****PC RETAIL SALES PREDICTED TO JUMP BY 1996 DALLAS, TEXAS, U.S.A., 1993 JUL 19 (NB) -- In three years, most of the estimated forty-six PCs sold in the US will be purchased through retail outlets instead of the traditional computer outlets, according to a recent survey released by Channel Marketing. The survey information is from Channel Marketing's "Changing Trends in the Distribution of PCs in the 90s," which notes that the retail channel, or Power Channel, consists of computer superstores, office supply superstores, national and regional consumer electronics chains, mass merchants, department stores, warehouse clubs, and non- specialty stores. The traditional channel is made up of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) such as Dell and IBM as well as computer stores such as Computerland and Microage. In 1992 the majority of PC customers were split nearly evenly between corporate customers, home customers, and small to medium business customers. The actual breakdown of PC customers in 1992 is 30 percent corporate, 27 percent home customers, 34 percent small to medium businesses, and 9 percent government customers. However, Channel Marketing has been predicting dramatic growth in the acceptance of PCs will alter the percentages of users to 42 percent home users, 36 percent small to medium business customers, 16 percent corporate and 6 percent government by 1996. The increase in home and small to medium business customers coupled with the availability of brand name PCs in more of the Power Channel accounts for part of the predicted increase in Power Channel sales. The other reason for the increase is the decreasing cost of PCs. Channel Marketing claims the PC became a commodity when 486-based systems were targeted at prices below $1,000 by manufacturers. Specifically, the Power Channel is expected to provide 54.1 percent of overall sales by 1996 as opposed to 29.5 percent in 1992. The traditional channel's piece of the pie will drop to 36.9 percent in 1996 from current levels of 60.5 percent while value added resellers will go from 5.4 percent to 5.1 percent and system integrators will go from 4.6 percent to 3.9 percent, the marketing group maintains. Does this mean lower revenues for the other PC providers? Not at all, according to the Channel Marketing. The pie is growing so everyone's could grow in revenue, even if the percentage of the pie. (Linda Rohrbough/19930719/Press Contact: David Goldstein, Channel Marketing, tel 214-239-3305, fax 214-960-7159) SONY'S MINIDISK -- THE JAPANESE PERSPECTIVE TOKYO, JAPAN, 1993 JUL 19 (NB) -- Sony has developed a PC version of its minidisk, first seen last year for the audio market-place. The disk, known as the MD Data format, is aimed at users of existing 3.5 and 5.25 inch floppy disks. The audio minidisk was launched last November and, since then, has been vying with the Digital Compact Cassette (DCC) system unveiled by Matsushita and Philips. At the launch, Sony said it planned use the disks for computer data, but no-one thought the disks would be ready so soon. The MD Data disk is capable of handling an amazing 140 megabytes (MB) of data on a single disk -- equivalent to 2,000 PC screens of color data. Coupled with a data transmission speed for 150K per second, the disk is capable of reading and writing data faster than most PCs can cope with it. The advantage of the MD Data format, according to Sony, is that the drives capable of reading and writing in the new format are remarkably similar to standard high density units. Sony claims that, with a very slight modification to the standard drive at the manufacturing stage allows them to read both standard and MD Data disk formats. According to Sony, the MD Data disk can store data in three different formats: pre-mastered for electronic publishing, recordable (full magneto-optical) and hybrid, which is part pre- recorded and part magneto-optical. This latter format is for situations where some data has to be re-recorded, but where high density data recordings must be accessed on the drive. Sony Japan also claims that the MD Data system also allows data to be exchanged between different operating systems. This is because each MD Data disk uses the same data format on the surface of the disk, regardless of what computing platform or operating system is used with the disk. (Masayuki "Massey" Miyazawa/19930719/Press Contact: Sony, +81-3- 5448-2200, Fax, +81-3-5448-3061) PENRIGHT! OFFERED WITH NEC'S VERSAPAD IRVINE, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1993 JUL 19 (NB) -- The move towards pen-based mobile computing has been further highlighted with NEC's