the word “GO.” That launched a batch file that displayed a simple menu indicating the function keys she needed to press to enter each of her programs. Another key would backup her work to a flop- py disk. When she was done with a program, the batch file would redisplay the menu and wait for her next command. The system was extremely easy to use and took me only about an hour to set up. Creating such a “front-end” on a Mac would be a chal- lenge for even a top-flight programmer, let alone a typical end user. The corporate world needs the ability to create customized environ- ments. Managers want computers to serve the company’s needs and don’t want to be bound to Apple’s idea of a useful work environntent. My plea to Apple is simple. As you get ready to upgrade the operating system (we know you’re working on a multitasking ver- sion), give us the tools to have it our way. Apple’s engineers opened up the hardware, Apple’s programmers should do the same with the operating system, Soon both sides of the Mac/PC aisle will have serious competition in both hardware power and software interface. Let us hope that it leads to greater innovation and respect for the needs of users. I MacwWEEK BUSINESS WATCH May 18, 1987 What will Apple do with its stash of cash? BY TINA BACHEMIN Special to MacWEEK CUPERTINO, Calif. — With a cash balance of $700 million, Apple Computer Inc. recently declared its first stock split and cash dividend. The initial dividend relieves Apple of $32 mil- lion per year and leaves speculation as to what Apple will do with the rest of its stockpile. Apple’s nest egg is one of the largest in Sili- con Valley, doubling from $337 million in September 1985 to $700 million in the second quarter of this year, Interest from cash invest- ments contributed more than a quarter of Apple’s total profit for its 1986 fiscal year. This growing hoard of money reportedly is the result of a conservative investment policy of bank certificates of deposit, high-grade com- mercial paper and tax-exempt municipal bonds. ‘The current return on some of Apple’s cash is said to be a low 6 percent, but the stash earns nearly $100,000 in interest daily. Despite the recent two-for-one stock split and quarterly dividend of 12 cents per share before the split (6 cents per share after the split), the first payment of which will be made to stock- holders in June, some analysts say they think Apple’s substantial cash reserve is a drain on corporate earnings. “It is not useful from a return point of view,” says Bruce Lupatkin, an analyst with Hambretch & Quist in San Fran- sisco. He says he suspects Apple may be saving up for an acquisition. One avenue would be to vertically integrate the manufacturing of its products. “(Apple) could buy the company that makes the printer engine in LaserWrit- ers (Canon U.S.A. Inc.) or buy the company that presses the plastic for the Macs to further drive the cost out of their product,” he says. “It’s just not good to sit on all that money,” says Tim Bajarin, executive vice president of Cre- ative Strategies, a high-tech ~~ research firm in Cuper- Le Si ees . tino, Calif. He suggests Apple might increase its R&D budget as well as form other strategic partnerships, as it did with Adobe Systems Inc. of Palo Alto, Calif., to enhance the sales of its products. “It’s a very volatile year to call,” says Michael Murphy of the California Technology Stock Letter. “Companies feel better with a cushion, but Apple’s excess cash is really not that much. If IBM decides to pour $200 million into advertising PCs this Christmas, Apple might have to put more into advertising. And $200 million is a drop for IBM.” Even if a competitor did pull out all the stops for advertising, an Apple representative says that would not be a reason to dip into savings. He said Apple’s cash assets would typically not be used for such things, and that the firm’s Christmas marketing budget is well-defined. Yet Apple has numerous new products that will ship this summer and fall, which, accord- ing to Murphy, could be cash absorbing. “Apple’s cash reserves could dwindle in the face of having to carry dealers or develop new dealer floor plans. Also, what’s happening with prices from Japanese manufacturers makes this a very touchy time for not just Apple, but for the whole industry.” I ae SER 12: in : Trade sanctions against Japan bypass Apple BY HEATHER LEITCH Special to MacWEEK ‘The $300-million trade sanctions against Japan will not hurt Apple Computer Inc. or iis. third- party vendors because the sanctions only affect finished products, analysts say. “None of Apple’s current products will be affected,” says Bill Lempesis, research analyst with Dataquest Inc. in San Jose. “They’re man- ufactured in Singapore.” The trade sanctions place a 100-percent tariff on 16-bit and higher computers manufactured in Japan, says Desiree Tucker, director of pub- lic affairs for the International Trade Adminis- tration in Washington. Tucker says the adminis- tration originally presented computer manufac- turers with a much more extensive list of prod- ucts and asked them to narrow it down. Apple was concemed with some items on this