CONTENTS

DATAQUEST: “A THIRD OF U.S. HOMES WILL HAVE PC IN 1996”
For the personal computer to continue its long term growth, it must expand its penetration in the home market. According to market research firm Dataquest, a Gartner Group Company based in San Jose, Calif., at the end of this year, 32.6% of all U.S. homes will have a PC (see table). MORE>

BILL GATES DISCOURSES ON THE PC THE NEXT MAJOR HOME APPLIANCE
On April 1, 1996, Bill Gates chairman and CEO of Microsoft Corp. in Redmond, Wash. made a speech before the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WINHEC 1996) in San Jose, Calif. Early in his presentation Gates said, "we still have a long way to go to make the PC an appliance," and he spent his remaining time explaining how he expected it to happen. MORE>

SIMPLY INTERACTIVE PC EFFORT LAUNCHED
On April 1, 1996, Microsoft Corp. unveiled the Simply Interactive PC (SIPC) framework of hardware technologies for Windows PCs. With a SIPC system, a PC neophyte can play games, watch movies or TV programs, browse the World Wide Web, connect to a stereo or VCR, listen to voice mail or write e-mail. MORE>

TELEVISION AND PC COMBINED IN ONE, A CONSUMER BOON OR BOONDOGGLE?
On March 21, Gateway 2000 in North Sioux City, S.D., and NetTV Inc. of San Rafael, Calif. (story far right) introduced big screen television combined with a Pentium-based PC. Both are betting that consumers will want to browse the Internet as a family unit. The product drew praise and condemnation from market analyst. MORE>

GATEWAY 2000 DIMENSION COMBINATION PC AND TV
Destination is a PC-TV convergence product from Gateway 2000 of North Sioux City, S.D. The key components include the following: touchpad-equipped wireless keyboard and a wireless Field Mouse, Big screen VGA monitor, video card containing the MediaStream chipset from Brooktree Corp., San Diego, Calif., and hi-fi wavetable sound card for integration with home stereo systems. MORE>

TELEVISION TIED TO PC
WorldVision is a dark tube TV monitor from NetTV of San Rafael, Calif. A computer monitor and digital television with twice the resolution of conventional TVs, it comes in 29-in, 33-in. or 37-in. sizes. It has separate video, computer, and audio inputs. Integral RCA audio output jacks connect a stereo system for a home theater. A quad-speed CD-ROM player, 125 channel cable TV tuner with Channel Lock-out, video capture, 3D stereo sound output, and arcade-game controller. MORE>

DEMONSTRATING THE FUTURE PERSONAL COMPUTER APPLIANCE
On Monday April 1, 1996, Bill Gates, chairman and president of Microsoft Corp. in Redmond, Wash. showed a concept personal computer. It was designed to be as easy to use as any common household appliance. The Hewlett-Packard Company of Palo Alto, Calif. worked with Microsoft to develop the system that both hope will be at home in the study, the kitchen or the family room. MORE>

ONNOW DESIGN INITIATIVE ARCHITECTURE SUMMARY
• Enhanced core operating system functionality for power management. In the OnNow architecture, the operating system can direct power management by coordinating activities at all levels and defining the power-state transitions for the overall system. Microsoft will enhance future Windows operating system versions with the capability. MORE>

SOFTWARE SALES SHOW SOFTNESS
The Software Publishers Association (SPA) of Washington, D.C. announced last month that combined sales of PC application software in the U.S. and Canada was $7.53 billion in 1995, a 12% jump from a revised $6.7 billion in 1994. Fourth quarter 1995 sales were $2.07 billion, down 8.8 % from Q4 94, when sales were a record $2.27 billion. For the year, unit sales in North America increased 60% and were up 35% for Q4 95 over Q4 1994. Worldwide unit sales increased 37% for Q4 95 and 71% for the year. MORE>

MICROSOFT AND PC MAKERS BACK NEW POWER MANAGEMENT INITIATIVE
The Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WINHEC 1996) in San Jose, Calif. on April 1 was the venue Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft Corp. and major computer PC companies chose to launch a major initiative. Called OnNow, the industry initiative aims to create PCs and peripherals that are instantly ready to operate at all times. MORE>

