User group Newsletter Editors: Utilize this content in your newsletter -- PLEASE ... reference The User Group Network _ / _ UG Network Channel _ / _ NEWS_/ _ Rumor Manager The Rumor Manager is looking for your rumors and tidbits... give him a post! ...or subscribe... see subscription notes below 9910.18 -- Disappearing e-mail; Macromedia gets larger; NT Virus; Apple Brazil; Microsoft to do Smartcard software; Apple 4th Quarter Results; More **** Disappearing e-mail Disappearing Inc., says its e-mail policy management system will ship in the first quarter of next year. Initially, it will offer a service a $4 per user per month that will handle a company's e-mail on their servers. The e-mail policy management system, according to the company, will work regardless of the client programs the sender and receiver are using, including Microsoft Outlook, Eudora, Netscape Mail, or Web-based e-mail programs such as HotMail. No word on platforms supported by the client, but it sounds like it shouldn't care. The main idea is to have a key, for each message. That key would have an expiration date, so that once past that date key would no longer be available. Then people like Bill Gates, wouldn't have to explain what they were thinking when they wrote particular pieces of e-mail two years ago. For more info according to the company **** Macromedia and Andromedia Macromedia bought Andromedia for $275 million in stock on 10/7. This signals that Macromedia is changing its focus from pure graphics orientation to include site management, personalization and reporting tools. This will get them into the services business by helping businesses get on the web. Good to see them moving forward. **** NT Virus In the Windows world, it takes a major virus to get headlines. The Register is reporting: "NT security busted by new virus threat". It says that this is "the first first virus to integrate with NT's security protocols." It is called WinNT.Infis and acts as a system driver. A fix for the virus is available by clicking here. <http://www.avp.com/> **** Brazil Apple has announced that it will open offices in the Brazilian cities of Curitiba and Rio de Janeiro. IDC (International Data Corporation), the Apple platform increased its Brazilian market share from 1% last year to 3% this year, with a possibility of reaching 5% at year-end 1999. Now you can see why Apple is starting to do more in South America. I bet yummy colors have a lot to do with it. **** MS SmartCard Microsoft announced that they were going to be getting into the smart card business next month with software specifically for that device. (Credit card sized products with "intelligence". Guess this is part of Bill's Microsoft everywhere campaign. **** New Pentium III on fast track to 1000MHz Intel is claiming that the move to Coppermine Pentium III technology, from the existing technology, will improve integer performance by 12 per cent and floating point performance by 20 per cent compared to similar MHz processors. Intel has also increased the headroom, so the processor can be revved to higher frequencies of more than 1000MHz, whilst improving the overall performance. The first incarnation will be at least 700MHz.. My question is at what point do we no longer need the speed improvements? Five years ago, we had computers that were faster than we could type. Now that we have machines capable of doing desktop video how much faster do we need? I know it wrong to say never in the computer world, but at some point it should become unneeded by the majority of users. (This is where I normally throw in the Bill Gates quote about never needing more then 640K of RAM.) **** Jobs isn't resting... Time magazine has a really good cover story on Steve Jobs and his work at Pixar and Apple. Including the tidbit that Johnny Ive (iMac designer) has been contacted for design work on a new project to come out in about a year. So it sounds like Apple isn't going to rest. **** London Drugs Apple Computer announced that it will begin distributing iMac and iBook products through London Drugs, chain of megastores in Western Canada.. London Drugs has 49 retail outlets in B.C. and Alberta, selling everything from cameras and small appliances to life insurance and photo-finishing. Can Best Buy be far behind? **** Dell/Samsung Following in Apple's footsteps, but taking it much farther, Dell is expected to sign a five-year contract with Samsung for $8.5 billion to to ensure future supplies of very constrained thin-film-transistor liquid crystal displays. ... During the summer, Apple made a $100 million investment with Samsung in July. I also quoted an article a week or so after that event that said Apple had committed $1 Billion to Samsung as well. Both companies are trying to make sure they have the screens for their popular notebooks and flat panel monitors. Looks like it is going to be interesting for a couple of years until production really gets ramped up. **** MS Annual Report Salon is reporting that the Microsoft Annual report was produced on a Macintosh. At least the file fragments that say where it came from mentions a G3 of the author. Once again Fast Save comes back to haunt the author. **** Novel Neural Net Recognizes Spoken Words Better Than Human Listeners Science Daily is reports: At the University of Southern California some biomedical engineers have created the world's first machine system that can recognize spoken words better than humans can. They say, that the system might soon facilitate voice control of computers and other machines, help the deaf, aid air traffic controllers and others who must understand speech in noisy environments, and instantly produce clean transcripts of conversations, identifying each of the speakers. So we might get Star Trek quality voice recognition yet. **** 50 Off? Wednesday 10/13, Apple said that its new G4's will now run at 350, 400 and 450 MHz speeds while keeping the same price as the 400, 450 and 500 ones they had previously announced. Apple said they were doing this because the 500 MHz processor wouldn't be available until after the first of the year. Guess all of you who purchased 400 MHz machines at $1599 got a real deal. It is going to make it a little more difficult for the support people though, if they put the new 400 MHz processor into new motherboards. But then if they only give us the 450 on new motherboards it shouldn't make any difference. Except that Apple's profit margin should improve on each machine. Stay tuned for further developments. **** Apple Earnings By now, you have probably seen Apple's 4th Quarter results. While not as good as we had hoped back in August, it was slightly better than what Apple had predicted a couple of weeks ago. Back orders have definitely hurt their results. The profit excluding some special items was 51 cents a share compared with most predictions of 45. The sale of ARM stock and some other things gave Apple a 63 cent share profit compared to 68 last year. (Diluted) Additionally net cash level decreased .3 billion to $2.9 billion. It also saw an increase in inventory standing, up to two days from 15 hours. All those new machines gotta go somewhere. For the year, Apple saw a profit of about $601 million, based on $6.2 billion in sales. So it looks like Apple should have a better Christmas than last year IF they can get the supply problems worked out. Since IBM says they will now make processors for Apple too, they could do it.. **** Stop the press - ... as I prepare this column for shipping to UGN, rumors are coming out that Apple has canceled all G4 orders. It is allowing its customers to select the new machines. Thus if you haven't received your G4 at 400 MHz and the Yikes! Motherboard, you won't be getting it. To get the 400 MHz with the Sawtooth configuration, you will have to reorder and pay an additional $500. This really sounds like bad PR on Apple's part. Don't know how they are really going to explain that the motherboard improvement is worth that much of an upgrade. So, if you ordered the original G4, run to CompUSA and wipe out their small inventory of G4s. 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 for more information go to: http://www.user-groups.net/ugcommunity/subscribe.html The Rumor Manager is a veteran of the UGN (AOL User Groups Forum) and User Group Network. He's been a supporter and volunteer on many, many UGNet and User Group Academy projects. As a long time user group member, he's served as volunteer from Honolulu to Boston and many points in between. Currently working with the Apple Corp of Dallas, the Dallas Mac Pack, Cowtown MUG of Ft. Worth and TUMS (the Tulsa Users of Macintosh Society) doing newsletter articles and the monthly CD-ROM Update. 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