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November 28, 1998
News
- No more Monica. Yes, I’m back and will be for a while to
come, so don’t worry….
- The big news of this shortened holiday week, of course, was
America OnLine’s surprising purchase of Netscape. In a deal valued at just over $4
billion, the world’s largest online service bought the world’s best-known
Internet browser company and brought that company’s independent run to an end. AOL
apparently is using the deal to help even better establish itself as a major Internet
presence by tapping into Netscape’s popular Netcenter site. In addition, AOL will be
partnering with Sun Microsystems to sell complete solutions using Sun hardware and
Netscape server software to companies who need an all-in-one solution to establish a large
web presence, particularly for electronic commerce. Interestingly, however, according to
initial reports, AOL will not immediately switch over to making the Netscape browser the
default for their 14 million online customers. AOL currently has a contract with Microsoft
for Internet Explorer that expires in January, but it’s not clear when the company
will switch. So, if you’re currently an AOL subscriber and are wondering how this
deal may effect you, the bottom line is, it doesn’t look it will mean very much, at
least for now.
- As I suspected, COMDEX was a good show to catch up on big
trends, but I didn’t see much that was particularly revolutionary. In fact, frankly,
one of the most impressive things I saw was a new Philips HDTV due to hit the market
around January for a cool $10,000. Still, there was lots to see, including more complete
demos of Microsoft’s Office 2000, tons of flat panel displays for desktop systems,
lots of tiny new notebooks—including those running Windows 98 and Windows CE—and
more. Office 2000 will be interesting—I’m working with the new beta 2 version of
it now—but it’s not really revolutionary. You’ll notice some cosmetic
changes in the way that certain menu items appear and are re-ordered according to how
often you use them, and in the Open/Save dialogs, but the main Office apps are all
relatively similar. What is interesting is the addition of FrontPage 2000 and the
company’s new PhotoDraw combination illustration/image-editing program into the
Office family. Office 2000 Premium, in particular, will include eight applications: Word,
Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Outlook, FrontPage, Publisher and PhotoDraw, which is just
about everything anybody could ever want. One the one hand it’s nice to get such a
complete solution from a single company, but on the other, it’s a little
disconcerting to have so much come from a single company—particularly Microsoft.
- As I mentioned, flat-panel displays were everywhere at COMDEX
and many of them looked quite good. One disturbing trend I noticed, however, was the lack
of standardization in the digital monitor connections. You can get flat-panel displays
either with standard analog 15-pin VGA connections or one of several different digital
connectors, and that’s the problem. There are three different digital standards being
used with flat-panel monitors, which means only the video cards that support the type of
connector used by the monitor can be used along with it. Now, some companies are getting
around this by bundling a monitor and video card together, but that certainly limits your
choices. You can, of course, stick with the tried-and-true analog VGA connection, but
having analog connections actually adds to the cost of both the video card and the
monitor—because they have to convert from their native digital format to analog, and
then back again. In addition, the conversion process inevitably degrades the signal
slightly, which could lead to a slightly less vibrant picture. So, if you’re going to
treat yourself to a flat-panel display for Christmas, make sure you know what type of
connector it has.
- One of the other trends that appeared at COMDEX was low-cost
systems and one of the most talked about were the $399 systems from E-machines, which I
mentioned a few months back. I’ve received numerous e-mail requests about those
machines and I can how happily say that I’ve actually seen them advertised (at
Fry’s), so I know they’re finally available. Despite the rock-bottom price, the
specs on these machines are no slouch—in fact, they’re down right impressive.
Listen to this: 266 MHz Cyrix MII processor, 32 MB of SDRAM, 2.1 GB hard drive,
accelerated video card with 4 MB of VRAM, 24x CD-ROM, V.90 56K modem, speakers, game port,
USB ports, pre-installed Windows 98 and Microsoft Works. Remember, that’s $399 for a
new system, not used or refurbished. Toss in another $100 and you’ll get a 14"
color monitor. If you’ve been waiting on getting a PC, are looking for an inexpensive
second one, or are on the hunt for holiday gift ideas, this sounds like a winner. I tell
you what, I sure wouldn’t want to be in the used computer business right now….
- Color inkjet printers just continue to get better, faster and
cheaper all the time, and their impressive output was on display all over the COMDEX show.
One thing that often gets overlooked, however, is the raw media onto which your efforts
are printed—in other words, the paper. One of the neat little finds I had at COMDEX
was a relatively new company called Pictorico that specializes in media for inkjet
printers. Not only do they have a variety of plain and glossy-coated papers that will work
with all the popular inkjets, they also have some really neat alternatives, including
adhesive film, pastel-colored papers and a canvas-like paper that’s ideal for
printing out artwork and photographs. Of course, like most specialty media, some of it
costs over $1 a page, but for special printouts it’s well worth it. If you want to
get a hold of a free sample pack of their paper (just like the one I picked up at COMDEX),
head over to their website at www.pictorico.com. Hurry though, because I noticed the offer
ends on December 1st.
- One of the cooler new notebooks I saw at the show was
Toshiba’s new Portege 3010CT. Priced at just under $2,000, the 3010 is the
company’s first notebook that’s less than one inch thick and under three pounds,
which I think is the ideal size. The 3010 features a 266 MHz Pentium MMX, 32 MB of RAM,
4.3 GB hard drive, 10.4" active matrix display, and bundled 56K modem card. The
Lithium-Ion battery used by the 3010 offers up to 3.8 hours, though I’d take that and
any manufacturer-delivered battery number with a big grain of salt. The size makes the
unit too small to fit an internal CD or floppy, but it is bundled with a small external
floppy. A 24x external CD-ROM is available for an extra $299.
- In addition to looking at the world of Windows software, I
spent some time at this COMDEX looking at alternative operating systems for the PC:
specifically Linux, which is a form of Unix that runs on PCs, and BeOS. Several companies
offer their own "distribution" of Linux, which means a different combination of
the various software components and applications that go into a typical Linux application.
When it comes to Linux, by the way, it helps to think of it as a software tinker toy set
that requires several pieces to make run, but gives you flexibility in choosing each of
the different pieces. The company with a reputation for offering the most
"user-friendly" distributions of Linux is RedHat Software, and they introduced
version 5.2 of their product. One of the interesting things about Linux is that the base
operating system is free, but companies like RedHat and Caldera "sell" a version
that includes installation scripts, documentation and other "extras" that
justify the $50 price tag. The big news for RedHat’s 5.2 distribution is a nearly
completely automated install process for either workstation or server
installations—and that’s a very good thing, because I’ve been fiddling
around with the 5.1 distribution and while it’s somewhat automated, installing and
using it is a decidedly non-trivial process. The alternative OS I’m more interested
in, frankly, is the BeOS, which used to be available for Power Macs, but is now also
available for Intel and Intel-compatible based PCs. In fact, at the show, the company was
showing Release 4 of BeOS, which offers significantly improved hardware support (the big
bugaboo of all alternative OSes) and lots of other features that take advantage of its
very attractive, easy-to-use environment. Look for Release 4 sometime in December for $69.
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