Apple Reference & Presen…rary 8 (Internal Edition)/Apple R&P Lib Internal v8.0.iso/3-Presentations/Apple Computer Inc./Industry Competition/ROMs/Industry/Seybold DTP show 9⁄89

Text File | 1990-04-25 | 14KB | 277 lines

Apple Confidential
Competitive Analysis


SEYBOLD EXPO:  FAST TIMES FOR NEXT, SLOW TIMES FOR OS/2


By:  Michael Mace, MACE1

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SUMMARY

The annual Seybold Computer Publishing Exposition was held September 21 to 23
at Moscone Center in San Francisco.  This was the first Seybold expo for a
number of products:  The NeXT Computer System, OS/2 Version 1.2, a new page
layout program from Silicon Beach, and of course the Macintosh Portable and
IIci.

Probably the most important information we collected from the show was
confirmation that OS/2 is still about a year away from being an effective
product.  We think it won't be taken seriously by most users until more
applications appear, and the 80386-specific version of the product is delivered
in 2H 1990.

This document gives our analysis of the products and trends at the exposition.
(We do not discuss the seminars, which were well-covered in the trade press.)
As usual, there was so much going on that we probably missed some things...

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NEXT PROMINENT

NeXT had a small booth and large hands-on demo area at the show.  Both were
crowded.  In its booth, the company showed eight products, including
FrameMaker, the page layout program from Frame Technology, Top Draw, a drawing
and layout package from Media Logic, and Artisan, an image editing program also
from Media Logic.  The NeXT computer was clearly an attention-getter, but it
was not clear how many of the people crowding around it were buyers as opposed
to lookers.

NeXT also had a big presence in the booth of Frame Technology, and a smaller
presence in a couple of other booths.  The company was also featured in a
supplement to MacWeek magazine, which was distributed at the show.  The
supplement included a deceptive price chart that compared the suggested retail
price of the NeXT machine to the suggested retail price of a Macintosh II.  The
deceptive part was that the SRP of a NeXT mahine is not discounted by the
dealer, whereas Macintosh street prices are generally 20% to 30% below list.

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PAGEMAKER WINS THE OS/2 RACE

Aldus became the first major software developer to ship an OS/2 productivity
application, announcing that PageMaker for OS/2 is now available.  The program
costs $795, the same as the WIndows version, and as expected requires a PC
equipped with four to five megabytes of RAM.  Aldus's flyers declared, "It's
fast, it's powerful, it's shipping."

An Aldus representative at the booth said the OS/2 version is about 25% to 30%
faster than the Windows version.  This was expected as well.  However, he also
dropped a few tidbits about problems with the OS/2 environment.  We'll discuss
them in the section below, on OS/2.

_____________________________________
OS/2:  MORE PARTS, BUT NO WHOLE...YET

We counted five OS/2 productivity applications at the show, only two of which
(Pagemaker and DeScribe) are currently shipping.  We also saw OS/2 Version 1.2,
in what may have been its first public showing.  There are a lot of
improvements, but the environment still has a long way to go--the interface is
still awkward, and the few applications are little different from their Windows
counterparts.  There is almost no reason to buy OS/2 today, and we think that
won't change for at least another 12 months.

The new OS/2:  Not very impressive.

The new edition of OS/2, version 1.2, was on display in the Microsoft and IBM
booths.  Its most visible alteration is some improvements to the interface.
Files are now represented by Macintosh-sized icons, although they still cannot
be dragged to new positions within a window, and there is no trash can
equivalent.  The default color scheme for Presentation Manager has also been
changed (again), with more pastels and countershading around some interface
elements.

Version 2.0 the key.

Microsoft staffers in the booth didn't seem to be particularly excited about
the new version, although the company did pass out a flyer touting OS/2 as "The
Best Foundation for Publishing."  One Microsoft official said privately that
Version 1.2 is just a maintenance release, and that real improvements won't
come until the 80386-specific version ships in mid-1990.

