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Technology Stocks : Applix is back in action -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: marky who wrote (2043)	12/20/1997 12:56:00 AM
From: Kashish King	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3014

When you send a proposal composed in a word processor, the recipient must be able to open it. That is, unless you are Microsoft. You see, it took a virtual riot for Microsoft to make Office 97 compatible with Office 95. They were hoping to force users to upgrade by deliberately creating incompatibilities. Apart from Microsoft itself, most companies will not have any trouble integrating one-button import and export. The trend is now toward open formats such as SGML and HTML and that's now being advanced world-wide. Again, the problem for consumers is Microsoft. Java changes all that and with Sun, IBM, Novell and thousands of smaller companies supporting this international standard you can kiss MSFT goodbye. Once IBM's eSuite starts to roll it will have a snowball effect. Banks and other leading industry giants are not going to tolerate anything but open formats. They are getting too smart and spending too much money supporting Microsoft's hairball software.

To: marky who wrote (2043)	12/20/1997 6:50:00 PM
From: John Ritter	Respond to of 3014

"If they continue to make their number(s), the price will go up." Music to our ears - by marky On MS Office: Your comments are valid, but then MS Office is a bulky hulk with a lot of dead weight. If we ever have a network computer that offers an alternative to the MS solution, there are those who will be able to configure at least some pcs as a thin client. While I'm probably not typical, I would be happy to have one PC configured for internet only, using my second for the windows microsoft flavor. We hope someday to have all internet access utilize java, I'm not suggesting shorting MSFT, but look at what happened to ORAC. Eventurally there always is a new technology to replace the old one, my hopes are that the field will be more open in the next technology cycle...........

To: marky who wrote (2043)	12/22/1997 10:50:00 AM
From: carl griffith	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3014

To first address an earlier question - yes, I own some APLX stock (and some people here may recall I in fact co-established their - Applix's - UK operations back in the late '80s) and am not playing devil's-advocate for the hell of it. Simply being pragmatic; since when did paradigm-shift seeking ideology count for anything in any business? The generic Internet (which means everything/nothing) is THE shift in IT ideology - the big one. That's it, for a while - now we are all looking for ways to usefully use it (The Internet). The Lotus 1-2-3 equivalent of way back when is, is, is, er? Microsoft has embraced the Internet. QED. Anyway, Marky - yes, I agree. The perceived usability test of these new-era apps is what it is all about; hence why MS Word eventually (and even that took some while) killed WordPerfect - something about it was just 'easier' and also documents of many object types were easier to make by anyone - me, you, a secreatary, a kid doing homework. If the look and feel of these new apps is not identical or so much, much more intuitive, they will not persuade anyone to can thousands of man-years of experience of MS Office, etc. No way. This is total speculation but I would project that people will not think of radically changing from MS Office until a VRML-like interface is really proven and so easy to use it will become the preferred choice. People only bought PCs because, hell, sure they MUST be easier than an electric typewriter and Tippex?! They were. They bought lots more. Especially when 1-2-3 came out. OK, there are these NC into education deals going down - so what? Exactly what Apple relied on for all the wrong reasons in its dying days - you grow a business by selling to business. NCs ain't no replacement for no electric typewriter. Oh, and whilst SGML, HTML are damn fine open standards (SGML - sweet memories; been around long enough, for heavens sake), I ain't seeing any ITT documents (or even 2 line memos) from my company or from any clients, etc, written in HTML/SGML. All in 100% MS Word, as it happens - or email message text. Maybe we are all doing something wrong, using such a dying format as MS Word ...? Hmmm ... anyway, all the best for '98, folks.