announcement that its VersaPad pen computer now supports PenRight! According to NEC, its four-pound VersaPad is an 80486SL-based tablet pen computer designed for use in mobile data collection, order entry, sales, claims inspections, and medical record keeping applications. The company claims that VersaPad is now able to run more than 400 applications currently available for the PenRight! operating system. The company also claims that some industry analysts estimate PenRight! has captured more than 80 percent of the pen-based market, and in the last year, PenRight! sales have increased more than 200 percent. PenRight! applications are used in such tasks as data collection, inspections, route accounting, inventory control, shipping and receiving, sales force automation, and patient monitoring. Announcing the support of PenRight!, Renee Bader, manager of strategic marketing for the portable computer systems division at NEC, said: "The largest opportunity for pen-based computing is in the vertical mission-specific applications. NEC plans to utilize PenRight!'s established community of developers that have shipped proven applications for the past three years." NEC is licensing PenRight! for resale to users wanting to run software under the PenRight! environment. Other products licensed to run applications developed with PenRight! are the Fujitsu PoqetPad, the Grid Convertible and PalmPAD, NCR's 3125/3130, the Norand Pen View, and Samsung's PenMaster. PenRight! is a DOS-based graphical user interface and handwriting recognition system for uppercase and lowercase characters, pen gestures and international language support. (Ian Stokell/19930719/Press Contact: Lauren Baker, 817-491-5369, AST Research) LOTUS DEVELOPMENT RESTRUCTURES EDUCATIONAL LICENCES IN UK STAINES, MIDDLESEX, ENGLAND, 1993 JUL 19 (NB) -- Lotus has swept away the complex licensing rules for its software in the educational arena in the UK, introducing a "multiple choice" licencing scheme. Max Mclaren, Lotus' educational development manager, said that the scheme is in response to the major changes that have taken place in the educational market this last 18 months. He told Newsbytes that the last few years has seen a shift in Local Educational Authority (LEA) software purchasing trends, away from centralized contracts and back to localized purchasing. "This was such a change from earlier centralised buying trends that we took a long look at how our products are sold in the educational market," he said. The scheme works with educational users only needing to buy one software licence per PC, regardless of what Lotus applications are to be used. To add another package to its licence, users simply buy a standard educational single package. The idea is that educational users can use only one application per PC at once. "One of the biggest headaches for the educational Informational technology (IT) manager is budget planning. The IT manager has traditionally had to budget for multiple licences for each type of application across different platforms," Mclaren explained. "In reality, when the funds are no longer there to purchase enough licences you run into problems. Either you get a situation where students are jostling for limited machines or software may be copied illegally, which opens you up to the scrutiny of organizations like the Federation Against Software Theft," he said, "By rationalizing the way in which an institution can purchase licences. we've eliminated this problem. If an institution has 100 computers it needs only purchase 100 licences, then a single copy of every type of application is required. Lotus is the first company to take such a simple and direct approach," he said. (Steve Gold/19930719/Press & Public Contact: Lotus Development - Tel: 0784-455445) CD-ROM LENDING FOR LIBRARIES OFFERED BY COMPTON'S CARLSBAD, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1993 JUL 21 (NB) -- Public Libraries will be lending CD-ROM titles if Compton's plan works. A publisher of storybooks, reference, music, travel, and business titles on CD-ROM, Compton's Newmedia division is offering a specially marked series to libraries for lending to the community. Projections are one in nine US homes will have a CD-ROM drive by 1995 and Compton's says that is enough to warrant a library lending program in the estimated 30,000 libraries. The company is offering assortments of ten, twenty, and forty titles - ranging in price from $1,700 to $3,800 - that come with accompanying display holders to promote the collection. Software rental is still illegal in the US without approval from the software publisher. Compton's says it has gotten