Bits and Pieces
My Mac Magazine #21, Jan. ’97

Grant Cassiday Bits and Pieces Leave a comment

THE BE BUZZ THAT WAS
All the hollering over the Apple/NeXT deal can’t get rid of some previous developments on the Be front. The attention Be was getting from the world as a result of the attention it was getting from Apple led to some interesting developments. Some of the recent reporting on Be: (from Information Week, Dec. 2):

  • “Be Inc. is promising a powerful new OS for handling complex digital and multimedia projects.” All the fun, and somehow elusive, things we keep being promised are said to be in store: protected memory, preemptive multitasking, symmetric multiprocessing, etc.
  • There are rumors that an independent Be could hurt Apple by competing for customers in Apple’s strongest market, high-end graphics and design users. Adobe (the company that has a lock on all those graphics and publishing types) has admitted that it’s beginning to size up the BeOS. That may change, however, with the NeXT news.
  • Be is beginning to work on the mightily important emulation programs that will enable Mac applications to run under the BeOS.
  • While PowerComputing has now struck its own private distribution deal with Be, others, like Umax, were waiting for the green light from Apple. That green light, of course, will not come now.THE MACQUISITION
    NeXT cost Apple $400 million. One of Be’s main problems was that it had slapped a price tag of $500 million on itself. Apple reportedly wanted a sale price of $100 million. In Infoworld’s December 2nd issue, gossip columnist Robert X. Cringely declared that the $100 million offer was plenty for Be to buzz about. Of course, as pointed out by the November 18th issue of Inter@ctive Week, outright sale of Be to Apple was never the only possibility; licensing the BeOS was also an option for Apple.

    POWER NOTES
    “The wait seems to be over.” This from Information Week (Nov. 25) in its article describing Motorola’s attempts to deliver PowerPC motherboards for use in computers capable of running multiple operating systems (Windows NT, Mac OS, and Unix). The design of this motherboard was the result of a project called Yellowknife. Umax will be the first company to produce Yellowknife systems.

    Meanwhile, PC Week (Dec. 9) was reporting on growing doubts that IBM will continue plans to build equipment using PowerPC systems. This has Microsoft making noise that version 5.0 of Windows NT might not be the PowerPC-friendly system they are currently planning on it being. “…If the major hardware companies all call us tomorrow and say they’re changing direction, then we’ll change our plans.”

    And as proof that computer industry reporters have no interest in sharing information and writing each other’s stories the way Washington’s political reporters do, Infoworld (Nov. 25) wrote a very different article than Information Week and PC Week. Instead of focusing just on Motorola (like the former), or on IBM (like the latter), Infoworld simply reported that both companies were showing off their PowerPC motherboards at the Comdex show. No doubts about IBM’s commitment were expressed (although most of the PC press sides with PC Week on this one).

    OLD NEWS FROM THE OLD WORLD
    The happy faces of the Mac OS logo were staring out of the front page of the November 20th edition of Britain’s Network News. Accompanying the article inside was the headline “Apple’s continued OS confusion mars beta launch of MacOS Runtime for Java.” Runtime lets Mac OS developers make Java applets and applications. But Network News denied that Copland is officially dead … just a victim of Apple’s generally unclear OS plans. (On this side of the Atlantic, we’re pretty sure there will be no System named Copland.)

    AppleCyber
    Web Week gave a chunk of it’s December 2nd issue to the voice of Larry Tesler, Apple Computer’s vice president of Internet platforms. In a Q&A interview format, Web Week lobbed him a few inviting questions that enabled him to promote Apple’s successes in Internet technology and its popularity among Web developers. He also took time to spin the idea of Apple as a major Intranet player, painting a picture of Apple’s future supplying hardware and technology to the Webmasters of corporate America.

    In a happy moment for Apple’s PR department, Infoworld Canada continued the focus on Apple’s great Web hope with its November headline (accompanied by mug shot of CEO Gilbert Amelio). First, it was explained that Gil is a very sharp fellow to be sitting out the browser war being fought by Netscape and Microsoft. People can browse all they want to, the strategy seems to go, and as the browse, they’ll be looking at Apple. This will be the result, Apple hopes, of all the products listed in the article as cutting-edge technologies coming from the makers of the Mac. Among them: HotSauce, OpenDoc (don’t forget about the Sun/Java Beans alliance), V-Twin, QuickDraw, and QuickTime. Oh, and Amelio apparently declared that “the final upgrade version of Copland (i.e., the technologies formerly known as System 8) which will tie together the incremental releases, is now expected to be released in (the second quarter of) 1997.” Hmmm. Was that before or after NeXT?