MAGAZINE PREDICTS PC SALES SLOWDOWN IN ‘96
Trade publication Computer Reseller News of Manhasset, N.Y. is predicting a slow 1996 for PCs. Unit sales to large firms will grow modestly in the second half of 1996 CRN says. However, the magazine predicts sales to smaller companies will remain strong through Q2, though growth rates will not be as high as they were in the first quarter. MORE>

MICROSOFT’S “INSTANT ON” PC INITIATIVE
• The PC responds to wake-up events—faxes, e-mail or user requests to browse the Internet—even when it appears to be off. During its power down state, the PC uses little energy. MORE>

GATES DESCRIBES CYBERSPACE CHAT AT INTERNET CONFERENCE
At the Building Internet Applications, Professional Developers Conference in San Francisco on March 13, 1996, Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corp. in Redmond, Wash. demonstrated the future of Internet interactive gaming and chat. MORE>

WIRELESS HIGH BANDWIDTH INTERNET ACCESS
In early March, Visual Communications Network, Ltd. of New York City launched a wireless multi-media data service network. The network allows television-like, two-way video conferencing, e-mail and data storage/retrieval over a wireless network. MORE>

ETHERNET CREATOR PREDICTS A TEMPORARY INTERNET CATASTROPHE
When he worked at Xerox in the late 1970s Dr. Robert Metcalfe, invented the Ethernet. Today, the vice president of technology for International Data Group (IDG) and executive correspondent for InfoWorld, an IDG publication is predicting a remission for the Internet in 1996. He suggests that amidst high expectations from the public, industry and the government, the Internet “is going to suffer catastrophic collapses in 1996, at least temporarily.” MORE>

RESEARCH FIRM SEES HOT FIREWALL MARKET
One of the hottest markets for the Internet is firewall, Firewalls reject all traffic unless the system or network manager specifically allows it. This method of filtering is considered to be the highest level of security isolation for corporations‘ internal networks. MORE>

GATES INTRODUCES EXCHANGE AT NETWORLD+INTEROP CONFERENCE
There is a pell-mell rush to increase commerce over the ubiquitous, worldwide Internet. To enable such electronic dealings has required an operating system that facilitates information interchange while providing security against theft. MORE>

DATA WAREHOUSING TOOL MEASURES SYSTEM EFFICIENCY
In the face of increasing responsibilities and shrinking resources, IT professionals need a service-delivery structure that helps them make faster, better-informed decisions about cost management and preparation for future growth as well as technology. Everyone in the IT organization benefits from a service-delivery solution. MORE>

INTERNET, DATA BASES, AND CLIENT-SERVER: THE NEW COMMERCE MEDIUM
The growth of the Internet, improvements in data base technology, and widespread adoption of client-server computing is creating an entirely new model for commerce in the U.S. To understand this change requires an explanation of the evolution of computing in American business. MORE>

SOFTWARE ENABLE ELECTRONIC COMMERCE
In the past, electronic commerce was hampered by the need to navigate in and out of the on-line shopping catalog to process transactions. Now, Washington, D.C.-based CDI Commerce Direct International Inc. uses ActiveX technologies from Microsoft Corp. of Redmond, Wash. in its Self Serve Software to make on-line transactions part of a Web page. MORE>

NETWORK DEMANDS NEW PARADIGM FOR DISK STORAGE SUBSYSTEMS
Efforts among major systems, storage subsystem, and disk drive vendors to invent a Network Attached Secure Disks (NASD) architecture will result in a new storage subsystem paradigm by the late 1990s, according to recently published research from International Data Corporation (IDC) of Framingham, Mass. MORE>

NETWORK READY STORAGE EMERGING PARADIGM
Market research firm Strategic Research Corp. of Santa Barbara, Calif. is predicting a new storage system paradigm that it calls network ready storage. One reason this new storage architecture is gathering support is the problem information system managers have disk storage to existing network systems. MORE>