that special approval and provides special CDs stamped "For Lending Only." The company started the lending program six months ago with video stores and says the plan has been so successful it is expanding the program with more titles and more video stores participating. The titles include everything from "The Doctor's Book of Home Remedies" to the "Adventures of Pinocchio." Most of the titles operate on IBM compatible personal computers (PCs) running DOS, but some titles are for the Macintosh or Windows. Some titles contain software for all three platforms, and Compton's has its own Multiple Operating Systems Technology (MOST) titles that run under DOS, Windows, on the Macintosh, and on the Sony Multimedia Player. Norman Bastin, senior vice president and general manager of Compton's Newmedia said that adding CD-ROMs to library lending programs, "May attract a whole new segment of the population to libraries." (Linda Rohrbough/19930720/Press Contact: Christy Germscheid, Compton's Newmedia, tel 619-929-2500, fax 619-929-2555; 800- 344-2621) IBM JAPAN DEVELOPS HIGH CAPACITY 2.5-INCH DISK DRIVE TOKYO, JAPAN, 1993 JUL 21 (NB) -- IBM Japan has developed a 2.5-inch hard disk drive with a large capacity, called the H2344. According to the company, it supports 344 megabytes (MB) of data on two disks, which are in the disk drive. It can store 172 MB per disk. This is claimed to be the largest data storage for a 2.5-inch hard disk drive. According to the company, 322 megabit of data can be stored and read per square inch. This is twice as much as that of current disk drives of IBM Japan. The drive is 17 millimeters thick, which is the same as those of IBM Japan's current disk drives. The company also plans to ship this disk drive to other computer makers on an OEM (original equipment manufacturer) basis. The sample price of the disk is 53,000 yen ($480). Other computer makers such as Toshiba have also been selling 2.5- inch hard disks. Toshiba's hard disk, for example, has a 340MB storage capacity, but it is on three disks compared with the two disks of IBM Japan. The 2.5-inch hard disk is not regarded as a standard. However, due to the increasing popularity of notebook PCs and pen-input computers, 2.5-inch disk drives are expected to be used more in the future. (Masayuki "Massey" Miyazawa/19930721/Press Contact: IBM Japan, tel +81-3-3586-1111, fax +81-3-3589-4645) UK - THOMAS COOK USES GEIS TO CHECK ON FRAUD PETERBOROUGH, ENGLAND, 1993 JUL 21 (NB) -- GE Information Systems (GEIS) has developed a new application of its international data network to provide the travel agency Thomas Cook with 24-hour access to a database of stopped (usually lost or stolen) travellers' checks. The database, which is known as the check enquiry status service (CHESS), allows banks and retailers who suspect that a check or checks has/have been stolen, to gain immediate access to a service that gives them an instant - and up to the second - status check on the queried documents. The central database will be held on a computer located at GEIS' US headquarters. Thomas Cook branches will also have access to the service, so they can update and enter details of the check as they are sold. This will speed up the time it takes to validate a check as it is presented for encashment at a bank or travel office. "Our Peterborough office receives around 14,000 verification calls a year from around the world," explained James Hopgood, manager of Thomas Cook's refund center. "We are speeding up the entire verification process, reducing the workload of our Peterborough staff and enabling offices to offer a higher standard both to the banks and retailers who accept our checks and to our customers who buy our travellers checks for business and leisure travel," he said. According to Eamon Walsh, head of information technology (IT) at Thomas Cook, the company is a global organization, "so when we were planning the CHESS system we looked for a development partner who could match our world-wide presence." Walsh said that the GEIS network has excellent world-wide coverage, and, since Thomas Cook has worked with the company before, it knew that they were able to offer a stable and reliable network service. CHESS is now available in 16 cities around the world, including Madrid, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Hong Kong, Melbourne and Bahrain. Plans call for the service to be made available at 25 Thomas Cook main offices around the world by early next year, and eventually to most major cities world-wide over the next few years. (Steve Gold/19930721/Press & Public Contact: GE Information Systems - Tel: 081-741-0077)