CONTENTS

INTERNET SOFTWARE ENJOYS EXPLOSIVE GROWTH
The hottest high tech market today is the Internet. A recent survey International Data Corp. of Framingham, Mass. conducted revealed 30% of U.S. business users intend to use the Internet and 40% of them will do so in 1996. The study showed 36% of existing sites see internal servers as alternatives to groupware products, such as Lotus Notes, whereas 37% do not. Respondents unsure (27%) will be the deciding factor. MORE>

RESEARCH REVEALS INTERNET USAGE AT OFFICE LINKED TO HOME
A recent report from Forrester Research Inc. of Cambridge, Mass. found corporate and consumer on-line markets are two sides of the same coin. This contrasts with the widespread belief among Internet access vendors and content providers. The commonly held view is they can avoid the complexities of the consumer market by focusing on business customers. MORE>

SURVEY SHOW MAINFRAME USE DOWN, WINDOWS 95 USE UP
International Data Corp. of Framingham, Mass. recently completed the U.S. segment of its fifth annual global information technology survey. The study examines IT directions and spending patterns. The market research firm conducted 12,000 in-depth interviews with small, medium, and large businesses in the United States, Japan, and six countries in Western Europe, representing more than three quarters of the worldwide market. MORE>

MAKE IT SIMPLE
The key to the widespread adoption of electronic commerce is to make the services as simple and useful as possible, said Raymond R. Burke, Associate Professor, Harvard Business School, Boston, Mass. Burke says Television caught on because designers made it simple—with one knob for volume and another for channels. MORE>

DESPITE SECURITY CONCERNS, INTERNET COMMERCE IS BOOMING
Concerns over security and loss of privacy does not appear to have dampened consumers’ enthusiasm for shopping on the Internet. According to a recent study by International Data Corp. of Framingham, Mass., one out of three net surfers engages in shopping while on-line. The survey's results indicate that shopping activity on the World Wide Web is higher than many have estimated. MORE>

CAN EX-LOTUS HEAD BREAK INTERNET ROADBLOCKS?
Jim Manzi, former head of Lotus and president and CEO of Industry.Net Corp., a company specializing in business-to-business commerce on the Internet, opened this month’s conference on the Internet at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. MORE>

ARE CORPORATE INTRANETS THE NEXT HOT INTERNET MARKET SEGMENT?
As information systems professionals struggle to transform today's tidal wave of newly available Internet technologies into useful business tools, they are faced with the three major challenges of developing, deploying and managing enterprise-wide mission-critical applications and Web sites within their corporate intranets. MORE>

MICROSOFT DEBUTS SQL SERVER 6.5
In mid-April, at Data Base Expo, Microsoft Corp. of Redmond, Wash. announced its SQL Server 6.5 an enhancement to its SQL Server 6.0. The new server simplifies creation and management of intranet and Internet applications. The server walks a database administrator through the publishing SQL data on the Internet. Microsoft’s Web Assistant lets SQL Server automatically generate hypertext markup language (HTML) pages or populate HTML templates with SQL Server data when it changes or as a scheduled task. MORE>

INTRANET REORDERS THE COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE IN NETWORK COMPUTING
Microsoft Corp. or Redmont, Wash. has changed the competitive environment in the Internet market according to a recent report from Forrester Research Inc. of Cambridge, Mass. “By giving away a Web browser with every Win 95 desktop and a Web server with each NT server, Microsoft has put Lotus, Netscape, and Novell on the defensive with a single stroke,” says Paul Callahan, director of Forrester's Network Strategy Service. MORE>

WINDOWS WINS
Microsoft Corp. of Redmond, Wash is the undisputed leader in operating system sales. The company shipped 18.8 million units of Windows 95 in 1995, and San Jose, Calif. market research firm, Dataquest predicts shipments of the operating system will more than triple to 62.7 million units in 1996. MORE>

MICROSOFT NETWORK SHIPPED TO OVER A MILLION USERS
Microsoft Corp. of Redmond, Wash. announced that MSN, The Microsoft Network, has enrolled more than 1 million members in its first seven months of service, making MSN the fastest-starting Internet online service in history. MORE>

CAN THE COMING CRISIS IN BACKING-UP CORPORATE DATA BE AVERTED?
With the proliferation of networks and on-line storage at individual clients on the network in large corporations comes increased demand for back-up. What steps are companies taking to back-up this critical on-line data. The next few stories, examine the problem and some of the solutions being offered.. MORE>