list, according to Daryl Hatano, director of international trade for the Semiconductor Industry Association in Cupertino, Calif. “As originally planned, the sanctions would have affected some $3 billion worth of goods,” says Ken Lim, market intelligence analyst with Apple. “That affected products we all buy.” Included in the original $1.8 billion sanc- tions were CPUs, hard disk drives, mono- chrome monitors and floppy disks, according to Donald Creed, Commerce Department spokesman. The amended sanctions affect only about $180 million worth of goods in the lap- top and PC area, Creed says. Mainframe and less-powerful desktop and minicomputers are exempt. “We don’t have a computer that we import, so Idon’t see that we'll really be affected,” Apple’s Lim says, I MacWEEK May 18, 1987 BUSINESS WATCH ia @ File Edit Environment Design Font Style Layout Colors Structure for Personnel Mac database jumps into 4th Dimension BY DON CLARK Special to MacWEEK CUPERTINO, Calif. — They call it the 4th Dimension, and it’s not a hidden universe or a rock ‘n’ roll band but the latest in database software for the Mac. To Adam Green, a respected Massachusetts database consultant who has logged more than 200 hours using it, the program — known by insiders as Silver Surfer — represents an important new breed of database software. Jean-Louis Gassee, Apple's vice president of product development, calls it “the best database on any personal computer.” Guy Kawasaki was so taken with the program that last month he abandoned his new position as director of software development at Apple Computer Inc. to become the president of the company marketing the 4th Dimension, Acius Inc. “4th Dimension is not so much a product as an attitude ... an attitude of total control over your Macintosh, far beyond buying off-the- shelf horizontal applications,” Kawasaki says. “4th Dimension is an attitude of total control over your Macintosh.” Despite the heavenly talk, Kawasaki and his new-age database face fundamental market realities, says Michael Kenny, president of Blyth Software, maker of OMNIS 3 Plus, the No. | database package for the Macintosh and 4th Dimension’s primary competition. Both programs are high-end relational databases aimed at both single users and multiple applications. OMNIS is priced at $495; 4th Dimension is expected to be priced between $600 and $700 when it comes out this summer. Kawasaki would not tie the release to aspecific month, though he says the program is in final beta testing. Both packages are based on the fact that generic database software often must be customized for specific businesses. Here’s where OMNIS’ head start comes in. ‘The company claims to have 1,000 third-party developers who have built OMNIS-based packages in a wide variety of specialized fields, including accounting. Blyth, a privately held company with 90 employees, has established about 20 centers in the United States to help support developers. Acius wants to go after a similar range of customers by wooing the middle managers and power users who could do some simple custom programming themselves or call in specialized programmers for more complex applications. Along the way, Acius must replicate Blyth’s style of developer support, starting with little money and four employees. A key player in its catch-up effort will be Scott Knaster, another Apple refugee who wrote a widely used book, “How to Write Macintosh Software,” on programming for the Macintosh. He will work with third-party developers. “Having Scott Knaster teach you how to write applications is like having Doctor J. teach you basketball,” Kawasaki says. More central to the program’s future will be its technical attributes — notably a high- level, Pascal-like programming language and a user interface similar to MacDraw. Green and others say the combination makes it much easier to write vertical applications in Macintosh style; ‘one can quickly design pop-up menus and dialogue boxes that normally take many lines of conventional code and familiarity with the Mac’s programming manuals. Graphic images, such as maps and charts, can be used similarly to the way data files are handled in a better-known program such as dBase in the IBM world, Green says. The program’s graphic orientation and facility with laser printing forms and other documents led Green to coin the term “database publishing.” 4th Dimension can also be given commands that Omnis would not understand, such as retrieving an image from a scanner and putting it into a database field, he says. Kenny says 4th Dimension’s ease of use may be nice for simple, custom databases, but he claims the program runs a clear second in the more complicated applications at which OMNIS excels. He sees another advantage for his firm in its plan to tailor a version of OMNIS for the IBM Windows environment. “If you want to be a successful database player in that part of corporate America that is using both machines, you are going to have to have products that work in both environments,” Kenny says. An IBM diversion is the last thing on Kawasaki’s mind. “I’m not going to compromise the best database for the Mac by making it work for the PC,” he says. Another product with a head start on 4th Dimension is Northbrook, Ill.