The LA Fox Developer

The LA Fox Developer Newsletter

Out and About (Con’t from page 3)

Express, Citibank, Chemical Bank, Chase

Manhatten, First Interstate, Sanwa, and Wells Fargo, and announced plans to offer customers the ability to pay bills and perform other financial tasks via their home computers starting this fall. But there’s an interesting twist in all of this. Shares of Chase Manhatten soared, on July 14th, as rumors swirled that it could merge with Chemical. Add to this the newly-signed deal by Chemical with Microsoft to offer online banking services with MS’s Money software and you’ve got a veritable Peyton Place on Wall Street. In other news, Symantec acquired Delrina for $415 million. On a sadder note, Smith Corona Corp., 113 years old, the sole remaining US manufacturer of portable typewriters, and an obvious victim of the office PC, filed for bankruptcy protection, possibly signalling the beginning of the death watch for the typewriter as a standard office machine.

Members in the Spotlight. At least two of our members have had some good fortune befall them since we last met. George Dvorak has the dubious distinction of being one of the first to receive a production copy of Visual FoxPro. This is the same George Dvorak who wins raffles and prizes at some of the larger events in the FoxPro community. Some guys have all the luck! Michael Meer, meanwhile, is completing training with George Goley, Alan Schwartz et a! on his way to becoming a certified Visual FoxPro instructor. Mike was one of eight people selected to participate in these special sessions aimed at beefing up the “on-the-road- staff’ first mentioned at our May meeting. So if you sign up for a local MEINFP session, expect to see a familiar face.

Rhetorical Question of the Month. Why is it the Justice Department continually feels the need to investigate Microsoft for unfair competitive practices, utilizing man-years of resources and lots of taxpayers money, and routinely dismisses charges against an obvious monopoly, Ticketmaster, whose common business practices include exclusive contracts and kickbacks to entertainment venues?

Windows ‘95 News. Yes, my dear, Windows ‘95 is still going to ship at the end of August. You can order it now at special “get acquainted” prices from

a variety of local outlets. It’s expected to sell at least 4 million copies in this initial release, 30 million by the end of the year. The question now is whether it will ship with the communications package enabling you to access Microsoft Online. If the Justice Department has its way, Microsoft may have to eliminate this feature before ‘95 ships. Of course, the other question is whether it will work out-of-the-box, or will we have to wait for the much-rumored fix that is already in the works?

In related stories Apple is launching an attack to counter the estimated $135 million marketing campaign Microsoft intends to initiate by advertising the “fact” that ‘Windows ‘95 is Mac ‘89” and launching its own guerilla marketing campaign. Some industry observers feel that by doing so Apple will be signing its own death warrant. If that happens, maybe the next bit of Apple-related news might be a proposed buyout by Packard Bell, or somebody equally deserving. Compaq, along with other PC manufacturers, says it will make ‘95 an “optional” operating system at the end of August until they can run it through its paces to see if it is a viable OS. But one third-party vendor already seems to be benefitting. Huntington Beach-based Touchstone Software, which is currently oeing traded on NASL)AQ, has seen its stock jump 76% since it announced plans to ship WIN ‘95 Advisor, a product that will help consumers install Windows ‘95, in late July. Yes, my dear, timing is everything.