Applications:  Few and long coming.

We counted about five productivity applications for OS/2--roughly as many as
were being shown for NeXT.  And NeXT attracted larger crowds.  Here are the
contenders, with comments about each:

Application                When Shipping

Micrografx Designer        "By the end of the year"
Comments.  Designer is one of the two leading drawing applications for Windows.
Micrografx pushed the Windows version exclusively in its booth, and showed the
OS/2 prototype at a station in IBM's booth.

Corel Draw                  End of 1989?
Comments.  Corel Draw is the other leading Windows drawing package.  The
Windows version attracted big crowds to Corel's booth, and appears to have more
momentum than Designer.

Arts & Letters              End of year?
Comments.  A clip art manipulation and drawing package, Arts & Letters has had
moderate success in the Windows world.

DeScribe                      "Available now"
Comments.  This is an OS/2 word processor, and was the only OS/2 product at the
show without a Windows counterpart.  It attracted moderate attention.

PageMaker                    Available now
Comments.  The OS/2 version of Pagemaker was tucked away in an obscure corner
of the Aldus booth, which was about 75% Macintosh.  But Aldus was clearly proud
that it shipped its OS/2 product before most of the competition, especially
Ventura Publisher.

Problems with OS/2.

An Aldus employee at the show had some interesting comments on the environment.
One was that OS/2 is not yet completely stable, so Aldus expects to issue an
upgrade for PageMaker after OS/2 1.2 ships.  This sort of instability will not
encourage developers and customers to move to OS/2 aggressively.

But the most surprising news was that there are still serious problems with
memory management.  If OS/2's multitasking environment does not have enough RAM
to load all the software requested, it uses virtual memory by swapping code to
and from the hard disk.  But this only works up to a point.  If there is too
much swapping, the operating system runs of memory and returns what Aldus
called a "System 36 error"--there's something wrong, the operating system
doesn't know what, and there's no way to fix it.  It sounds similar to
Macintosh's "The Application 'XXX' has quit unexpectedly" message.

The user can prevent the problem by opening the CONFIG.SYS file and typing in a
line specifying a larger swap buffer.  PageMaker can't do it automatically
because of the first problem--the operating system is still changing so much
that making automatic changes to the configuration files is riskly.  Besides,
the Aldus rep said, anyone using OS/2 today is assumed to be so technically
adept that editing CONFIG.SYS is not a big challenge.

Overall:  Come Back in a Year.

If you add up all the uncertainties about OS/2--unfinished applications,
awkward interface, unstable software, big hardware cost, and major revision
coming in mid-1990--it becomes clear that OS/2 simply is not yet a finished
computing environment.  We think the parts won't really start to come together
for another 12 months.  Until then, Windows and Macintosh (and possibly NeXT)
will be the main players in desktop publishing.

The next big test for OS/2 will be Comdex, in November.  There should be more
OS/2 software at that show, and we expect IBM to mount a major promotional
effort for it.

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WHAT ABOUT WINDOWS?

One of the factors affecting the success of OS/2 will be that of Windows.  It
is now clearly perceived as the number two environment for desktop publishing
(after Macintosh).  Several Windows developers at Seybold attracted respectable
crowds, and the quality of their products has improved sigificantly.  However,
the numbers of Windows programs for desktop publishing has not grown much since
last year (probably because they are difficult to develop, and a year ago most
developers expected a quicker transition to OS/2).

We think Windows has now attracted enough users that it will linger for a while
instead of being pushed aside quickly by OS/2.  However, Windows also has some
important drawbacks.  It shares the memory management problems of DOS, although
Microsoft will reportedly fix that in the next Windows release.  Developers
also say that OS/2 is a more attractive development environment than
Windows--it runs faster, and its programming tools are better-written.

What will happen?

There transition from DOS to Windows to OS/2 is turning out to be longer and
more awkward than anyone imagined when OS/2 was announced two and a half years
ago.  We think OS/2's first niche will be large corporations and others who
need robust memory management and upstream communications.  Windows will appeal
to PC users who can't afford OS/2, and to small businesses in specialized
fields like desktop publishing.