-based Odesta Corp.’s Double Helix. The product, which also has its share of proponents, relies heavily on the Mac interface in tailoring custom applications. Daniel Cheifetz, Odesta’s president, has not seen 4th Dimension but says any new database company will have to spend heavily to support developers and users. “Support and credibility are critical in the marketplace now,” he says. ‘Taking a middle position, Green predicts 4th Dimension’s features will win many new database users, but probably will not be sufficient to cause massive defections from Blyth’s installed base. “On the Macintosh, most users don’t have a database,” Green says. “4th Dimension will build the market.” i Scott Knaster Employees: [Employee Number R Last Name ry Departments First Name A [Department Name | [Department Code A Department Code A} ISalary R [Budget R Picture Pp Total Salary R Review Info x [Manager A Location 22 = Layout: Depthty ue QH Layout Prog Departments | If (Before) xName := [Employees JFirst Na End if Department Name [Department Na a If uring) =] Department Code ane | If (Rating>?S@) = # REJECT(Rating) Ee Budget [Budget] ALERT(“The maximum ratit = |v Total Sal Fratel Salaryl End if 3 {hw ‘50 160. | 150 00, 25q ice a ERLE Ce ‘The samurai was a driven man, a fighter whose loyalty to a patron was unshakeable. Mike Boich uses the term to describe Guy Kawasaki. “He still plays basketball every Saturday,” says Boich, the man who hired Kawasaki at Apple Computer Inc. in the summer of 1983. “If he needs to dive 6 feet and land on his stomach to catch a ball, he’s going to do it.” Few would dispute that Kawasaki applied a samurai’s dedication in his years as chief software evangelist for the Macintosh. With a relentless cheerleading style, he fought inside Apple for more resources for the developer community, building loyalty among program- mers to the company and its new computer. His own loyalty to the Cupertino, Calif., company remains strong. Even though he left Apple last month, Kawasaki refuses to comment on the company’s decision not to market the French-designed database he championed for a year. He doesn’t have to. It is widely accepted that major software companies put intense pressure on Apple not to put its own label on the 4th Dimension database program, code-named Silver Surfer. Jean-Louis Gassee, Apple’s vice president of product development, describes the dilemma: “If we aggressively promote something, we get in trouble ... The better the product, the more damage we do in our relationship with software developers.” The issue came to a head the last few days of April, when Apple announced that the company was getting out of the software business (see APPLE SOFT, page 3). With Apple yielding to the rebellious software lords, the job of marketing the 4th Dimension program has fallen to Kawasaki and Acius Inc., the new company he has planted across the street from Apple headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. His co- founders are Marylene Delbourg-Delphis and Laurent Ribardiere, the two principals in the French firm ACI, which developed 4th Dimension. The fourth member of the new team is Scott Knaster, who is leaving Apple as manager of developer support. Kawasaki, 32, came to Apple by way of Los Angeles-based EduWare Services and UCLA, where he earned a Master's degree in business administration. When he arrived in Cupertino, Boich was the one-man technical support and evangelism staff. Boich moved on within Apple and eventually left to start monitor maker Radius Inc., where he is president. Kawasaki stayed Samurai dedication characterizes Actus and built an organization of about 40 employees, thriving despite the internal conflict between founder Stephen Jobs and CEO John Sculley that strained the company in 1985. Though he is cutting formal ties, Kawasa- ki describes his new job as working for Apple from the outside. “If I am cut,” he is fond of saying, “I’ll always bleed in six colors.” It sounds too true-blue. Yet people who know Kawasaki well, believe that he left because of the 4th Dimension opportunity, however miffed he might have been about its fate at Apple. Boich, who has known him since undergraduate days at Stanford University, says the two men daydreamed together about startups while at Apple. The timing may be perfect. Though the Mac was a radical idea at the time of its in- troduction, the upgraded Mac is widely re- garded as the machine of choice for the most innovative developers. And IBM has overtly endorsed the idea of a graphical user interface through Microsoft’s Windows. “I believe my job is done at Apple,” Kawasaki says. His new mission — building customer loyalty to Acius — is likely to require more skills of the samurai. Kawasaki intends to bootstrap Acius without outside funding until it has made headway on its own. “T don’t envy him,” says David Winer, president of Living Videotext and a close friend. “The economics of running a modest size software company are vastly different from running something inside Apple. But I have a lot of faith in Kawa- saki. He’s