Steve Jobs on NeXTSTEP on Intel: the software-only pivot

Welcome to Next World Magazine's Night of Nights, our first ever presentation of the Best of Read Awards for Excellence in Next Step Product Development. I'm Dan Ruby, the Editor-in-Chief of Next World Magazine. Hi, I'm Janine Bernard, publisher of Next World. Thank you all for coming. We're very pleased to be hosting this evening of recognition for the individuals and companies who have set their future on Next Step, the world's acclaimed application development environment. The proof of that is in the pudding in the exceptional suite of third-party applications that exploit the built-in advantages of Next Step. Tonight, we're here to celebrate the spirit of innovation that is embodied in those third-party applications, tools, and peripheral products. We will present 17 awards for the best of read products, but the spirit is present in all of the nominated products. And the ultimate winners are Next users, Next Step users, whose work lives are enriched by the abundance of great products available for Next Step computers.

Next third parties took quite a risk by embracing Next Step. At Next World, we know all about risk as well, because our enterprise is also entrepreneurial. To prove the point, we're going to start the evening with some risky business of our own. We invited you here for an awards ceremony and not a roast, but we couldn't resist sprinkling in a few jokes. And so presenting the entertainment portion of tonight's program is our comedy troupe, The Capital Leagues. Thank you. This is N-N-N-N, the final arbiters of truth in this world and the next.

Good evening. Welcome to N-N-N-N, the only national network devoted completely to news about Nets and the rest of the computer industry. Our top story tonight, sources at Hewlett-Packard confirmed rumors that the computer maker is planning to license Next Step. These sources insisted that their version of Next Step will be fully integrated into Hewlett-Packard's product history. For example, under HP's reverse bullish notation, click and drag will be replaced by track and click. That's right, Dan. According to our reports, HP was determined not to make the same mistake as IBM and firmly secured the right to use Next Step version 2.0.

And in a related room, Hewlett-Packard has also licensed the color black from Next for use on its latest line of slide rules. The United States Environmental Protection Agency has placed a temporary restraining order on Intel Corporation to hold up commercial release of the Pentium processor. The EPA said the measure was sparked by concern over the chip's possible contribution to global warming. And now, as we often do here on the National Next Network, we're going live to Next headquarters in Redwood City for a link with Next spokeswoman, Janine Bernard. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. The third wave of computing is going to leapfrog existing technology. We're aiming these workstations at the higher education market. Now, you might think that few students or academics can actually afford these $10,000 workstations. But Next isn't just a workstation. It's a professional workstation. In this case, for professional scholars. Independently well-paid professional scholars. Shot at business land.

Now, when most people are having a tough time at work, they can talk to their peers. But what about those guys at the top? As the saying goes, it's lonely up there. But NNNN cares, and that's why we've made room in our show for Dr. Dan Biscott, the computer industry's most popular phone-in therapist. Welcome, Dan. Thanks, Barlow. Okay, our first caller tonight is Bill Redmond. What's your problem, Bill? Well, Doctor, no one respects me. No matter how much money I make, people still say I can't make software. Yeah, it's true I was seven years late on that GUI thing. But when we shipped our inferior product, everybody bought it anyway. Now there's this new phrase, what you call it, the thing-oriented software. Do you mean object-oriented? Objects, things, whatever. The point is, we make it, people will buy it. But let's face it, they have to buy it. What hurts, though, is that nobody really loves my software. Nobody really trusts it. So, basically, Bill, you're having a trust problem. Or should I say an anti-trust problem?

I can put you in touch with some very understanding people at the Federal Trade Commission. Give them a call, okay, Bill? Bye. Okay, our next caller is John Cupertino. Go ahead, John, what's your computer industry problem? Yes, Doctor, here's my dilemma. I was quite happy at my old job at the software company, but then this young fellow came to me and said, do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugar water, or do you want a chance to change the world? And so you joined the Peace Corps? Well, I took over a computer company, but here's the kicker. I realized the other day that I would rather sell sugar water. I like selling sugar water. Is that so wrong? Well, you know, John, I'm pretty familiar with your company, and here, as I can see, you're still selling sugar water.

So, why don't you go home and pour yourself a nice glass of pink lemonade? Next caller, go ahead. How do you do, Doc? This is Scott. I'm not new. Ten-four, good buddy. What's on your mind? Well, Doc, I reckon I got myself kind of a drop in the old self-esteem. Gee, I don't blame you, Bubba. I mean, Scott. What's going on to make you feel so worthless? Okay, it's like this. This buddy of mine's company isn't doing so well, but they've got some good technology, and, well, I'm a decent guy, so I figured, well, why not take advantage of the opportunity and pick him up cheap? So I offered him $200 for the whole shebang, but he didn't mind. I went up to $250, but he told me to take a hike. You know, Scott, what's the problem? Is my money dirty or something? You know, Scott, I think maybe this guy's just a couple of pins short of a microprocessor. Thanks for calling. Next caller, you're on the air. Hi, my name's Steve, and I have the biggest and best problem in the world.

Look, Steve, everybody's got problems. What makes yours so great? Okay, I've got this computer company, and we've got the best application environment in existence. Anyway, this so-called friend of mine offered to buy the company for $250. $250, lousy bucks. Can you believe that? I mean, these were the things worth a grand. Uh, Steve? Yeah? What are you, brain dead? How about $250 million? A million? Uh, I gotta make a call. Well, folks, I think my work here is done. Thanks, doctor. Silicon Valley will sleep easy for another night.