HP FINDS HOLE IN TAPE BACK-UP OFFERINGS
Up until now, there have been two popular tape storage formats, low end digital audio tape (DAT) and 8-mm tape cartridges and high end 3480 and 3490 tape cartridges. Concurrently, client-server computing began replacing mainframe computers for mission critical applications in large corporations. Thus smaller servers have proliferated throughout a company’s LAN. The servers’ on line storage was too small for the 3490 and too large for DAT and 8-mm.. MORE>

SEAGATE BACK-UP SOFTWARE DOES WINDOWS
This month, Seagate Software, Storage Management Group, the combination of Arcada Software and Seagate Technology's wholly-owned subsidiary Palindrome, announced that its Windows NT storage management product, Seagate Backup Exec for Windows NT, is now available in Kanji. Seagate Software's technology is the basic backup utility that ships with Microsoft Exchange Server and Windows 3.x as well. MORE>

HP’S DIGITAL LINEAR TAPE LIBRARY ATTACKS MIDRANGE BACK-UP MARKET
The Storage Systems Division of Hewlett-Packard Company in Greeley, Colo. has some catching up to do in the midrange tape drive and library market. The division now claims to lead in optical jukeboxes and 1/2-in. reel-to-reel tape drives. This month, the division rolled out its family of DLT Tape Libraries claiming a number of technology first that it hopes will wrest market share from leader ATL Products Inc. of Anaheim, Calif. (see related story at right). MORE>

DLT TAPE MARKET TAKES OFF
In the just-published 1996 edition of Mass Storage Outlook: Tape Libraries, Ray Freeman, president of Freeman Associates, Inc. in Santa Barbara, Calif, says tape libraries are rapidly expanding sales worldwide. MORE>

QUANTUM AND NETWORK SPECIALIST INC. ADVANCE UNATTENDED BACK-UP
The financial and competitive implications of losing business-critical data demand that organizations deploy comprehensive backup systems to protect their assets. Users are demanding an integrated software and hardware combination to minimize the cost associated with data loss, recovery and system downtime. MORE>

DAT TAPE COMPETES WITH DLT FOR MIDRANGE MARKET
The emergence of a midrange back-up tape drive market has tape drive suppliers rushing to offer libraries to serve the demand. The latest is Qualstar Corp. of Canoga Park, Calif. This month, it introduced a 4mm DAT cartridge tape automated library family for enterprise-wide network backup, high-capacity storage and data archive applications. MORE>

STORAGE TECHNOLOGY AND DATA GENERAL ADOPT DLT TAPE DRIVES
April was a particularly good month for Quantum Corp. of Milpitas, Calif. and its tape drive and library operation in Shrewsbury, Mass. Quantum bought the operation from Digital Equipment Corp. a couple of years ago. In April, both Data General Corp. of Westboro, Mass. and Storage Technology Corp. of Louisville, Colo. announced their support for the digital linear tape (DLT) product produced solely by Quantum. MORE>

IBM STILL A FORCE IN THE TAPE STORAGE MARKET
The recent emphasis on the digital linear tape market has showcased the technical expertise of Quantum Corp. and its tape storage operation in Shrewsbury, Mass. However, the major force in the tape storage industry, IBM Storage Subsystem Division, in San Jose, Calif. continues to set the technology standard for the industry. MORE>

EXABYTE INNOVATES IN 8-MM TAPE STORAGE
Exabyte Corp. of Boulder, Colo. the only purveyor of 8-mm tape drives began shipping its Mammoth 8mm Tape Drive. MORE>

STUDY SHOWS DATA WAREHOUSE GIVES MORE THAN RETURN ON INVESTMENT
The hot technology for the 1990s in information processing is data warehouse. However, is it hype or does it offer real solutions for business. A recent study by International Data Corporation, Ltd., in ((TK)) sought to answer this and other questions. It sampled 62 organizations with data warehouse solutions. MORE>

DATA WAREHOUSE DEMONSTRATION IN TOKYO SHOWS OFF THE POWER OF THE TECHNOLOGY
Earlier this year NCR Corp. of Dayton, Ohio, demonstrated what it claimed was the largest data warehouse ever, 11 terabytes, double what had previously been demonstrated. Eleven terabytes is the equivalent of 2.75 billion pages of text, or enough information to fill 220,000 four-drawer filing cabinets. MORE>