doing everything I would do.” — By Don Clark PAUL MORRELL POWER TOOLS SideKick’: The Desktop Organizer, Release 2.0 $99.95 The desktop organizer for everyone! SideKick puts productivity into your Macintosh’ with desktop organization, information management, and telecommunications. With Outlook”: The Outliner you can organize your thoughts, and by adding some graphics turn them into overhead projector presentations people will remember. MacPlan™ is a powerful spreadsheet with graphing capabilities. In addition SideKick lets you: @ dial up a client ™ check your calendar f% jot down notes ( update your Reflex database @ log onto Dow Jones or CompuServe® @ edit your MacWrite™ document ™ use a full-function calculator Turbo Pascal’ $99.95 Fast, efficient and easy-to-use Turbo Pascal provides an elegant programming environment that lets you write, edit, compile, and run programs with speed and simplicity. Some of Turbo Pascal’s innovative features: ™ Compilation speed of greater than 12,000 lines per minute @ “Unit” structure lets you create programs in modular form M Options include compiling to disk or memory, or compile and run w@ No need to switch between programs to compile or run a program & Compatible with HFS f Unlimited use of available Macintosh memory Reflex’: The Database Manager $99.95 Now everyone can easily manage data Reflex is a visual database manager that gives you amazing control over your data. It combines the analytic capability of a relational database with the number-crunching power of a spreadsheet—without programming. You can learn the program in a few hours and then get right to the task at hand of managing those facts and figures. Reflex features include: ™ Easy-to-use visual database design @ “What you see is what you get” report and form layout with pictures @ Automatic restructuring of database files when data types are changed or fields are added and deleted Use of all available memory to avoid accessing disk ™ Export/Import to/from standard or non-standard ASCII files, the Clipboard, and Microsoft® Word mailmerge Templates to get you started, including checkbook, inventory, client billing and much more = For the dealer nearest you or to order by phone call —— 4585 SCOTTS VALLEY DRIVE =z, BORLAND SCOTTS VALLEY, CA 95066 (800)255-8008 INTERNATIONAL (408) 438-8400 TELEX: 172373 in CA (800) 742-1133 in Canada (800) 237-1136 ‘il products require a Macintosh 512K or Macintosh Pus wih one isk tive. Second externa dive recommended fr Rellex. Hard disk recommended fr Sidekick. Sidekick, Reflex, and Turbo Pascal are registred trademarks and Outlook and MacPlan are trademarks of Boland Inleratona Inc. or Boriand/Anaiytica, Inc. Other brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of thet respective holders. Copyright 1987 Borland international Bl 1124 MacWEEK WBA sey ts, 1987 | MARKETWEBK Focus: Word Processors According to an exclusive MacWEEK telephone survey completed in April by Creative Strategies of Santa Clara, Calif., 99 percent of all large- organization Macintosh users use a word processor. Although MacWrite was bundled with the Macintosh from January 1984 through January 1986, Microsoft Word was able to capture a 56 percent market share among word processing users. MacWrite came in second with a 3percent share. WriteNow from T/Maker of Sunnyvale, Calif. introduced in October 1986, has a 3 percent market share. Two other word processors also mentioned include MindWrite, - marketed by MindWork of Monterey, Calif. and Word Handler, by Advanced Logic Systems of Sunnyvale, Calif. WORD PROCESSING MARKETSHARE Mierson Word 56% MacWEEK/Laslo Vespremi USER OPINIONS OF WORD PROCESSORS EB Fair [Bi] Good [i ver Good Write Now MacWrite Microsoft Word When asked to rate their word processors on a scale of “very good” to “poor,” the two most versatile word processors, Microsoft Word and WriteNow, received significantly higher “very good” scores. These results indicate quite clearly that the powerful word processors have achieved ready acceptance in corporate America. Since no one rated their word processor as poor, one can readily assume that end users simply will not tolerate low-performance programs. An interesting correlation to the varying degrees of satisfaction appears to be the number of Macintoshes at the user site. Survey results found a definite pattern of higher satisfaction at larger sites. For example, the average number of Macintoshes at work sites where users rated word processors “very good” is 84. At companies with an average of 30 Macintoshes, word processors rated merely good; smaller work groups expressed the highest degree of discontent. One reason word processors receive better ratings at large companies may be because these organizations are more apt to provide essential training and technical support for their employees. In addition, in large organizations, user inefficiency may be lessened by the immediate accessibility to experienced assistance. WORD PROC BY COMPANY SIZ : ' H Source: MacWEEK 1987, Creative Strategies The survey also points to a relationship between company size and word processing brands. Larger organizations appear