The Seybold Report on Desktop Publishing articles from December 1993

The Seybold Report on Desktop Publishing archives from December 1993

CD-ROM update: market forecasts and product introductions. (summary of feature article)
December 6, 1993... Everyone agrees that the cd-rom market is large (7 million readers now installed) and growing fast. At this October's Cd-rom Expo, we heard diverse opinions on just how fast it really is growing, and what proportion of the growth is coming from...

Mailed with this issue: Seybold San Francisco, II; 1994 calendar of events. (summary of feature article)
December 6, 1993... Mailed with this issue is the second of two Special Reports from the Seybold San Francisco Conference and Exposition. The first part, featuring color and output topics, was mailed two weeks ago with our previous issue (Vol. 8, No. 3). In this...

GCC 1200 handles 12" x 19" plain paper. (GCC Technologies' SelectPress 1200 laser printer) (Product Announcement)
December 6, 1993... GCC Technologies is joining LaserMaster, Tegra-Varityper, Birmy Graphics, Graphic Enterprises and several others in the large-format (larger than 11"x17") plain-paper imaging fray with a new, low-priced but high-performance model called the...

CalComp announces personal ink-jet printer. (TechJet Personal) (Product Announcement)
December 6, 1993... At AutoFact '93, CalComp's Plotter Division announced its first ink-jet printer, the TechJet Personal. It is a B-size desktop model priced at $699 that uses bubble-jet ink-on-demand technology. The printer is targeted at individual users in...

CD-ROM publishing: update on the market and products. (overview of trends, companies and products)
December 6, 1993... Despite vastly increased public awareness of cd-rom technology and the intense merger and alliance fever surrounding interactive digital technologies, Cd-rom Expo '93, held in Boston in October, was remarkably light on new developments. Was the...

Compton's awarded patent on multimedia. (Compton's New Media's broad patent raises concerns over validity)
December 6, 1993... Compton's New Media, the firm that publishes the Compton's electronic encyclopedia and sells a toolkit for developing multimedia titles, stunned the media world at Comdex by announcing that it has received a broad patent covering a wide range...

Microsoft to add Kodak CMS at OS level. (to license portions of color management system for upcoming versions of Microsoft operating systems)
December 6, 1993... In mid-November, Kodak announced that Microsoft will license portions of its color management technology for implementation in future versions of Microsoft operating system software. Microsoft will also license a base set of device color...

SWFTE plaintiffs drop injunction appeal. (five firms say SWFTE International no longer pirating fonts; original lawsuit to proceed)
December 6, 1993... Stating that SWFTE International has sufficiently changed its production practices and no longer copies from their copyrighted fonts, the group of five vendors that had sued SWFTE last spring is no longer seeking a preliminary injunction....

Apple card lets Mac run DOS, Windows. (add-in motherboard card with Intel microprocessor under development)
December 6, 1993... We never thought we'd see the day when Apple showed a Macintosh with an Intel cpu inside, but that's exactly what we saw at Comdex. Actually, the Mac in question (a Quadra 610) had two cpu chips: its own Motorola processor on the motherboard,...

The PDA as seen by the phone company. (IBM's Simon personal digital assistant built by BellSouth) (Product Announcement)
December 6, 1993... "Personal Digital Assistant" (pda) is the term Apple coined to refer to its Newton product line. But what is a pda? From the point of view of computer manufacturers, it is a small pen computer with some add-on communications capabilities. That...

Agfa adds StudioScan as entry-level scanner. (flatbed color scanner priced near $1,000) (Product Announcement)
December 6, 1993... At Comdex/Fall in Las Vegas, Agfa rounded out its desktop scanner line with a new, low-end model aimed at the burgeoning small business, office and home office, and entry-level presentation graphics segments of the scanning market. Called...

S3 debuts 64-bit graphics accelerator. (Vision864 and Vision964 chips) (Product Announcement)
December 6, 1993... A specialty chip-maker, S3 Inc., has announced a high-performance graphics accelerator technology for pcs. The Vision864 and Vision964 are 64-bit graphics processors with on-chip interfaces to the pci and vesa local buses. The chips also...

Multi-network, 600-dpi printer from QMS. (QMS 1725 SLS laser printer) (Product Announcement)
December 6, 1993... QMS has added a member to its growing line of Crown technology printers. The recently announced QMS 1725 SLS is a 17-ppm multi-network laser printer providing 600-dpi resolution. Priced at $5,999, it builds on the base of the existing QMS 1725...

Network printer from Alps Electric. (LSX1600c high-capacity laser printer) (Product Announcement)
December 6, 1993... Alps Electric has announced a new, high-capacity laser printer, the LSX1600e, to replace the LSX1600 in its printer lineup. The new version provides enhanced paper handling and automatic networking. It is designed for heavier usage than the...

