APPLE

A Look at the Future • • •
Apple's Independent Software
Developer's Conference
by Don Norris
T
wice a year, Apple Computer puts
on a very extensive and thorough
series of workshops and seminars
for independent software develpers.
The quality of the information presented
by Apple at these four-day workshops
makes it very obvious that Apple is committed
to supporting and working with
the independent software developer. The
goal is a broader range of better products
for all of us.
The most recent of these conferences
took place between August 8 and August
11. System Failure $06 is in the Apple///
a stack overflow, which is exactly how I felt
after attending the sessions. How do you
handle a 2 to 3 inch high (paper) stack of
information from a four day conference;
a stack which could have been even
higher if I had picked up everything
available and been able to attend every
workshop.
John Sculley, Apple's new Chief Exec·
utive Officer, sounded the general theme.
His comments in general: Apple's market
positioning is to be the best, not the
biggest Apple would be marketing on a
performance basis and not on price. The
latter strategy has been pursued by a
couple of other computer companies
with some disasterous financial results.
Technical
The conference began Monday after·
noon with informal sessions on various
topics. Of particular interest to me was
the session on integrated software, which
has become one of the microcomputer
industry's buzz words in recent months.
(Various manufacturers are claiming that
their approximation of Lisa's integrated
approach is "imminent". Sure it is.)
10 Apple Orchard
This brought up the question of just
what is meant by integrated software. Is it
having several functions built into one
piece of software, such as a spread sheet,
database, and text editing all in one
package or the ability to move data from
within one program to a different pro·
gram? The developers present indicated
that there was no uniform standard in the
industry for data transfer. (Nor for much
of anything else.-PCW)
The only thing close to a standard
means of file transfer and format is an
ASCII text file. Everyone generally agreed
that while it was not perfect it represented
a starting point
New tools are being developed to
make software authors' jobs easier. An
example is a new language called