See you next time. As you know, Dan, uh, Sputnik's largest customers in the defense and intelligence sectors have filed complaints with the Redwood City Chamber of Commerce, claiming that Steve Jobs misled them about the capabilities of NextUp software. A spokesman for the so-called black accounts said that Jobs' repeated claims of killer software were not quite up to snuff. Apparently, in 13 months of testing, neither the CIA nor the Air Force has actually been able to harm anyone with the software. Uh, maybe they haven't tried 3.1. Well, it looks like we've got Next on the remote. Here's Janine Bernard again, putting the latest English on the company's marketing position. Good afternoon. I'm gonna be honest with you folks. The professional workstation message didn't really catch on. So now we have a new approach. Interpersonal computing. And the thing we really like about it is you can say it all in three letters. I-P-C. I-P-C kind of trips off the tongue, doesn't it?

But just to show how committed we are to bringing good acronyms to the market, we're already working on new initials. The first new batch will be N-P-E. We haven't figured out what it stands for, but the important thing is that we are... It's going to be the pundits, and it's going to be industry acclaimed. And some interesting new developments this hour and next. Concentrating on its strengths in object-oriented software, the company has decided to stop manufacturing hardware in its long-falling Fremont, California, computer factory. Explaining now how this radical decision was reached is next minority shareholder, H. Rush. Car, if a thing don't run, you just got to fix it.

Pop open that hood, roll up your sleeves, stick it in your hands, and fiddle with the grease. Okay, engine don't run, what are we going to do? We're going to cry about it? Heck no. We'll get rid of the engine. Now we've got a car without an engine. Well, fine, but see, that's the beauty part. Because we've still got the body. Can't be afraid of this stuff, folks. Just got to do it. It's like a crazy ant in the basement. Just got to deal with it. Okay. Okay. Move the doors. If it don't work, move the hood. In fact, get rid of the whole thing, buy it, because let's face it, all we ever wanted was a chassis anyway. Now we can sell a chassis, folks. Or if we can, I'm sure Steve can. See, that's the beauty part all over again. Before we were in the car business, we were in the chassis business all along. Ain't life a beautiful thing?

Thank you, Ross. As part of an ongoing reorganization, Next last night needs its new executive vice president for sales and marketing. And on the heels of the decision to discontinue its hardware line, Next president Steve Jobs said the company will take time to focus on the fundamentals of its business. Now topping the list of majors there are capitalizing the E in the next slogan. And... And hiring Frog Design to come up with a great new Next keychain. And... And to move the registers high on the Richter scale, Next will require all registered developers to re-register for the development registrations they already hold in their capacities as registered developers.

In a completely unrelated development, the Japanese electronic giant, Canon, has announced that it will be The Japanese electronic giant, Canon, has announced plans to convert the old workstation factory in Fremont into the world's first robotic karaoke bar. President Clinton tables the plan as a perfect example of the country's conversion to a peacetime economy. Speaking of rebuilding, Marla, let's go now to our next office architecture expert, Bob Vila. Hi. Hi. Welcome to your dissolve tube. Now today I'm going to show you what you can do with some of that great nifty hardware you've probably got laying around your offices. Lucky for us, the Next environment is rich in tools and reusable objects to help with those critical office projects.

Now building a table like this normally takes more than two days, even for an experienced architect. But using the Next machine as a platform, we were able to put one together in only nine seconds. Watch. Now this table looks perfectly level, right? Raw. At least not by industry standards. Here's where Next's unique objects and tools really come in handy. I'll just take my neuron modem. This wasn't used again anyway. And I'll just ship this baby up. I'll get it over here, just pull a couple of tabs, a couple of tabs here and there, and voila.

Perfectly level. At least now it'll match with the rest of the industry. Anyway, we hope this has helped. I'll be back next week with Next's old humor, Peter Van Collender. Till then, have an ergonomic day. And we'll be right back after this message. Hi. I'm not Steve Jobs, but I have a turtle neck. It's financial independence, just like Steve. But here's my point, so can you. Did you ever wonder how to get 250 million from the Japanese with no money down? Did you ever wonder how to be best friends with rich and powerful people like H. Ross Perot?

Did you ever wonder how to get rich and powerful people like H. Ross Perot? I put together a fabulous step-by-step program for accumulating fabulous wealth. I call it the Steve Jobs Wealth Accumulation Course. It gives simple directions for achieving your own financial independence. Take it from me, it just works. I did it, so can you. Best of all, the Steve Jobs Wealth Accumulation Course costs only $29.95. Well, unless you ordered the developer version, which costs $7.95. Which costs $7.95. Call tonight, and I'll include a free unisex black turtle neck and a dull razor and my free gift ticket. You know Dan, I was just wondering, if I stab myself in the head with this guy...

Will it hurt? I don't know, Marlowe, if I use a piece of her test. Yes, it will. As a companion to their successful docu-extender Engage, Millennium Software has announced plans to extend the product family due this quarter our three new programs, Marriage, Separation and Divorce. And this just in from Deep Space. The developers at Stone Design, following a company-wide four-month-long working retreat in Nepal, has announced their latest product. It will be called Design Stone. Following the success of their products Diagram 2 and Concurrence 2, has announced their intentions to change the name of the company to Lighthouse 2.

Isn't that Pangea's? A familiar firm gave special notice that yesterday's Next World Magazine Product Award, Pages by Pages, was awarded the coveted Best in Beta Award for Undersigned. Hey Dan, if I don't ship my product to my expo, will that hurt? There's one item on our vanity bulletin board tonight. The Next Alumni Association will be having a membership meeting in the employee cafeteria of General Magic, Monday, April 1st. Okay, and now we'll be going back to Next offices in Redwood City for a special new marketing message from Next spokeswoman, Jenny Bernard, as she's got her Mission Critical hat on.