    SOLAR POWER
    SunExpert Magazine (November 1996) had a smaller than expected but optimistic little article on the new partnership between Sun Microsystems and Apple Computer. “The thing about Apple,” one Sun division president is quoted as saying, “is that they do some things very, very well, like multimedia. But they’ve never been very good at network management.” (Well, I suppose that depends on what kind of network you’re trying to manage.) At any rate, SunExpert thinks the cooperation will bear fruit, making Apple computers work much better, and soon, with Sun’s servers. The publication also has high hopes for the interaction between OpenDoc and Java Beans. “In one fell swoop, OpenDoc and QuickTime achieve platform independence, while Java developers can substantially expand the scope of their development projects…. (that) suggests that Sun and Apple could make quite a mark on the future of the Web.”

    I was quite surprised to find this past week that that mark is apparently already being made. Computerworld (Nov. 25) ran a story on OpenDoc being used in conjunction with Java Beans by the University of Utah “to help doctors diagnose and treat their patients.” Everyone is extremely excited by the possibilities, potential, etc. But I’ve honestly got to admit that the real story in this article is the name of one of the doctors interviewed for the story: Dr. Sky Blue.

    REVIEWS
    PC Magazine unglued its eyes from the Intel world to briefly give a favorable review to a couple of Apple products. First up was the new Newton 2.0 operating system for Apple Newtons. The writer really enjoyed the ability to turn the screen display sideways for a landscape view of the work area, but just couldn’t resist complaining that the system upgrade couldn’t be accomplished via a download. Your little Apple will have to be sent back to the mother ship for the metamorphosis to occur. Also reviewed (with much less enthusiasm) was the Apple QuickTake 150. Basically, it surprised them that it came as close to its digital camera competition as it did. “Despite its limitations … the camera is noteworthy for a reliable level of picture quality.”

    FIGHTING WORDS
    Few magazines are as mean-spirited towards Apple as Upside. I’ve recorded some of this publication’s jaw-dropping sneers at Macintosh in the past. The December issue carried a column discussing the Macworld Expo. This particular piece was written tongue-in-cheek, but still … read over some of these quotes:

  • “Macworld Expo is … a self-contained, self-righteous ecosystem comfortably insulated, at least in mind-set, from the disturbing Wintel infidels….”
  • “To the True Believers sealed in Moscone Center … Redmond is the seat of the Evil Empire and its works the emanations of the Prince of Darkness.”
  • “Apple is to this show what Lenin was to the former Soviet Union … just another of the self-indulgent and zany realities of Apple’s Mad Tea Party.”Speaking of self-indulgent, Upside decided to repeat its occasional “Upside’s Elite 100” list in the December issue. Such lists are a fun way for people who write magazines to make their printed opinions seem even more official. This list is supposed to rank people currently “running the show” in the combined worlds of the information technology, media, and telecommunications industries. The top 20 positions are littered with Microsoft (Gates was #1), Intel (#2), Sun, Netscape, Oracle, IBM, and even FCC officials. Apple’s CEO was number 17. Could be worse; AOL’s Steve Case was number 27.

    Well, O.K., things were worse in Inter@ctive Week ‘s similar year-end poll. In the December 2nd issue of the magazine, the publisher’s list of the top 25 “Driving Forces of Cyberspace” was printed. Gates was #1 again. Case moved all the way up to #7. No Apple names appeared. However, in yet another one of those ‘self-indulgent and zany realities’ of Apple Computer, Inter@ctive Week published in the same issue this little MacToid: 28.2% of all Internet access is by Macs, making it the #2 operating system on the Net. Number one is Windows 95 which just barely squeaks by Mac OS with 28.54%. I suppose “Driving Force” is in the eye of the beholder.

    MacToids

  • More than 70% of the multimedia files in existence have been created in the QuickTime environment.(Infoworld, Dec. 2)
  • “In 1995, 66% of all multimedia authoring tools were sold for the Macintosh platform….” (SunExpert, November.)
  • “During its most recent quarter, more than half of sales for authoring toolmaker Macromedia Inc. came from its software designed for Apple Computer Inc.’s Macintosh.” (Inter@ctive Week, Dec. 9.)
  • Former Apple executive (and chief operating officer) Delbert Yocam has moved into the top office of Borland International Inc. (Information Week, Dec. 2)
  • Apple CEO Gilbert Amelio was the cover boy of the mid-December issue of Forbes magazine. Shown with a tower of Macintosh boxes, the headline quotes Amelio as saying that everything Bill Gates has ever sold will become obsolete. (I hate to be picky, but, of course it will. That’s the point of things like software upgrades, isn’t it?)
  • The man at Apple in charge of Copland has resigned. (Was this a writing-on-the-wall incident or what?) His duties and responsibilities have been taken over by (the now more prominent than ever) Ellen Hancock. (Information Week, Nov. 25)

    Grant Cassiday (GBCassiday@aol.com)

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