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Report from PC Expo, June 20-22

IBM Rolls Out PowerPC Systems

IBM unveiled its long-awaited desktop a nd notebook PowerPC systems on Monday, priced starting at $2,795, with promises that the systems will eventually run most major PC operating systems--including, maybe, the Macintosh operating system. Initially the systems will ship with Windows NT.

IBM rolled out four Power Series hardware platforms, with each system available in desktop and mobile configurations. The $2,795 entry-level desktop system, available immediately, includes a 100 MHz PowerPC 604 microprocessor, 16 MBytes RAM, a 540 MByte hard drive and CD-ROM. The portable notebook series is priced starting at about $6,000 for a 100-MHz PowerPC 603e processor, 16 MBytes RAM, a 540 MByte hard drive and CD-ROM. The systems include full-motion video support. More powerful systems are slated for delivery in July.

For system software, the Windows NT Workstation PowerPC edition is available immediately, with AIX scheduled to ship in July, OS/2 Warp Connect for PowerPC in the fourth quarter, and Solaris in the firs t quarter of 1996.

IBM also hinted that the on-again, off-again marriage of Big Blue hardware and the Apple Macintosh operating system has taken a tiny step closer to realization. IBM says it is willing to license the MacOS and include it on IBM PowerPC systems in the second half of 1996, according toTony Santelli, general manager of IBM's Power Personal Systems division.

Corporate customers would most likely need to wait until the Common Hardware Reference Platform (CHRP) becomes available this winter before seeing the Mac operating system running on an IBM PowerPC machine. The CHRP is a set of hardware APIs for PowerPC systems designed to give operating-system providers a set of specifications to write to.

But the step announced by IBM on Monday was a very small one. "We're willing to license [the MacOS] once there is a common hardware platform," says Rick Thoman, IBM senior VP and group president of the IBM PC Co. "Last November, we hadn't said we had come to the point of being w illing to license it. We've now made the decision that we're willing to license."

IBM made its announcements the day before the start of the PC Expo trade show in New York.

-- Brian Gillooly and Mitch Wagner

IBM Rolls Out PowerPC-Based AS/400s

Capping a big week for its PowerPC division, IBM enhanced its AS/400 line with the introduction June 21 of its first models based on PowerPC processors. Big Blue also unveiled a new release of its OS/400 operating system.

IBM has now completed the transition from its once-proprietary AS/400 line to an open, client-server platform, says Bob Dies, general manager of the AS/400 division in Somers, N.Y. "This will be the base on which we build the rest of our AS/400 announcements for the rest of the decade," says Dies.

The new machines are expected to provide up to 300% more transaction processing power than current AS/400 models. The 64-bit processors, called the A10 and A30, are derivatives of the PowerPC 620 CPU. The A10 functions at 50-MHz and 77-MHz speeds and processes three instructions per clock cycle in a single-chip implementation. The A30, a seven-chip design, offers speeds of 125 MHz and 154 MHz, and processes four instructions per cycle.

IBM's AS/400 Advanced Server series will comprise three models, the 40S, 50S, and 53S; its AS/400 Advanced System series will consist of four configurations, the 400, 500, 510, and 530. Each system includes one to four processors. IBM has doubled disk storage and communication lines on the new machines, which support up to four times as much main memory as current models.

Version 3, Release 6 of the OS/400 operating system provides support for NetWare Loadable Modules, easier porting of Unix commercial applications, a new graphical user interface, new object-oriented application development tools, and connection to the Internet via World Wide Web b rowsers. IBM also plans to add support for Lotus Notes by the first half of 1996.

IBM was not joined by partner SAP at the event, although many analysts expected the German software developer to announce that it has ported its R3 software package to the OS/400 platform. Dies says SAP will announce support for R3 on the AS/400 when high-end configurations of the system that fully leverage the rich features of R3 begin shipping early in the third quarter or in the fourth quarter.

-- Brian Gillooly

Interactive Media: How Soon Can IS Plug In?

Within five years, more people will turn to interactive media on computers for entertainment on any given night than will use the television, according to Ted Leonsis, president of the America Online Services Co., a unit of America Online.