Good evening. Well, we never did figure out what NPE was good for, but we've come up with another set of initials, MCCA, and I happen to know what that stands for, Mission Critical Custom Apps. Thank you, everybody. Well, this is just coming in to us now live. Next World Magazine is announcing its new publication schedule, and from now on, the San Francisco-based journal, which has come out on a quarterly basis, will be published monthly. I've just been informed that Next World is no longer planning to publish on a monthly basis, but will be coming out bi-weekly.

I don't know whether that means twice a month, or... Well, except for the newsletter, which will come out once a month. No. So, it'll be every other month. No, wait a second. Every month. No, Next World Magazine will come out at various times. And, and, and, investigative reporters have learned that Next is following its disengagement from the hardware market by planning to stop selling software as well.

An expert official said that by selling absolutely nothing at all, the firm will likely triple profits by the end of the year. Okay, and now we're going live again to Next Headquarters. You know, some of our competitors have tried to cast recent marketing plans at Next in a negative light, and I wanted to assure you that Next is doing better than ever. In fact, our latest market survey showed that we are uniquely positioned to win 100% of the market of people who buy neither hardware or software. And who have no money and no plans ever to buy anything. This, as you all know, is a nearly limitless market and one that is largely untapped.

That's that. That's our report for tonight. See you tomorrow and enjoy the show. Ladies and gentlemen, Steve Jobs. It is exceptionally warm in my heart to see all of you here tonight and I would like to offer my congratulations to the winners in advance.

I think a lot of us have doubts over the last six months whether there would be a Nextel Expo, whether there would be a Next, whether there would be any software that developers left the rewards to. But I think the next three days are going to show us all that maybe there is a dog. And if you had predicted to me three months ago what we're about to see over the next three days, I wouldn't have believed it either. So I think rumors of our collective death have been greatly exaggerated. And I guess in addition to congratulating the winners in advance, I wanted to ask Dan if I could come and offer a personal thank you to you folks. Because there's something about this that's got us all into this and has kept us all in.

Without your courage and your investment, we wouldn't be here either. And I think over the last three or four months, the depth of your convictions has been tested. And you're still with us. And from the depths of our hearts, we all at Next want to say thank you. And hopefully over the next three days, we're going to learn together that we really can pull this thing off. Thank you very much. Okay, let's just take a moment for a couple of credits on this skit. I want to give special thanks to Paul Caron and Steve Abel, two non-Next Worlders who volunteered their time and talent to help write and direct the Kathleen skit. And let me tell you, you put a lot of work into it. Tonight's overall program was a collaborative effort involving all of Next World staff, and the contributing writers, many of whom you will meet tonight.

But we couldn't have pulled this whole thing off without the tireless work of some of these key people in our team. Tonight's overall program was a collaborative effort involving all of Next World staff, and the contributing writers, many of whom you will meet tonight. But we couldn't have pulled this whole thing off without the tireless work of some of these key people in our team. including Graciela Ulate, Jackie Caldwell, and... We have a couple of announcements we want to make tonight. First, we're pleased to announce that Next and Next World have signed a new multi-year agreement to ensure their publication has a strong future, along with Next.

Having come through a somewhat rocky time in the market, we're very pleased to be extending our close relationship with Next, especially as its voice has grown dramatically around the shipment of NextUp for Intel processors. To best serve that market and the growing base of NextUp users, we're announcing tonight that NextUp... We did it already. We'll move to a monthly frequency beginning in August. Really? And stay there. Next World Extra, which we previously published as a separate newsletter, will now be incorporated into the magazine beginning with the June-July issue, which is available at the show starting tomorrow morning. Let's see. Also, I have one more thank you. Oh, two more, maybe. It would not have been possible to make this announcement tonight without the adoring support of our own corporate leadership.

For having the wisdom to stand by Next World at a time when other publishers might not have, I want to express my deepest appreciation to Gordon Hayne, the President of Integrated Media Inc., and to Pat McGovern, the Chairman of the International Data Group. And of course, we owe our deepest thanks to Next itself. In designing these third-party awards, we expressly excluded Next from consideration. But everybody knows that the real reward for the most innovative product must go to NextUp, which, by being years ahead of the competition, provides all of us with a platform to do the great things that we do. So, thanks to you, Steve, and I'm sorry about the crazy ambient.

Thanks also to the software development team at Next and to every Next employee who provided us with that opportunity. And now the awards. We conceived the Best of Green Awards as a way to focus attention on the outstanding work of third-party Next-type developers. As Next has successfully identified and begun to capture the market for corporate in-house software development, there's a tendency sometimes to overlook the importance of third-party development. Of course, in-house development and commercial software are not mutually exclusive. Every developer and user of a custom application also wants and needs a full set of shrink-wrapped productivity apps, tools and utilities, and peripheral products. Fortunately, third-party developers have provided exactly that, an abundance of quality software products that are as good or better than any similar products on other platforms.

In naming the awards, we resurrected an old phrase that was once commonly used at Next, Best of Green, to suggest that NextUp... It was used to suggest that NextUp offered better application software choices than other operating environments. Two or three years ago, that may not truly have been the case. But in the last year, the editors and reviewers of NextWorld have witnessed an explosion of new software that really does live up to the name Best of Green. In some cases, the products are designed with similar functionality to traditional best-sellers on other platforms, but with added features or improved performance. In other cases, the products embody entirely new approaches that improve on traditional paradigms. Can you believe that I said paradigms? In both cases, what we've found is that NextUp is a hotbed of innovation, even in the face of an uncertain market.

We certainly expect this trend to intensify now that NextUp for Intel processors is bringing a software base to a much larger potential market. As hotly contested as some of our award categories were this year, it's a sure thing that our choices will be even harder when we present the BoBs again in 1994. Alright, so we've got 14 product categories, and then there's also three special awards which we'll present after that. In the interest of time and competition, we define the product categories quite broadly. For example, instead of individual awards for word processing and desktop publishing, we have a single category of document creation. So we've tried to do that in a number of cases. Our judging panel was composed of 12 NextWorld editors and contributing reviewers. We chose this system of judging over a reader poll because we wanted to consider products that may not yet be in wide distribution.

