User group Newsletter Editors: Utilize this content in your newsletter -- PLEASE ... reference The User Group Network _ / _ UG Network Channel _ / _ NEWS_/ _ The Rumor Manager is looking for your rumors and tidbits... give him a post! ...or subscribe... see subscription notes below 07/26/99 MacWorld Expo Notes . The show was a higher energy level show. (Maybe the Global Village People had something to do with it. - Never did get close enough to hear the lyrics to "In the Navy" that they were singing.) **** Attendance MacWeek is reporting that 46,119 people attended the New York show -- 35 percent more than the previous year. But we have heard mention over 70K at a San francisco show and most of the Boston shows were over 50K. but then, NYC is just getting started. They were handicapped by the last minute changes in venue the last two years. Now that they have signed a 5 year contract for the Javits Center, the numbers should continue to go up. (BTW there were 5,500 at the keynote. Which was a new record. First time they had enough room for so many people. Hopefully with the new facilities at Moscone, they will be able to continue bringing in the User Group leaders. **** Jobs Kills'em in the Keynote Of course the highlight was Steve Jobs' iBook and AirPort announcements. I won't go into those details here, as they are scattered everywhere on the net. Some of the other things in his speech bear looking at closer though. QTV for one. It really looks cool. Over the weekend, Virgin Radio was added to the channel list. Apple should be able to become THE technology for media on the net. OS9 was also an unexpected announcement. Not that we weren't expecting a new upgrade, but the jump from 8.6 to 9 was unexpected. The announcement of IBM bringing their voice/speech technology to the Mac on top of previous announce Dragon Systems and MacSpeech getting technology from Philips really means voice is looking up. Then of course there was "Halo". While I suspect this game will require a G3, it was extremely impressive in the drawing of its landscapes. **** Corel I missed the announcement from Corel, that they would not be doing a future upgrade to the current version of Word Perfect. Meanwhile they showed their support for the Macintosh by announcing 3 new graphic programs. I suspect that they will have a new version of Word Perfect that will be carbon based and be available for OSX. Epson and Canon were both showing multipurpose FAX/printer/scanning machines. An area that the Mac has been short in for sometime. I still personally don't recommend them. **** Aladdin Aladdin was showing Spring Cleaning 3.0 and Dashboard. They had also announced that they had acquired MacTicker. They are certainly growing the company on the back of the Mac. I don't think they have sold may Stuffit programs for the PC. **** IBook Memory NewerrRam and Peripheral Enhancements Corporationhave both announced ram modules for the new iBook. **** Symantec At the User Group Breakfast on Friday at MacWorld, Symantec announced that Norton Anti Virus 6.0 and Norton Utilities for the Mac 5.0 will ship in August. They are also working on an unannounced product that they wouldn't discuss. I would think that they are going to make sure they have a product for OSX when it is released, so they don't go through the nasty remarks ;ike they did when they weren't ready for HFS+. It really is amazing, that they are the number one software manufacturer at retail on both Windows and Mac. Doesn't seem like they would have enough products to do that. **** MySoftware MySoftware exhibited in the Small Business Pavilion, where they showed off MyInvoices, MyLabels, MyMailList, and MyDataBase which are all expected to ship for the Mac platform in the third quarter of 1999. It is good to see them get back into the Mac side of the business. They have traditionally done decent inexpensive software aimed at the very small business and some individuals. Welcome back guys. Don't forget the Rumor Manager invites you to use all or part of his column in your user group newsletter. Please let him know at rumormangr@aol.com and if possible send an electronic copy for the old scrapbook. pau Subscribe to Rumors@lists.user-groups.net DIGEST VERSION: rumors-digest@lists.user-groups.net (recommended) rumors-on@lists.user-groups.net The Rumor Manager is a veteran of the UGN (AOL User Groups Forum) and User Group Network. 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