________________________
MACINTOSH:  STILL STRONG

Apple's booth attracted good crowds, both for the third-party products on
display in parts of the booth, and for the new Macintosh IIci and Portable.
Not surprisingly, the Portable drew some of the biggest crowds.

Macintosh products continue to dominate Seybold.  Although Windows is growing,
and NeXT drew big crowds, Macintosh is still clearly the preferred platform for
desktop publishing.

Probably the most interesting new Macintosh product at the show was Personal
Press, a "low-end" page layout product from Silicon Beach.  Personal Press
looked powerful and easy to use, with a very thoroughly thought-out interface.
It is scheduled to ship in 1Q 1990, and its price will be $299.

Other new Macintosh products included PhotoPress, an image-editing program; and
InterMac, a format-conversion tool designed to translate documents from a
variety of formats and media, including magnetic tape and 5.25-inch and 8-inch
disks.

Macintosh tidbits...

--Colby showed the Mini Walkmac, a six-pound Macintosh portable with a 68030
processor, eight megabytes of RAM, and a 100 MB hard disk.  The product will
cost $10,000, and will be available in January.  Colby said its batteries last
about two hours, but we suspect that the real duration will be even less.

--Mainstay finally shipped MarkUp, its workgroup text-editing software for
Macintosh.

--Daystar Digital announced Fast Cache IIci, a cache memory card for the IIci.

--Broderbund's TypeStyler, a type-manipulation program for Macintosh, is still
not available.  Company officials promised that it will ship next month.

--Letraset showed its line of Macintosh desktop publishing products, which have
all been grouped as the "Studio" line.  The most interesting to us were
DesignStudio, a high-end page layout product; and FontStudio, a type-creation
program.  Letraset is building one of the largest product lines of any
Macintosh desktop publishing vendor.

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MISCELLANEOUS

Other interesting tidibts at the show included...

--Silicon Graphics, a leading manufacturer of workstations for 3D graphics, had
a small booth (its first at a Seybold expo).  The company tried to position its
products as a good alternative to Macintosh for color image manipulation.  One
SGI representative said his company's workstations are close in price to the
configured cost of a color Macintosh--something we find a little hard to
believe, since configured SGI machines start at around $20,000.

--Apollo/HP showed its new Model 2500 workstation, based on a 20 megahertz
68030 processor.  On the outside, the machine is about the same size as a
Macintosh II.  On the inside, it looks poorly-designed, with jump wires on the
motherboard and a huge amount of unused air space (required for cooling,
according to one source).  Compared to the latest Sun workstations it appears
to be a fairly awkward product.

--Kyocera showed its Q8010 laser printer, with some of the most aggressive
speed claims we've ever seen.  The company claimed benchmark performance more
than three times that of the LaserWriter IINTX.  The company also announced a
Macintosh print driver to support its non-PostScript laser printers.  Kyocera
is a persistent and very competitive company, and has apparently decided that
it wants a piece of the Macintosh printer market.

--Adobe showed several new products, including a Windows version of Streamline,
its automatic tracing product; Type Manager, an outline font product for
Macintosh; and a PostScript controller cartridge for the Hewlett-Packard
LaserJet IID.  The biggest emphasis was on Type Manager.

--To our surprise, Sun did not show its Open Look graphical interface in its
booth.  Open Look took up about a third of Sun's booth at the last Expo, so
this was a major change.  Sun seems to be backing away from Open Look a bit,
perhaps in recognition of its low acceptance in the marketplace.  On the other
hand, Sun may have just decided not to show vaporware this year.

--Also missing from the show floor was Motif, the Unix graphical interface
being developed by DEC, HP, and others.  This was a bit of a surprise, since
Motif's developers claim that it is now available to OEMs.  In reality, we
think they have shipped mostly a specification.  Motif itself probably won't
appear until sometime next year.


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