The judges met numerous times to exchange voluminous email before we reached decisions on the nominees and on the winners. Since we couldn't afford an accounting firm to tabulate the ballots, we turned to our close friend, Lieutenant Robert Sullivan, to compile the results, which he sealed in envelopes and will now deliver to the stage. Ladies and gentlemen, Lieutenant Bob Sullivan. Thanks, Bob. Now, finally, there was also, and this was very relevant this year, when a number of products were just shipping for the show, or were projected to ship for the show, and in some cases we were still finding this out.

No, we're still finding it out. Anyway, so to explain the rules for eligibility, I'd like to introduce NextWorld's Senior Editor for Reviews, Anne Lavin. Lots of products were on schedule for release at Expo, which made our job very difficult, as you can imagine. So what we did was try to establish as late a cut-off date as possible. The eligibility requirements, which, to give everyone a fair shot, we announced to the community in late March. I gave them a full month, which is much longer than they need to design the NextStep application. For the products, they had to be in live release beta, four weeks before the opening of NextWorld Expo. And in order to win, that was the nomination.

In order to win, they had to be shipping by right now. We pushed it right to the edge. Therefore, we had to make some educated guesses as to shipping status at the time we announced our nominees in late April. And for the most part, that worked out all right. The people who were nominated because they were in live beta are still nominees, but they're not eligible to win if they were not shipping. And there were two cases here. Pages from Pages Software and FrontFace from Endpoint were disqualified from winning because they didn't meet the second criteria. How did we decide who the winners were? We decided how the winners were by our judging criterion in the magazine. It's stated very clearly. We printed it in two separate issues. And best of three means exactly that.

And it has a lot to do with quality. It has a lot to do with stretching the bounds of software using NextStep. And it has a lot to do with thinking about the user. Thank you. Thank you. presented the winning company to come up to this podium and to accept the trophy. And if you'd like, make a brief comment. But nothing about Tibet, OK? All right. Presenting the award in Document Creation is Next Step Contributing Editor, Lee Sherman. In the Document Creation category, the Bob judges considered word processing, single-page layout, and technical documentation programs.

While some of the programs available merely poured over features available on other platforms, others take unique advantage of the capabilities of Next Step. Display PostScript, Drag and Drop, and Object Linking. Anomalies are PasteUp 2.0 for right-brain software, which combines the control of QuarkXPress, the usability of Office PageMaker, and the power of Next Step in the first real single-page layout application for Next Step. WordPerfect from WordPerfect Corporation, the Next Step version of the leading PC word processor, provides high-end features such as style sheets, macro generation, multiple columns, and a built-in thesaurus. Pages, from Pages Software, was just bought because it kind of shit, like, right now. And the winner is PasteUp, right-brain software.

I'd like to thank people from Pages for not quite shipping on time. We, uh, I poked myself in the head with a pencil a lot of times doing this stuff. I'm not sure if it helped to hurt it. If I'd known when we started this that it was impossible to accomplish, I'm not sure we would have started.

I think we've got about five years of work done and two years, as near as I can tell. Thanks very much. This is a great honor. Take a look at that. Presenting the award in the Business Graphics category is Rick Reynolds, contributing editor. Thank you. In the Business Graphics category, the Bob judges looked at graphics packages that were easy enough to be used by people who don't do graphics work for a living.

Four programs immediately stood out. And we had a tough time narrowing the category to our three nominees. The three we chose are actually complementary and each is quite unique in abilities and interface. For general business users, or users who specialize in something other than graphics, these represent the current state of the art. The nominees are Concurrence, from Lighthouse Design, a powerful presentation and outlining package. Diagram 2, from Lighthouse Design, the second generation of a diagramming and charting package that doesn't require background in fine arts. And Create, from Stone Design, a postscript drawing package for both the beginner and the experienced professional. And the winner is...

Diagram 2, from Lighthouse Design. Diagram 2, from Lighthouse Design. Thank you. Thank you. First and foremost, I think this is an award for the entirety of Lighthouse Design. You people are wonderful to work with. And I think it's by virtue of your persistence and determination that we produce the stuff that we do.

Secondly, I... I don't know what to say. I think that every one of the developers here owes a debt of thanks to Steve. No matter what a pain it is to work with him, he produces amazing stuff and allows us to produce the kind of stuff that we do. So, in part, this is an award for us. And obviously, this is a reflection on Steve. And thanks very much. Presenting the award in the category of Database Software is Daniel Miles Keiko, contributing editor. Databases are key to NextStep's success.

Companies that deploy NextStep for order entry, for claims processing, for executive information systems, in fact, any mission-critical custom application, rely on database servers combined with customized front-end applications. NextWorld is aware that many Next customers write their own database applications using the XDB kit. But many of Next customers also supplement their in-house efforts with a choice from NextStep's growing field of commercial databases and products. This is where the action is. Our nominees are Complete Access Promotions Software. This brand-new front-end application is a report writer that peeks into SQL databases and displays information as graphs and outlines.

It's something you've never seen on any other platform. The second nominee is Parabase from Parabase Software Corporation, which allows end-users to build custom front-ends to relational databases without any programming. And finally, the third nominee, Datafile from Stone Design, NextStep's first real database and perhaps the most popular one among NextStep's users. And the winner is Parabase from Parabase Software Corporation. And the winner is Parabase from Parabase Software Corporation. Thank you. Frankly, I wasn't expecting this, but I thank you all, users, and everybody else out there. I hope you enjoyed this presentation.