much more likely to purchase software that is well-known, widely distributed and at the top of the best- seller ranks. In contrast, smaller organizations are more likely to rely on lesser-known or low-cost brands. The tendency of larger corporations to choose familiar software brands, such as Microsoft, a well-established MS-DOS manufacturer, also can not be dismissed. This finding shows that stable, well-funded software vendors enjoy a definite advantage in software marketing. ‘The MarketWEEK survey is conducted exclusively for MacWEEK by Creative Strategies Research, a high-technology research and consulting firm based in Santa Clara, Calif. For this survey, 510 corporate and other volume users were randomly selected from the MacWEEK subscriber database. Respondents were surveyed by telephone and 306 usable questionnaires were obtained, resulting in a 60 percent response rate. WEIGHING THE MERITS Word Processing Software Compared “Those who write on the Mac have long had to make do with a small and unsatisfying selection of pro- grams. that has begun to change= -.. After years of stagnation, the marketplace for Macintosh word processing software has finally come alive. Those who write on the Mac have long had to make do with a small and unsatisfying selec- tion of programs. In other areas, such as spreadsheets, communications programs, graphics and page-layout software, the best Macintosh software has matched or outper- formed comparable products for the IBM PC, but the same could not be said of the available word processors. MacWrite, a standard by default since 1984 — when there were no alternatives — remains easy to use and reliable but lacks the speed and features that writers and business users have come to expect in word processing software. Until recently, the only serious alternative was Microsoft Word. The 1.0 version, intro- duced in 1985, offered much more power and flexibility than MacWrite, but it, too, suffered from sluggish performance and awkward for- matting procedures. Now all >” Despite the deficiencies of these programs, competition was slow to appear. Because Apple bundled MacWrite with every Macin- tosh it sold — a marketing strategy discontin- ued in early 1986 — there was simply no opening at the low end. Relying on its prestige and marketing clout, Microsoft maintained a tight grip on the high- end word processor market. A growing clamor for more speed and features was unanswered for nearly two years. ‘The unbundling of MacWrite and the upsurge in Mac sales changed all that. New software companies are quickly moving in to fill the void. In the past six months, four new word processors for the Mac have appeared, Microsoft finally released a new version of Word, and a new release of MacWrite is imminent. In addition, two new high-powered pro- grams are due for release later this year. Ann Arbor Softworks of Ann Arbor, Mich., has publicly demonstrated an impressive package called FullWrite Professional, while Orem, Utah-based WordPerfect Inc. has announced a Macintosh version of its highly successful WordPerfect. In thi ¢, MacWEEK reviews five recent releases. Each offers many features missing from prior-generation word processors. How- ever, as the reviews indicate, the quest for the ultimate Mac word processor has only begun. MacWEEK' s software ratings are based on each program’s features, reliability, speed, ease of leaning and ease of use. The quality of the manuals and customer support for the product and the overall value of the package are also considered in our rating. We offer a summary score, on a scale from one to five stars, but keep in mind that the program with the highest score is not necessarily best for you. An excel- lent program may lack features you require; another that is deficient in some areas may suit your needs admirably. The chart on page 24 compares the features of the products evalu- ated, along with good stand-by MacWrite. : 5 a z g WriteNow T-Maker ww & 1973 Landings Drive, Mountain View, Calif. 94043; (415) 962-0195 $105 (street price); $175 (list price) WriteNow is ideal for moderate word process- ing needs, but is lacking valuable features. WriteNow was designed with ease of use and minimum memory requirements in mind. It is ideal for Macintosh novices and for experienced users with moderate word processing needs. WriteNow works well for producing letters and simple books. Unfortunately, WriteNow isn’t as good as it could be. A few of its features behave strangely, and it lacks features such as mail merge, an out- liner, index and table of contents generation, style sheets, decimal aligned tabs and support for the cursor keys. Continued on next page ‘AppleTalk Network Multilalk makes your Applelalk. Presenting MultiTalk™ from Abaton. Very few peripherals today, other than the Apple® LaserWriter,® can be shared by Macintosh™ users over an AppleTalk network. Which means higher-priced devices—such as modems, scanners, plotters, daisywheel printers and more—are limited to use by one person. So companies often don’t invest in them. But what if these devices could be shared by more people? Suddenly, they become truly cost-effective