IBM ANNOUNCES ENHANCEMENTS OF ITS RAMAC RAID SYSTEM AT CEBIT 96
Continuing growth in on-line storage in large enterprise networks has been a boon to suppliers of redundant arrays of independent disks (RAID) subsystems. Among those include the IBM Storage Systems Division in San Jose, Calif. Last month, at the CeBIT 96 trade show in Hannover, Germany, IBM announced enhancements to its RAMAC Array and 3990 Model 6 Storage Control. MORE>

RAMAC WINS RAID SURVEY
Xephon, an independent market research firm located in Newbury, Berkshire, U.K., regularly surveys a panel of nearly a thousand mainframe users worldwide on a variety of topics of interest to IS management. MORE>

KODAK CONTINUES TO DEVELOP ITS 14-IN. OPTICAL STORAGE OFFERINGS
The Eastman Kodak Co. of Rochester, N.Y. is the only U.S. manufacturer of 14-in. optical disk drives. At the Association of Information and Image Management Conference in Chicago, at the end of March, the company rolled out a new version of the drive. MORE>

OPTICAL STORAGE MARKET STRUGGLES ON
The optical disk drive market has been difficult from its inception. The drive never found a high volume application that drove unit price down. In addition, collective industry R&D could not keep optical’s per megabyte price below magnetic storage. Finally, industry participants took a long time to agree on standards. MORE>

RESEARCH PREDICTS FOUR-FOLD GROWTH IN MEDICAL IMAGING MARKET
One major target for optical storage is the worldwide medical image management systems market (see Kodak story on p.11 for more). Last year, Mountain View, Calif. based market research firm Frost & Sullivan published a report showing the market will grow by over four fold, expanding from $219 million in 1993 to over $1 billion by the year 2000 at a 24% compound annual rate. MORE>

JUKEBOX PLAY VARIETY OF OPTICAL MEDIA
At the Association of Information and Image Management Conference in Chicago, Disc, Inc. of Milpitas, Calif. introduced a quad-function CD/Optical jukebox. MORE>

STUDY SHOWS COMPANIES VIEW INTERNET BUSINESS DIFFERENTLY
Nearly eight out of 10 telecommunications executives say interactive multimedia is dramatically altering the way their companies market and sell products and services. Telecom leaders plan to use interactive multimedia to conquer markets, but their vision may be less clear to their employees handling the day-to-day impact of huge technological, regulatory and market changes. MORE>

DATABASE STORES DIGITAL PHOTOS
Last month, the Optical Systems Division of Marshall Electronics Inc. of Culver City, Calif. introduced Snap & Pop, an instant video database for the PC. Snap & Pop stores snapshots from a live video camera directly into database records. Just focus, hit the Snap key and the picture is part of the database. MORE>

HOW TO SEND UNIQUELY FORMATTED DOCUMENTS OVER INTERNET INTACT
One of the problem created by the Internet is the inability to create a document and transfer it to a distant location with all its formatting intact. It emerges at the receiver as text with numerous unrecognizable characters. MORE>

SOFTWARE PROVIDES COMMON INTERFACE FOR DESKTOP IMAGING APPLICATIONS
PC GATE from PC DeskGate Inc. of Arlington, Va. uses Windows OLE and OCX components along with the Wang Image Viewer to provide a single, consistent interface for desktop scanning as well as capture and storage of internet content and electronic mail, text, images, video and sound to a common desktop location or “Vault.” Once saved to the Vault, all the data is centrally located for easy access and can be compressed on demand for: MORE>

HP TARGETS MEDIUM TO LARGE CORPORATIONS WITH BACK-UP TAPE
A frightening number of corporate networks have no backup protection for what is often critical data says Robert Hill, marketing manager for HP's Computer Peripherals Division in Bristol, England. In many cases, networks lack proper backup because of the cost or complexity of implementing a solution. MORE>

SMARTCD SERVES WINDOWS NT
With a 79% increase in spending for Windows NT servers from 1994 to 1995, the demand for a Windows NT CD storage solution is UP said Gary Brach, president of Smart Storage.Inc. in Waltham, Mass. MORE>

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