Next page in Pages' Next saga: shipments. (Pages Software's Pages by Pages document processing system in final beta testing, Next Inc.'s relationship with Sun Microsystems expected to boost potential audience) (Product Announcement)
December 6, 1993... Anyone who has been involved in this industry in any capacity surely is well aware of some unwritten rules of product development. In particular, there's a rule (with numerous corollaries) often attributed to a certain Mr. Murphy. It states...

Word for Word supports compound documents. (Mastersoft's Word for Word 6.0 file format conversion software) (Product Announcement)
December 6, 1993... One of the most flexible file format conversion packages around is Mastersoft's Word for Word. The company has more than 500,000 users of its conversion technology, besides an even larger customer base using it through oem relationships. The...

Internet Starter Kit. (Hayden Books introduces Internet Starter Kit for the macintosh book/software combo)
December 6, 1993... Internet starter kit. Hayden Books has published Internet Starter Kit for the Macintosh, a book/software deal priced at $30. The book explains how to connect to the Internet. The software includes MacTCP, Apple's tcp/ip driver. It also includes...

Is there a Windows guru in the house? (Peachpit Press introduces Dr. Daniel's Windows Diet book on optimizing Microsoft Windows-based systems)
December 6, 1993... Is there a Windows guru in the house? Peachpit Press has released Dr. Daniel's Windows Diet, by Daniel Will-Harris. It is a tiny book, written with a light and frothy style, containing a few key pointers about optimizing your pc. If you are on...

Business software for photographers. (Vertex Software's PhotoByte) (Product Announcement)
December 6, 1993... Business software for photographers. Vertex Software has announced PhotoByte, an application that handles the business side of professional photography. It handles job sheets, estimates, contracts, invoices, model releases and sundry other...

Best Corel quarter. (Corel Systems Corp. reports 43 percent increase in revenues for third quarter 1993; up from 1992 figures)
December 6, 1993... Best Corel quarter. For its third quarter, Corel reported revenues of $41.4 million, up 43% over the same quarter in 1992, and after- tax net income of $9.6 million vs. $3.8 million a year ago.

QMS trims staff, reports loss. (lays off 200, reports $2.47 million loss for fourth quarter 1993)
December 6, 1993... QMS trims staff, reports loss. QMS has trimmed its staff by about 200 people, or 12% of the company, following the company's second consecutive year of operating losses. The fourth quarter, ended Sept. 30, brought a $2.47 million loss...

Aldus revenues up. ($62.2 million sets record for quarter; up 37 percent from previous year)
December 6, 1993... Aldus revenues up. Aldus reported a new record for revenues for a quarter: $62.2 million, up 37% from the $45.3 million a year ago. Aldus attributed most of the increase to record sales of PageMaker 5.0, and noted that $16.1 million (26% of the...

Fulcrum IPO. (Fulcrum Technologies has initial public offering; stock price climbs from $11 to $13 on first day of trading)
December 6, 1993... Fulcrum ipo. Fulcrum Technologies, a developer of full-text retrieval software, has gone public. Nasdaq trading began on November 16 (under the ticker symbol FULCF) with 1.75 million shares offered at $11 apiece. As we went to press, the price...

Crossword Magic does puzzle layout. (Mindscape's crossword puzzle construction set for the Apple Macintosh) (Product Announcement)
December 6, 1993... We've tried putting together our own crossword puzzles. After thinking up a bunch of words and clues, we faced the problem of linking them into a puzzle. We've tried traditional approaches (a stack of graph paper) and electronic hacks (an Excel...

Vending kiosks bring clip art on demand. (The Art Center introduces fee-based art service with CD-ROM-based graphics)
December 6, 1993... With all the emphasis placed on computerized design and page makeup, we sometimes forget that the vast majority of graphic design work (by small design shops as well as inside corporate America) is still performed mechanically. Although the use...

Seybold Seminars '94: call for speakers. (proposals sought for March 1994 trade show in Boston, MA)
December 6, 1993... We are seeking speaker proposals for the 14th annual Seybold Seminars, to be held March 22-25, 1994, at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston. We encourage all of you to suggest topics you think should be addressed and people whose views you...

Bitstream deals with ideographic fonts. (signs contracts with DynaLab, Enfore Media Laboratory, Gamma Productions for Korean, Chinese and Kanji fonts, tools, distribution)
December 6, 1993... Bitstream has signed deals with three companies aimed at serving the market for ideographic languages. In a deal with DynaLab, it gained rights to distribute DynaLab's Chinese and Korean typefaces in North America and Europe. In another...