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me. I'll be happy to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. If you like Parabase as it is now, you hopefully will like the new versions even more. Thank you. Okay. Returning to the category of Objectware is NextWorld's Senior Editor, Simpson Garvin. Wow. NextStep's all about objects. That's because every NextStep program we use, be it Workspace Manager, Mail, or Pista, is assembled from a collection of objects.

Some of those objects come from Next. They're in the Application Kit, the Sound Kit, DB Kit, and others. While the idea of Objectware is to let developers save time by purchasing needed functionality from third parties. Buy objects from other people. Those are the ones we looked at. You did. In considering the Objectware winners, we were most concerned in identifying objects which would save developers time.

There's no sense to go through the hassle of buying a third-party object if you can write it yourself in less time. We therefore looked at difficulty of implementation, richness of implementation, and documentation. We also looked at the general usefulness, since having the best object in the world doesn't do you a lot of good if you don't need it. The nominees in the category were 3270 Palette from Connection, an object which makes it easy to access information on IBM mainframes from the Next Step environment. Anybody building front-end systems to access legacy applications on those old monster mainframes has a need for a 3270 Palette.

The second one was Barcode Kit from Hot Technologies, one of the most comprehensive sets of barcode generation routines that we've ever seen on any platform. Barcode Kit makes it easy to generate TIFF or EPS images for almost any barcode and drop that you can imagine. And the third was OT Smart Field Palette from Objective Technologies, a comprehensive collection of objects for any platform. performing verified data entry. Using smart fields, you can all but eliminate data verification from your application program, because the input objects do that verification for you. And the winner is OTPALA.

All right, first, I'd like to thank the staff at OPI for bringing out a dessert for speech-bombing programmers to produce this fabulous software. Secondly, I'd like to give recognition to everybody else on this list. Afterward, it's an emerging field, and we've got some excellent people doing objects. And I think we're going to continue to produce an amazing suite of objects, both ourselves and other people in the field. And it's more exciting. And I'd like to, again, thank Steve for a place where people can produce objects and sell them.

And it works. It just works. We love it. Thank you. In the category of financial modeling, next we'll contribute. We've got a lot of these contributing editors. I mean, you know that means you don't have to pay them as much. Next we'll have contributing editor Robert Morrison. I've got a real short speech here, so I'd just like to thank Michael Ovitz. Anyway, seriously, the software category dates back to the late 70s, and the first spreadsheet, VisiCalc, which, as some of you may remember, made a lot of money for one of Steve Jobs' previous companies by selling a lot of Apple IIs.

And after all this time, our spreadsheet expectations are pretty well defined. Fast, powerful number crunching, powerful programming tools, wide variety of charts, and good-looking products. This year's nominees offer significant improvements in all these areas. They are Mesa from Latina Design, a program that offers a very short learning curve to experienced spreadsheet users, whether they're coming from 123 or Excel. Solution from AppSoft, another brand new program with a simple design and easy-to-edit 3D charts. Questor from Xampp and Sense International, a brand new app that takes full advantage of the Next interface and database tools. And the winner is Mesa from Latina Design.

Thank you all. I'd like to give thanks to the folks who had faith in me from the beginning. I'd like to thank my mom. My mom. I'd like to thank the folks from Latina Design, especially Tracy Kugelman, Linda Julian, and Sue Rankin. They keep the place together. They keep tech support happening. They keep me sane. And they keep our marketplace well-educated. I'd like to thank a few people who trusted me early on, Chris Bradley, Vince Jordan, and Ed Sheldon. And I'd like to thank Bambi Fernandez from Next who's put up amazing work. I'm pretty sure she's everybody's mother.

I'd also like to give a very, very special thanks to two people who really brought me to the community. I experienced the Next Step community, or the Next community, for the first time at the Super Seminar in Washington, D.C. about two years ago. I went down with Charles Perkins and spent 12 hours in a car with him. And he really, I mean, he taught me about what it was to be a Next programmer. And I met Andy Stone, and Andy Stone taught me what it was to be a Next developer. And those two guys have really contributed a lot to me, contributed a lot to Mesa, and I think they contributed a lot to making Next Step the way it is. I'd also like to thank the folks from Next, especially Steve Jobs, who seems to be able to get religion into anybody without just about anything. People in this room are just, I mean, I've met the most intelligent, the most wonderful people in this community.

And, I mean, they've been brought together by Next, and it's just great. Thank you all very much. Thank you, everyone. Thank you so much. And there's a category in graphic arts, once again, Edith Reynolds. In the hotly competitive tough category of graphic arts, which is my favorite, the judges sit to tell stories for the publishing professional. These range from general purpose tools to specialty applications to system software enhancements to crucial utility programs. And it's difficult to compare a page layout program with a file format conversion utility. But the judges went through all the offerings with an eye toward how each app, big or small, allowed the publishing professional to better do his or her job and how well the software implemented the next step's unique advantages in this field.

The nominees are Image from AppSoft, the next step answer to imagery touch reader Adobe Photoshop. Virtuoso from AltSys, a cutting edge illustration and single page design tool. And One Vision from TMS GMBH, a surprising newcomer that offers professionals a complete publishing environment. And the winner is Winner. Virtuoso. Oh. They did much better than this.

He's a developer, next step and you're in a war, too. I'd like to thank the judges for this honor. I'd like to thank all the people at AltSys because almost everyone played a part. I'd like to thank NeXT for providing the environment that gave us the incentive to go beyond what we'd done before. And now for our panelist of communication and emulation that's both working together, Jero Burrell. The port of NeXTSTEP to Intel processors only underscores the critical need users have for exchanging information. With this in mind, the Bob judges looked at a wide range of mature software packages concentrating on interface, interoperability, speed, data reliability, and ease of use.