options. Now there’s MultiTalk. So these devices can start “AppleTalking”’ MultiTalk is a simple concept—the first of its kind. It takes serial devices that don’t normally function over AppleTalk and makes them accessible to every user on the network. MultiTalk is easy to set up. Just plug it into AppleTalk —anywhere you like—then connect up to three serial devices. It’s also easy to use. In fact, if you’re familiar with Macintosh, you already know how to use MultiTalk. Simply run the application you need, then select the device you want to use from the available choices: modem, scanner, plotter, etc. That’s it. MultiTalk does the rest. And you can attach up to four MultiTalks to each AppleTalk network.Which means up to twelve devices can be at your “point & click’ Extend the flexibility of your peripherals and your AppleTalk network today by visiting your authorized Apple dealer or by calling Abaton at (415) 463-8822. We'll show you how to make the most effective use of your resources. And how to make ends meet. Apple, LaserWriter and AppleTalk are registered trademarks and Macintosh is a trademark of Apple Computer, Inc. Abaton Technology Corporation 7901 Stoneridge Drive Pleasanton, CA 94566 Continued from previous page Features WriteNow’s most outstanding feature is its user interface. Even a new user who only knows the basic Macintosh operations can start up WriteNow, open a document and accom- plish what he wants to do without much trouble. WriteNow’s major weakness is its limited ability to deal with other file formats. The pro- gram cannot read or write files in any format other than its own. Although it is shipped with a separate application called Translator that can WriteNow places a footnote marker in the main text and opens a window called the Footnote View where the body of the note can be typed. Footnotes can only be at the bottom of the page or column in which they are referenced. The program does not allow end notes. \ WriteNow lets users automatically stamp th page number, time and/or date anywhere on the page. The time and date stamps print the time and date when the document starts printing. If you want a different time or date, it must be typed in manually. WriteNow handles graphics easily via the Clipboard. If the graphic is shorter than the height of the line containing the insertion point, itis placed right in that line. Otherwise, it is placed between lines. All commands for posi- tioning text, including tabs, spaces, leading, superscript and subscript, work just the same on graphics as on text. The program also allows the user to scale graphics by selecting and dragging to make them smaller or larger, but WriteNow is unable to wrap text. WriteNow’s approach to adjusting line spacing doesn’t allow the user to simply select single or double. Line spacing can only be changed by increasing or decreasing the height of the lines in point size. Paragraph format changes are usually made in the ruler, but the format of one paragraph can be copied and applied to another. WriteNow lets the user change the format of a single paragraph, all selected paragraphs or just the paragraphs that have the same format as the first selected paragraph. The authors of WriteNow have included fea- tures that more applications should have. When you save, WriteNow automatically keeps a Continued on next page convert text, MacWrite and Microsoft Word L xx files to WriteNow format, this method is awkward and noticeably slower than the meth- ols toe by Obes Yond ses “Working for three managers Pro-Tec talks tome about WriteNow is designed to make it easy to isareal challenge! Memos ‘systems-compatible’ computer place text where it’s wanted on the page. Pages used to get totally mixed up. papers for all my printers, I can be up to 13 inches wide with up to four Now, with ProTech Laser icons Nom Bars haus, columns per page. When the “Show Space” Colors, I assign each of my firmware, software and option in the format menu is selected, bosses a color. Harry is cherry. Pro-Tech paperware.” WriteNow shows an outline of the portion of Lawrenceis lilac. And —MIS/DP Manager Mary is canary’ the page that will print on the printer being used. This is a useful feature for people who use both ImageWriters and Laser Writers since- each prints on a different area of the page. — WniteNow = Secretary Zz g zZ g 2 z = ra 5 Zz 4a WriteNow’s column display keeps the pro- gram from being a truly WYSIWYG word pro- cessor. When more than one column is dis- played on the screen, each succeeding column is displayed slightly higher than the previous column. The documentation warns of this and explains that the columns print as they should. WriteNow documents cannot be divided into sections, which means that when two columns are wanted, the entire document, except for the headers and footers, must be in two columns. Also, all columns must be the same width. They can be different on every page and can each be up to one-fourth the height of the page. Head- ers and footers can contain graphics and text, but they cannot be divided into columns. Using headers and footers in WriteNow, it is “New technologies. I get excited