On the other hand, sometimes Sullivan may just be dreaming about such bundles of joy. The deal to offer Macintosh ROMs for converting NeXTstations to black Macs, mentioned here in previous columns, may have hit a snag. It seems that Apple wants Switzerland-based Quix Computerware to acquire assurances that NeXT's top brass finds no intellectual-property problems with the Daydream product. Despite lobbying from NeXT community insiders, the required letter has not been forthcoming.
The news is better for customers seeking an Oracle Office client, which is even more interesting now that Lotus and Oracle are working together to produce a Notes-compliant version. With Oracle's Larry Ellison sitting on NeXT's board of directors, the company is receptive to interest from three of NeXT's largest commercial customers. Lighthouse Design has been in touch with Ellison and NeXT to discuss producing a NEXTSTEP Oracle Office, possibly under contract to Oracle and possibly as independents.
Having already replaced its Progression systems with the NX model, Epson is planning to improve on that NEXTSTEP box. The new unit will address some of the speed problems that the present system has in compiling and drive access. The main modification for the new NX is the addition of at least two VL-bus slots for high-speed disk controllers and other third-party interface cards. This will make the NX a better prospect as a developer box and possibly a good CPU replacement for those of us with 21-inch NeXT monitors. Meanwhile, HP is scheduling briefings on its hot new Pentium box optimized for NEXTSTEP.
Greg Anderson's offer for PasteUp, which appeared to be a done deal at press time, was one of three Glenn Reid was considering. Things were not going terribly well until Anderson and Reid scheduled a face-to-face meeting late in September. Apparently their respective West Coast and East Coast business styles caused some very typical clashes. Reid has a separate buyer for ExactlyWrite, but that company is rumored to be facing some fresh competition in the low-end word-processing market on white hardware.
Deals are not progressing as rapidly for Appsoft's orphaned software: WriteNow is far from completion and may not justify anyone picking it up, but the wn2rtf converter is worth something; Draw has competition and a weak reputation; Image has sold well enough, but WetPaint might be enough for many people, and it costs a lot less at retail ($295 vs. $995); Solution may be promising, but many have voiced warnings about the state of Solution's source code today.
While most of the publishing-related news is negative this month, the upside is that Linotype-Hell's Signastation, now based on Siemens Nixdorf boxes, is almost ready. The official roll-out could come before this sees print.
It seems increasingly unlikely that Informix will sell the rights for Wingz/NEXTSTEP to anybody, despite appeals from several of NeXT's biggest customers. One alternative is to run Wingz on other platforms and XHost onto NEXTSTEP boxes. In the meantime, there are rumors of other developers looking to give Mesa some competition, either by writing their own applications from scratch or taking over one of the orphans and revamping it into a new spreadsheet product.
The Fidelity prototype was completed on NEXTSTEP but it appears that implementation will probably happen on Windows or Windows NT. Steve Jobs and his top sales execs are headed to Boston for a rescue mission in early October and there's no telling how that will affect things. Fidelity didn't get to the top of the fund-management heap by taking the safe route, so Steve may get a foothold with that angle. Of course, Pencom would be happy to do either platform, as long as they keep the business. That's a danger with systems integrators Ð they look great on NeXT's corporate resume but have no loyalty.
Even better than trading land for peace is trading tips for Lt. Sullivan coffee mugs. Leave Sullivan voice mail at 415/978-3374 or e-mail at sullivan@nextworld.com. If you want to ensure the secrecy surrounding your safe house, Sullivan's RSA public key is available upon request.