Each of our nominees offered users solutions to bring NeXTSTEP into heterogeneous environments and communicate data around the world. The nominees are NXFax from Black and White Software, state-of-the-art fax-loaded software supporting a variety of high-speed modems, and SoftPC from Insignia Solutions, the venerable standard for DOS and Windows emulation. Coexist from Pentacom Software, an innovative connection for users seeking to combine the power of NeXTSTEP and actual use. And the winner is... NXFax.

Thank you. The next category is... Well, we've done this before. This would have been a new one this year. But they're all new. So in content and information category, we'll consider the editor, Seth Ross. Computers are great tools for processing information. But without sources of content and information, they risk becoming useless, devoid of value.

In the content and information category, the Bob judge is considering a variety of products The best of these products were usable by all NeXTSTEP users, from novice to expert, because they add that critical missing piece, knowledge. Looking around, we found a wide variety of content products. Everything from CD-ROMs containing all the public domain software for NeXT to an electronic sampling of European birds. The best products we saw consisted of a CD-ROM and an accompanying application. The nominees are... Sex, Lies, and CD-ROM from the Bay Area NeXT Group, a collection of public domain information and applications for NeXTSTEP, a collection of NeXTSTEP tips, techniques, and demonstration applications with a sophisticated application ordering system that lets people purchase software for their workstations by electronic mail.

And the winner is... Thank you so much, most of you know that my background is in the user community, and when I looked at NextStep Software for the first time and saw how wonderful it was, I wish that I had software like that to purchase. For the 25 years I was working for them, I first did warehousing. And we set about to find a way to put together the wonderful shrink-wrapped applications that we have, and all of these wonderful services and templates and modules and things that make NextStep any less. And it's unbelievable to a small company like us that more than 450 of you folks are cooperating with us, and people like NextStep are cooperating with us, and Steve and his people at NextStep are cooperating with us. I think we've done a good thing, and I hope it really shows over the next few days, because I think we're on the right track. Thanks again.

Well, when I was working on the Expo last week and I had 25 RightNow files opened and the Windows thing went down off the page, I realized the need for this category even more. In this category, we considered a wide range of personal and group calendaring, address book, free-form database, text search, and specialty programs. With NextStep, you create so much information, the need is even greater than on other platforms. We found a handful of standout programs among a big group of less original offerings, and we even put one product in that most people don't think of as an information manager, but when we looked at it, it really was. We expect to see continued innovation in this area as developers take advantage of NextStep's collaborative environment and users move closer towards the goal of a true paperless office. And the nominees are a notebook from Millennium Software Labs, an innovative combination of free-form database and outlining technology for maintaining all kinds of personal and group information, and, cancel the N, from Sara Software, which we found to be easily the best of the crop of NextStep calendaring software. By the way, we disqualified Saris's other information management product, S-Book, because it was developed by an ex-world employee. Mathematica from Waltham Research, a graph-breaking application for mathematical analysis and visualization. Mathematica qualifies in this category because

of its notebook feature, which is used to organize, present, and exchange mathematical information, even going so far as to publish entire books. And the winner is Notebook from NextStep. The next category is for development and offering tools, and to present it, we have ex-world contributing editor Charles Perkins, and doesn't he look great in his tie? For those of you who don't know, this is a particularly appropriate category for me, because my own offering tool, Voila!, has threatened to ship every quarter for about the last two years. So I'd like to start a new category tonight, add a little bit of a tradition, and announce that I've won the award for best of vapor in this category.

Seriously, this category is very important to me. I think that developing tools above NextStep really pushes us all into the stratosphere, and we should think more about these tools tonight and future tools that we all want to see on the platform. In a particularly surprising move, in my opinion, included tonight is free software on this list, and I'd like to see that happen more and more as we try to include some of what Richard Stallman has done, because I think it can fit well with our products. Anyway, tonight in the development and offering tools category, the judges considered compilers, programming languages, and authoring systems, and they found an entirely new market emerging for these tools that augments NextStep's own enclave to the development environment. I think this is a new category, by the way, which all of us should contribute to. Some of these tools build on NextStep's multimedia capabilities, allowing you to easily construct applications that access high-quality sound, graphics, and video. The nominees tonight are the GNU C Compiler from the Free Software Foundation, which is a freeware compiler by Richard Stallman, Callisto from Imagine Multimedia, which is an entry-level multimedia program that makes offering CDIs as easy as dragging and dropping icons, and Craftman from Xanthus International, an authoring program that brings the power of opportunity programming to a new class of programming. And the winner is Craftman by Xanthus International.

Thank you very much. I just want to say we are in two categories this year. Next year we'll be in a lot more categories. Thank you very much. In the category for Utilities, Daniel Kido. So, one of the great things about NextStep, in my opinion, is that you don't need a lot of utilities. A few years ago I subscribed to a Mac user magazine, and every month a magazine would come and would recommend five more must-have utilities for Macintosh. There were screensavers, there were disc doublers, there were line benders, there were boomerangs, there were flying toasters, there was a talking moose. After a couple of months, I realized I have to buy Next before Mac Connection started refusing me credit. Still, there's a couple of things that Next, in its infinite wisdom, left out of NextStep. And fortunately, we've got some very creative developers to address those few areas where we still need utilities. Utilities are an area where some of the most creative Next developers really shine. The nominees are... Metro Tools from Metrosoft. It's the art of utilities. It's

got a screensaver, an application launcher, an archiver, a sound converter, a font converter and installer, and a file locator. Six tools in one. Engage. Desktop is the new name for the product from Millennium Software Labs, which combines a screensaver with a clever tool for keeping all your most used applications and projects at your fingertips. The third nominee is SafetyNet from Systemics Software. We reviewed a beta version back in the fall 1992 issue of Next World and gave it a 4th year rating as the best backup software at the time. Let me see if I can find it. The winner is SafetyNet.