Leonsis--speaking Wednesday at a panel on commerce on interactive media at PC Expo in New York, accompanied by Paul Maritz, VP of Micro soft's platforms group, and John Patrick, VP of Internet applications for IBM--acknowledged that his prediction is an audacious one. However, he noted that new service industries have a tendency to grow fast; both catalog sales and home-shopping TV grew from small, niche businesses years ago into multibillion-dollar industries. And online services, the Internet, and other interactive media are growing fast. AOL alone has tripled its customers in the past 12 months, topping 2.5 million users, Leonsis said.

The challenge for corporate IS will be to find ways of hooking interactive data into the corporate information structure, said Patrick. "The entire world is not going to revolve around HTML," he added, referring to the HyperText Markup Language standard for creating documents on the World Wide Web. Companies will need to be able to build secure, easy-to-use links between the Internet and other interactive media on one hand, and corporate databases on mainframes, PCs, and workstations on the oth er.

The growth in interactive media will present new opportunities for businesses, not just in sales and communications, but also in new service areas that were not previously viable for other technologies, said Maritz. For example, a pharmaceutical company might be able to monitor a patient's condition using equipment located in the home and transmitting information over a high-speed data network, technology that is not now available on a wide scale. "We'll be looking at new ways of doing business," Maritz said. "Companies will be able to join sales and service in new combinations."

AOL, IBM ,and Microsoft all have high stakes in the growth of interactive media. AOL has the second-largest customer base worldwide of any online service, topped only by CompuServe. AOL is already the largest in the United States. IBM is a partner, along with Sears, in the third-largest worldwide online service, Prodigy. And Microsoft is expected to deliver a blockbuster Aug. 24, when it unveils the Mi crosoft Network online service concurrently with its Windows 95 operating system.

-- Mitch Wagner

Microsoft Unwraps New SQL Server Version

Microsoft announced Tuesday at PC Expo in New York that it has shipped SQL Server 6.0, Windows NT software that functions as a backbone database server for a corporate enterprise. The software's replication features enable a single copy of the database to make copies of itself across an enterprise, for easy access and to protect data integrity. The software also provides built-in graphical tools for local and remote management.

SQL Server 6.0 represents Microsoft's attempt to provide users with an alternative to high-end databases such as Oracle or even IBM's DB2. It will support about 200 third-party applications, including software from large client-server development houses such as Computer Associates, SAP AG, Dun & Bradstreet, and Peoplesoft.

The software is designed for companies replacing mainframe systems with client-server applications, says Gary Voth, group products manager in Microsoft's business systems division. "As businesses go through the process of reengineering and pushing information down deeper into the organization, software requirements are changing," he says. "Information is being pushed out closer to users."

The server costs $999, plus $149 per client; volume discounts are available.

Citrix Rolls Out Remote Access Product

Citrix Systems has introduced a remote-access product for mobile computers that allows users to operate a desktop machine remotely while simultaneously doing data transfers between the mobile client and a network server.

The Coral Springs, Fla.-based company introduced WinFrame for Networks this week at the PC Expo trade show in New York. The software application server will be available Aug. 31 for $4,995. Packaged with the Microsoft Windows NT server operating system, the s oftware will be $5,995.

-- Tom Dellecave Jr.

Zenith To Integrate Video Conferencing With PCs

Zenith Data Systems announced this week at PC Expo that it will integrate PictureTel's PCS 50 videoconferencing system in its desktop computers. Zenith will pre-install all necessary videoconferencing software and hardware in its Z-Station GT 575 VC computer, a 75-MHz Pentium-based PC. Users need only purchase ISDN service to be ready for conferencing.

PictureTel has an existing joint-development relationship with Compaq, but Zenith is the first PC vendor to bundle the videoconferencing technology. The system, which carries a list price of $6,895, will be available mid-July.

Zenith says it hopes to catch the first wave of a fast-growing trend. "Videoconferencing will one day be as standard as a mouse or a keyboard on the PC," says Jeff Veis, manager of emerging technologies at Zenith.

-- Stephanie Stahl

Unisys Debuts Rack-Mounted PC Servers

It looks like a mainframe, it comes from a mainframe company, but it's a PC. Unisys announced Wednesday at PC Expo its PW2 Advantage Series Model SFR, consisting of two rack-mountable PCs designed for corporate environments such as telecommunications or for government use.

