From the April 1992 Bits of Blue

PRESIDENT’S COLUMN:

Ok let’s all get strapped in. The roller coaster is a fixing to start. Just as I was preparing for the OS/2 vs. Windows 3.1 battle someone pulled the rug out from under me. First, I am told, and later read, that the parent company I work for, Dun & Bradstreet, is considering buying Lotus Corporation. Ok, that’s pretty major stuff by itself, but it didn’t stop there. Next, I read where Novell is looking to merge or buy Software Publishing Corporation (SPC), the makers of Harvard Graphics. Now, fact or fiction, I am still trying to figure out both of these deals. Finally, the knockout punch, Microsoft buying Fox Software for 175 million. This deal seems to be fact and will probably be a done deal within the next couple of months. If you are an XBASE user, the last deal will be very important to you. Microsoft, after many years of trying to create their own database product, has opted to buy a very good and established product. My understanding is that Microsoft will not stop working on their own product, yet Microsoft is now aiming squarely at Borland International’s dBase. FoxPro by itself is a very good and extremely fast database language. If Microsoft does the right things to FoxPro to evolve it into the Windows environment it will be a powerhouse. The race to the Windows database arena and market share between Borland and Microsoft should benefit all XBASE users. These two giants will not be the first to market a Windows database product. Companies like Software Publishing Corporation (Superbase 4), Computer Associates (dBFast) to mention a few, are already there. It will take a couple of new releases to see if Microsoft can convert FoxPro from a prince to a king, or court jester. Borland has a fight on its hands, first to regain the trust of previous dBase users which still have a bad taste from the original release of dBase IV, and now the entry of Microsoft into the jousting contest.

On April 6th Mr. Bill (Gates) will once again do his magic. He will introduce the long awaited release of Windows 3.1 at Comdex Windows World. His presentation will be shown via satellite around the country. If all goes well I will see it at the Hyatt in Tampa. Anyway if you have Windows already, start saving that upgrade money (around $49.00). This product will be shown by Microsoft at our June meeting.

OS/2 2.0 has been released to BIG corporate land via BBS and other electronic means. To date I have only heard from beta sites. The product has not been seen on any shelves. I

read that IBM is thinking about $49.00 for the product. At this time I am not sure if that is for an upgrade or anyone who has DOS or what. If you plan on getting and installing the full works of OS/2 2.0 make sure you’ve got 30Mb of disk available, at least a 386 20 MHz with 4Mb of RAM as a minimum.

If you have been waiting for a notebook with great color, I saw one. CompUSA recently had an open house for corporate types to meet vendors and kick the tires of their products. Vendors included Symantec (the Norton people), Dell Computer, NEC, WordPerfect and others. NEC had on display their new NEC Ultrallte SIJ2SC. It’s one of the few color notebooks which uses an active matrix thin film transistor display. That’s a mouthful. Basically it means that each screen pixel is controlled by its own transistor. This produces a sharper focus and brighter colors than passive matrix screens. The list price of the notebook is under $6,000. If you are interested in buying one good luck. CompUSA does not have any in stock.

Sometime back I shared my opinion about the use of 14” monitors with Window word-processing software. I stated that the text was too small to read. Well I have an update on this continuing saga. I recently upgraded my discontinued 14” NEC 3D monitor to a 15” NEC 4FG monitor. At first I was very pleased. This monitor has a new color system which you can set, reduced ELF, VLF and magnetic field (Marylee says all that stuff is good for me). However, NEC decided to discontinue applying the anti-glare coating found on its previous monitors. To date this has produced the 1st computer related problem to my body since starting in this field in 1974. I now have a good case of eye strain which I attribute to the complete reflection of myself (scary) and everything behind me outside the building. I talked to the NEC rep at CompUSA about the problem and asked why they had decided to remove the anti-glare coating. In a nutshell he stated that the market had asked for that feature or lack thereof and that my problem may be an individual one (ouch). While talking to him I noticed that the 4FG monitor he was demoing had a NEC anti-glare screen attached. Of course it’s no longer called that; it’s now called a NEC MultiSync monitor lens and retails for $79-$199 depending on which of their monitors you have. As I stood there still smarting from the NEC rep’s comment that it may be an individual problem, two individuals came up pointing to the NEC 4FG monitor. A young man in his twenties and an older man in his late forties. The young man said “See, that’s what I need to prevent my eyestrain.” Well, I can tell you my poor eyes lit up when I heard that. I talked to them and explained that I now suffered from the same problem and that I felt that NEC was nickel and diming us by making us buy their product (monitor lens) to prevent this. I confronted the NEC rep who overheard this conversation “Must be another case of an individual problem!” I said. “NOT!” I have ordered the NEC monitor lens to see if the eyestrain goes away or if I should bring back the 14” NEC 3D. Presently, I am highly disappointed with the new NEC monitors. Of course this is my story and 1st hand opinion. I couldn’t help notice that other opinions are different: PC Magazine (January 14th issue) selected the NEC F series as one of the Best of 1991 products, PC WORLD (December 1991 issue) rated the 4FG as a BEST BUY for a Windows monitor, PC/Computing (December 1991 issue) selected the NEC 5FG as one of their 1991 MVP, and, lastly, in the April 14th issue of PC Magazine, John C. Dvorak makes the comment about the NEC 4FG that “I can’t recommend this monitor enough” in his Inside Track column. Maybe its just me and one other end-user but this has the smell of the initial dBase IV 1.0 recommendations and great initial reviews by the press several years back. I wonder where the human factor of an end user comes to play in all these press opinions.

Look for the continuing monitor saga in the future.