Spring Internet World '99: the Mac presence

By Gary Coyne
[Thursday, May 6, 1999]

If "dot-com" is supposed to make it rain money, than the impression one is left with from Spring Internet World was that "e-commerce-dot-com" should pour money. Any way to sell, assist selling, guide selling, advise selling, or selling selection was for sale.

My main objective at the show was to find out if the Mac had a presence. It did. Were there a lot? Not really, but from what I saw two years ago there was a major increase. Had this show opened in a month or two, the Mac presence would have been greater. At numerous booths, when asked if they had a Mac version of their product, vendors stated they were a month or two from beta. Often I was told this with excitement and eagerness in their voice.

Without a doubt, the two "most Mac booths" were Adobe and Macromedia. Both extensively showcased their products on Macs at every corner of their exhibit space (integrated with several PCs). If you've never been to a major trade-show, the bigger companies have a space about the size of a small house (w/o walls) that includes a "theater" where they demonstrate products on a large screen to a sitting audience. There are also several "satellite" stations designed for one-on-one product demonstrations.

The most pleasant but bizarre Mac presence was from the UUNET, an MCI world.com company. Their booth (a large-sized house) included monitors at many locations showing the great things MCI can do for you. In this "house," they had two employee station booths, each containing an iMac. There were no PCs anywhere, but the iMacs were exclusively for the employee's use.

The biggest booth, to no surprise, was Microsoft; there were no Macs. On one hand it is easy to say "it's Microsoft, why should they show Macs?" However, realize that the company with the 2^nd largest assembly of Mac programmers (2^nd to Apple) is Microsoft. They have a complete Mac division, and that, in part, was part of the reason why there was no Mac presence. It seems that each division in Microsoft is responsible for establishing which trade shows to attend. The PC division went to Spring Internet World and the Mac division did not. The PC division was concerned with software and issues relevant to their division, and as Macintosh MS Internet Explorer CDs were not part of their division, they were not available. A classic case of the right hand not knowing what the left forearm is doing, or caring.

By far the biggest disappointment for their lack of presence was Apple. I was unable to find anyone at Apple to answer why they elected not to attend the show, but it seems to me that this crowd would have been open and receptive to Apple's appearance. Maybe next year.

Then there are those companies that are just a joy. Jintek presented ScheduleOnline on Macs, a free web-based scheduler that can be used by individuals or groups. There were no PCs in sight, although the software works on them. They presented on Macs because they like them. Their whole shop is Mac based and they would rather show it off on Macs than PCs.

Similar to Jintek, Sports.com does just about all their work on Macs. They provide free QuickTime movies on the web that demonstrate how to perform various sports: baseball, skiing, hockey, and many more--a large list that continues to grow.

KDS Pixel Touch creates touch screen software. It works with Macs, but no Macs were in sight. It seems that one of Apple's policies has become a major hurdle for this company. They would love to use iMacs, as they would be perfect for museums and other sites, but opening an iMac to add the necessary hardware voids the warranty. They, and Apple, are still in negotiations.

AOL and Earthlink each provided Mac software and they even had a few iMacs to try it out. There was a line waiting for testing (playing) on the few Macs that were available.

One of the more talked about products was Ch-ching! Ch-ching! from Imacination Software. Ch-Ching! is a FileMaker Pro/Lasso e-commerce solution that the user integrates with a web creation program (Adobe GoLive, Macromedia DreamWeaver, etc.) to create shopping carts. If you have been involved in web design, one of the bigger headaches is when your client wants a shopping cart. It is a headache because they can be a real pain to create, yet sites with shopping carts are very lucrative to the designer. In other words, you are paid well for your headaches. Because FileMaker and Lasso are both Mac and PC compatible, the final product easily integrates with most web design programs on either platform. If you build web sites, Ch-Ching! is worth checking out.

IPIX sells the hardware and software to create QTVR (QuickTime virtual reality) pictures in much less time than ever before. With their special cameral and lens, two pictures are all that's required for the software to create a 360 degree environment. Their product gave wonderful results.

Web Zinger, from Imaginon, has a product for the "b" personalities out there. A search engine that instead of bringing up a text list of sites, brings up the pictures from the sites. Web Zinger's better features include the ability to filter redundant site finds, and exclude specific sites or site types (i.e., pornography). However, since the www, often referred to as the "world wide wait," because of the long load times for graphics, this is not a product for the "type-A" personality. In the program's defense, it can perform searches in the background. They have two products: WebZinger and WebZinger for Kids. They will soon have a WebZinger for Schools.

As stated, there was a variety of products near completion for the Mac. At the risk of promoting vaporware, let me start with Emotion 3D from Anark who used to make Mac games (Galapagos) but left the Mac market several years ago when it seemed like Apple was a goner. Now, they are excited (and even gushing) to be back making Mac products. In this animated art product for web creation, you select your art, select the movements, and the software generates an animated GIF . Look for the Mac version of this product in the summer.

Versaware Technologies helps create Versabooks, which are cross-referenced digital books from electronic (digital) text. They expect 2-3 months for the Mac version.

Supposedly there's one month wait for the Mac version of "E-mail VOICElink" from Softlink. VOICElink allows you to record voice messages, attach them to documents and send the attachments via e-mail.

Eureka Electronic Publishing provides assistance and/or can make complete electronic publishing systems. EPP works on both PCs and Mac, but didn't have a Mac in sight. When I pointed out to one sales manager that Mac users would walk right by their booth and not even stop to look (as all one saw were PCs), the sales manager was truly shocked by the oversight. By the next day, they had a big sign stating that they work with Macs as well and plan on having Macs on display next year.

There were perhaps half a dozen other companies that included Macs at their booths only because they could, not because their software was in anyway supported the platform.

Some observations:

Many companies offered web feeds for sports, news, events, etc. that can be picked up by your server to include as part of your website. These are not platform dependants as any platform/browser can view the result of these feeds via the web. However, the server must be either Unix and/or NT.

One potentially ugly scene I see for the future of the web is the "CostCofication" of the Web. Around the country, one can find a CostCo, Sam's Club, and perhaps other membership "club" stores. Because one can buy napkins, salad dressings, candy, and coffee by the case loads, one can see which restaurants shop at these "Club" Stores--you can see the tell-tale same napkins, salad dressing, candy, and coffee in all of them. Pre-made web graphics, animated graphics, and even web pages were common at the show. If you start seeing them all over the web, you can see evidence of the "CostCofication" of the Web. (You heard the word hear first.)

In addition to the Ch-Ching! solution for building a shopping cart, many companies will do the whole thing for you--- everything from your whole web site to just the e-commerce/shopping cart pages. Since they already have setups for working with the various credit cards, many of the hassles of establishing an e-commerce site are eliminated. The cost ranges from free to lots of money. The free e-commerce providers depend on you using their other services for which they do charge. Other shopping cart services charge a fee depending on the number of items, the amount of sales, or just a flat fee. Because these are linking to your site (or provide the entire site), platform is not relevant.

Overall, the Mac presence was good but not great. As more commerce and business sites move to the web, the platform dependence becomes less critical. Despite that, there was a growing presence of Macs at this show that is certain to continue as Apple makes a comeback from the beleaguered days of the past. Meanwhile, if you have a chance to go to shows like this and you see products for the PC, ask, "is there a Mac version?" If the answer is no, ask "When?"

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February 09, 2010