I was afraid this might happen because I didn't have to speak publicly, which is very exciting. Actually, I'd just like to thank my customers at Systemics Software and the guys at Pangea and Blacksmiths. Thank you very much. The winner in the category of 3D and CAD software is Next World contributor Dave Jacobs. In the last 10 years, 3D and CAD technology has come out of the hands of a few priests and magicians and into the hands of artists and a few pioneering desktop users. The Bob judges have found all the nominees to be very mature products this year, each taking unique approaches to dealing with 3D information. The nominees are FrontFace from Endpoint, Solid Thinking from Gestaltile, and ZZVolume from Ares. And the winner is Solid Thinking from Gestaltile.

Thank you all. I would like to thank Nextstep for their very strong support, and we hope that 3D applications will be one of so many reasons that people have to use Nextstep. Thank you again. In the category of Best Peripheral is Evan Carling, another Nextworld contributor. The peripherals category is simultaneously the most and least diverse of which the words are being presented. It includes all manner of hardware and enabling software. software that are peripheral to next-step computers with the exception of communications. We narrowed the field to products that couple next-step specific software with industry standards hardware.

The excellent software in the category fell disproportionately into a narrower field. All three nominees are imaging solutions. This reflects an intense interest in imaging and the power that next-step brings to this field. The nominees are Gold Leaf Image Setter Extra Set, Scan X, Color, and Power Scan by HSE Microcomputer, Metallus T1 Film Recorder and Image Mate by Tallis Corporation. And the winner is Gold Leaf Image Setter. Thank you.

Thanks a lot. This is great. Extra Set is an example of a very simple product that does a few things very well. And it was only possible with the greatness of next-step and the great image setters like Helmet. I'd like to thank everybody at Gold Leaf who has worked on this project, particularly John Fox, my partner who did the interface and the user guide, and Philip Ott, who's in the back, who flew all the way from Vienna, Austria, where we're kind of a small corporation with programmers around the world. And last but not least, I'd like to thank you, Steve, for making great products that have given me personally a lot of joy in my life. Thanks a lot. Our final panelist tonight is what we call the Virgin Markets.

And to present that is our favorite back-page columnist, John Perry Barlow. You know, when Dan called me up last week, I was in Beijing, and the connection wasn't very good. And I thought he wanted me to present the Bob Award for the best product in a submerging market. Then I thought it had something to do with the Church of the Subgenius, and I was really confused. But actually, I think, you know, none of us would be here if we weren't impressed and inspired by crazy acts of faith. And, you know, the best thing I've seen to compare with what it takes to produce some of these products at this time on this platform is I used to skydive, and there was a jump team that did exhibition jumping where one guy would go out of the plane without a parachute, and the other guy would catch him.

And that's kind of what happens when you've got a very slender niche on a very slender niche. But I actually am holding out some degree of faith that the guy with the parachute is going to get there in time to catch these fellas. He just told me he would. And so I'm going to present the nominees for the best new products in emerging markets. They are Screen Machine from Dart. Computer System, I guess. Game Bank Hub. A video frame grabber that restores the next-dimensional capabilities of the platform.

And this is a multimedia product. Somebody once said that recently that multimedia is still a zero-billion-dollar-a-year business. So these people are definitely to be congratulated. Taskmaster from Lighthouse Design, a project manager that leverages the company's long experience in object-oriented software design, and you need good project management software in this area. Didn't get that. Well, all right. Also, VertSpace, a piece of software that I think will become near to my heart as the emerging new market for laptop next-step machines.

I saw this software recently running on a laptop, and it's the only thing that would really make next-step fully usable on a laptop. A laptop, it will. And the winner is... Somewhere buried under all this paper. The winner is Screen Machine. Yay! I guess most of you don't know this new product. You're going to see that at the show in the next three days. I'd like to thank the people who took the offer from Cluster Electronics in Munich, and the people who did the software from IPC there.

Cluster Electronics couldn't come tonight. I'd like to thank some of the people at NeXT who brought me into this market more than four years ago. Unfortunately, some of these people are not with NeXT anymore, for your interest to know. They are John Assen and Alex Fitz, and I'd also like to thank all the people who came over to Europe and believed in you, the market. I'm from Europe. I'm from Darden, Hamburg. And I think there are great products coming from Europe. We need some people in the U.S. to believe in these products and the European market and support this. And I'd like to thank Dan Levin who came over to Seabit to look at all these products. And I think that's the reason why we were nominated tonight. So, thank you.

Thank you. That's just an all-out product. You've got to work with it. Now, we've come to three special awards, and we're running pretty late, so I'm going to try to move through this fairly quickly. Most of the programs tonight celebrate shrink-wrapped software, but what we're doing in the magazine as well is we also profile outstanding uses of NeXTSTEP at customer sites and also the outstanding individuals and companies who are making a difference in the NeXT community. And tonight, we'll honor two of these. Presenting the award for Outstanding NeXTSTEP Implementation at a Customer Site is NeXTworld Managing Editor Elliot Bergson.

We have found that writing custom applications isn't a pie-in-the-sky dream. There are lots of customers out there right now who are using NeXTSTEP to change the way they do business. At NeXTworld, we've been following this trend with great interest. Sometimes that's been hard work because many customers rightly view their applications as a competitive advantage and want to keep their developments secret. Even so, NeXTworld has had a chance to see some of the most exciting custom applications out there. In the financial services industry, trading companies are moving billions of dollars a day around the world, and the medical field information is reaching doctors in time to save lives. In manufacturing and retail, NeXTSTEP is shortening production cycles and providing up-to-the-minute customer service and support for everything from automobiles to cellular service.