ARE NETWORKS BECOMING A DRAIN ON WORKER PRODUCTIVITY
Once Microsoft Corp. of Redmond, Wash. could claim dominance of the desktop. Netware from Novell Inc. of Orem, Utah dominated the local area networks that tied these desktop computers together. Unix dominated the client/server computing environments that were displacing mainframe systems. MORE>

ARE NETWORKS A DRAIN ON WORKER PRODUCTIVITY
The technology held up as an example of how technology improves worker productivity, the local area network, may now be reducing that same productivity. U.S business has become so reliant upon these networks that downtime cuts into corporate productivity. MORE>

DISK DRIVE INDUSTRY SLUMPS AFTER LARGEST SHIPMENT QUARTER EVER
The disk drive market had a few sluggish months early this year, according to Dataquest. Earlier in the year, the San Jose, Calif. market research firm was predicting oversupply coupled with slowed demand. This came on the heals of a 1995 fourth quarter that saw the largest unit volume sales in the history of the industry. MORE>

IBM’S NEW 3.5-IN. DRIVE SERVES SMALL-OFFICE/HOME-OFFICE
“Sales of rigid disk drives will continue to grow significantly,” Phil Devin, Dataquest vice president and principal analyst declares. “Purchases of higher-capacity, high-performance desktop storage solutions will fuel this growth, reflecting the purchase of new computers as well as drives to upgrade the capacity of the installed base. As the industry focuses its attention on the 2- to 4-gigabyte market, sales of products in this capacity range should triple in 1996.” MORE>

IBM’S NEW 2.5-IN. DRIVE SETS NEW HIGH FOR AREAL DENSITY IN A DISK DRIVE
In a technology briefing early this year, Phil Devin, Dataquest vice president and principal analyst at San Jose, Calif. market research firm Dataquest, cited an IBM 2.5-in. disk drive as having the highest areal density on the market, 923 megabits per square inch. Last month, the IBM Storage Systems Division in San Jose, Calif. broke its own record by announcing the first disk drive with over a billion bits per square inch. MORE>

IBM MAKES ITS MOVE TO DOMINATE DISK DRIVES
The IBM Storage Systems Division in San Jose, Calif. has long been the technology leader in creating technology for the disk drive industry. However, as a captive part of IBM VCorp., the company has had a hard time selling drives to OEMs who compete with Big Blue computer system operation. MORE>

MAXTOR OPENS NEW SAN JOSE R&D LAB
Maxtor Corp. of San Jose, Calif. has opened a new research and development lab, led by vice president Pantelis Alexopoulos, Ph.D. Alexopoulos, 47, most recently held the position of executive director, advanced concepts, at Seagate Technology. MORE>

COMPUTER INTELLIGENCE CORP. PREDICTS PC SALES GROWTH OF 14%
This month, market research firms Dataquest and Computer Intelligence InfoCorp (CII) made their predictions for the PC market in 1996. Both agree that the growth will be down from the record high of 1995, but both predict double digit growth for the year. The most pessimistic of the two was the La Jolla, Calif.-based CII. It forecast that the overall U.S. personal computer market will grow by 14% for 1996. This compares with 24% growth for the PC market in 1995. MORE>

RETAIL CHANNEL PC SALES GROWING RAPIDLY
Among PC hardware vendors, many companies that have traditionally paced growth in the business market faltered in Q1 1996. Compaq, the leader in this market since 1994, posted a 23% unit sales decline in Q1 1996 over the same period in 1995. IBM, NEC, Apple, AST and Zenith all saw their sales to businesses drop over 10% in the first quarter of 1996, with Apple and AST posting sales declines in excess of 30%. MORE>

DATAQUEST PC SALES GROWTH: 19%
Dataquest forecasts that the $125 billion PC market will experience a 19.1% unit growth in 1996. The market will see 71.6 million units shipped worldwide. The San Jose, Calif. market research firm expects the U.S. PC market to grow 13.6% in 1996. MORE>

HANDHELD PC MARKET THAT’S NOT PDA AND ORGANIZERS IS WORTH $1 BILLION
One of the least understood markets in the personal computer industry is handheld PC market. The market has become associated with personal digital assistants and electronic organizers, a group of products that have have enjoyed lackluster sales. However, a more lucrative market is in the industrial tablets. MORE>

PENTIUM CREATES BOOM IN NOTEBOOK PC SALES
The transition to the Pentium architecture major PC makers emphasizing lower-cost notebooks has spurred the worldwide mobile computing market. Dataquest forecasts a 27% unit growth in 1996 over 1995. This compares to the disappointing forecast last year over 1994. MORE>

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