Model SFR comes in two form factors: a midsize rack cabinet that holds two PC modules and a full-size unit that holds up to four PC modules. Each module is a complete PC, with up to four 100-MHz or 133-MHz Pentium PCs, five EISA slots, four PCI slots, up to 1 Gbyte of RAM, and up to 24 Gbytes of hard disk. Pricing starts at $14,000. The 100-MHz model will be available by the end of the month, and the 133-MHz model will be available in August.

Novell Strikes Workflow Deal With FileNet

Novell filled a big hole in its groupware strategy this week by inking a deal with FileNet Corp. Th e agreement, announced Monday just prior to the start of PC Expo in New York, calls for the integration of FileNet's workflow software with Novell's groupware products. Code-named Ensemble, the new products will let users create and manage workflow from their desktops.

"The area we've been operating in for the last 10 years is production workflow, where there are high transaction rates and very structured and repetitive information," says Ted Smith, president and CEO at FileNet in Costa Mesa, Calif. "But there is a need in many environments to provide workflow that is compatible across the whole organization."

FileNet's workflow technology will enable Novell's GroupWise messaging products and PerfectOffice applications suite to route documents automatically from one user to another. For example, when an employee completes an expense report and closes the report out, Novell software automatically routes the document to the appropriate manager for review. When the manager approves th e report, the software automatically routes the document to the company's accounts-payable department, and so on. Corporate users also could use Ensemble to build software that manages sales-lead tracking, purchase orders, and other applications that require several steps or people to coordinate.

Ensemble will be available for Window 3.1. and Windows 95 in the first quarter of 1996, and for the Mac environment at the end of 1996. Pricing has not been disclosed.

FileNet also is marketing a new version of its advanced workflow product, Visual WorkFlo, for NetWare 4 networks. The new software lets NetWare users automate complex, mission-critical, transaction-intensive processes such as large insurance claims, loan processing, and factory-floor applications.

-- Stephanie Stahl

Lotus Introduces Notes Application Development Tool

Lotus Development introduced Tuesday at PC Expo an object-oriented programming language, calle d LotusScript 3.0, that will be included in Lotus Notes and in the next release of Lotus' desktop applications. LotusScript, a cross-platform superset of Basic, gives users a new means of accessing and manipulating Notes system objects, and also provides access for legacy and relational databases with the ODBC database interface. Version 3.0 will be available in the second half of the year, the same time Notes ships.

LotusScript joins a suite of tools for Notes developers ranging from easy-to-use action commands to very complex C language routines. "We are targeting everyone,from the end users who just want to dabble in development to the fully trained corporate developer," says Tim Dempsey, director of new technology marketing at Lotus.

The upcoming Notes Release 4 also will include agents, navigators, and other programming tools to help users automate and customize applications. LotusScript 3.0 will run on all Notes platforms, including OS/2 Warp, Apple MacOS, Microsoft Windows and Windows NT, and Unix.

-- Stephanie Stahl

Borland Ready To Launch New dBase For Windows

Borland International announce Tuesday at PC Expo in New York that it will release an upgrade next month of its dBase for Windows. New features include performance improvements and object-oriented programming functionality.

The new software, Visual dBase 5.5, offers performance up to four times faster than that of dBase 5.0, say company officials. It includes support for an object-oriented programming feature called "inheritance," which lets users build new objects based on older objects. With inheritance, subsequent changes to the older object are automatically inherited by the newer object. The software package also has tools called "experts" that assist users and developers in creating tables, reports, labels, and forms.

Although the DOS version of dBase was one of the first popular database programs for the PC, B orland now has some catching up to do with its Windows product. Microsoft and Claris Corp. have database products that are far more popular for Windows. Borland was a relative latecomer, having come out with its Windows dBase product just a year ago.

Borland estimates the street price for Visual dBase 5.5 to be $350. A separate compiler carries a similar street price of $350. Borland says special upgrade prices will be available for current users of dBASE and competitive products, but officials did not provide specifics.

Karl Wong, an analyst at Dataquest Inc. in San Jose, Calif., says Borland changed the name of dBase to Visual dBase to create the impression that it's easy to use. "The word 'visual' has become synonymous with 'easy' in the developers' community," says Wong.

-- Mary Hayes

Compiled by Mitch Wagner