The LA Fox Developer Newsletter

July 1995

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, mean-

while, 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 prac-

tices, utilizing man-years of resources and lots of

taxpayers money, and routinely dismisses charges

against an obvious monopoly, Ticketmaster,

whose common business practices include exclu-

sive 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 ques-

tion 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 cam-

paign 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 deserv-

ing. 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 cur-

rently 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.

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