You simply can't buy applications like these. Our winner was chosen not only for technical expertise. All the apps we've seen get more technically advanced as fast as site engineers get their hands on new tools and ideas, but for the far-reaching consequences of the development effort and the consistent vision pushing NeXTSTEP into the telecommunications industry. And with partnerships between phone companies, cable firms, and entertainment conglomerates popping up all over the place, that push will lead into our homes in the very near future. For its development efforts in building and maintaining a state-of-the-art fiber optics ATM network, our first buyout for outstanding NeXTSTEP implementation at a customer site goes to Williams Telecommunications Advanced Technology Group in Woodlands, Texas. For those who are not totally familiar with Willtown, we began the project about two years ago in which it was purposed to develop a new technology called an ATM, basically a transmission code.

The deployment of this technology is at hand and will likely change the way the industry is currently transmitting its communications. ATM looks like to be the new backbone of the communications superhighway of the future, which Vice President Gore and a lot of the media are talking about. We there at Willtown, we've got large groups of dedicated developers, and we saw with NeXTSTEP, an object-oriented paradigm, a tool which has allowed us to do the job.

job that was necessary. And as ATM will affect the communications industry, we know that NETSTEP and the object-oriented techniques will affect the computer industry. I'd like to thank NETSTEP, all the applications, and the people who are involved in making what we do a reality. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Since our early issues, we've sought to foster the notion of the next community, the next world is like a small town composed of developers, customer, user groups, consultants, resellers, and ex-employees.

Almost everyone in town has connections to someone else and has an ethic of supporting each other and lending a helping hand. Later on, as the community expands, it may become more of an anonymous big city where people have to fend for themselves. But for now, the next world remains a model of community spirit and volunteerism. Tonight, we present our work for service to the community to an individual who has played a key role as a leading customer, as an organizer of an influential corporate user group, and as an advisor to third-party developers, and as an tireless cheerleader for the next cause. At the US Air Force, he was the decision-maker who took a chance on Next and, in the process, helped launch the company's successful business in the government market. He then played an instrumental role in organizing ProNext, a group of Next's largest customers that has served as a sounding board and a reality check for Next's technical and marketing decisions.

Since retirement from military service, he's worked with several third-party developers to define and improve their products. And he has served Next in a sales support role in advising company executives on strategic directions. And he's also generously supported Next World Magazine with his ideas and influence. Therefore, for his boundless enthusiasm and his can-do spirit, we present our Best of Breed Award for Community Service to retired Air Force Colonel Jim Bobcurt. Jim. Well, those of you in the room can appreciate that there are two kinds of people in the world.

Pioneers and southerners. Pioneers, a lot of you can go out and buy parachutes, right? A lot of errors in the front of us, a lot of errors in the back of us. A lot of the pioneers in the customer world discovered that there was a new world out there we needed to civilize and tame. There was this virtual corporation. We had to deal with re-engineering. We had to deal with networks connecting everyone to everyone. We had to deal with something that some of us said maybe was something they called an organizational operating system. How you can put yourself together and change your organization, your business, and the world changes. And it's been fun doing that. But what's really exciting is we all know what the settlers ask the pioneers.

They say, is it safe out there? And in the next few days we're going to have a whole lot of settlers showing up in Mexico. Is it safe out there? And that's the next step in my class. So let's go show them. Applause Applause Applause Applause Applause Applause Applause I'm going to turn it back to products for our last word of the night. A new computer platform is not enough to produce a solid and functional product that's similar to successful products A true product must take advantage of the special characteristics of the platform to provide an entirely new experience not available anywhere else.

That's why we decided to determine our top award on the basis of innovation. The Best of Breed winner for product innovation is not simply the best of show. It is the product that embodies the freshest ideas and gives users reason to choose next over a competitive system. Our winner tonight qualifies on that score by combining various existing ideas in a wholly original format that raises user productivity and group interaction to a new level. After having examined every shipping product for the next platform, our judges voted to confer the Best of Breed award for most innovative product to Millennium Software Labs for notebook 1.4.5. Applause Applause Applause Applause Applause Applause Applause Applause I don't really know what to say.

Well, thanks to the Academy laughter I really didn't expect this. It's a great award and, well, a lot of thanks to my parents, of course. And, uh, thank Kraft Macaroni & Cheese for getting me to 1992. Laughter Applause Applause Applause Applause And, uh, I don't really know what to say. Laughter I don't know what to say except that I think I have the greatest job in the world because I get to try it first before it all continues. Laughter But, uh, it's pretty amazing because from my standpoint I've been driven by the idea that an individual, or at least a group of people, a small group could do something really original and neat and wouldn't be owned by Microsoft.

Laughter So, anyway, for all of you that really believe that there's a future for the small guys out there, uh, this is a great award. Applause Applause Applause Applause Applause Applause Applause Applause Applause Applause Applause Applause Applause Applause Applause Applause Thanks everybody.

I hope you had a good time. Uh, we really appreciate you all coming and congratulations to the Bob winners and congratulations to everyone here for their dedication and commitment and sacrifices. Uh, we really, uh, we think it's a great community and just, not just for the small guys but for the people who really make a commitment and a personal commitment to innovation and sticking by sticking by what's right. So, we do have a reception next door. We hope you all can join us and have a little fun. We, uh, the next few days I think is when the fun really begins but we're probably all going to be too busy to enjoy it. So, please join us for some fun and afterward there is a user group party over at the Up and Down Club on Folsom between 7th and 8th for the user group communities putting that on.

So, thanks again and we'll see you next door. Applause Applause Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music