75300.1324@CompuServe.COM (Nick Arnett) (06/27/91)
Attn: Multimedia Mail List
Subject:
Time:7:41 AM
OFFICE MEMO Workstations & multimedia
Date:6/27/91
Ralph & all,
We've been taking a close look at workstations and multimedia lately
because of a number of the developments you point out -- graphics and
raw processing power, audio i/o becoming standard, CD-ROM penetration
is very high because software is now distributed that way, high-speed
networking is in place -- and I'd add that I'm very optimistic about
the potential success of general-purpose integrated business
applications coming from Clarity and BBN, which could push
workstations (along with lower priced models) into broader business
environments.
Meanwhile, NeXT and SGI are moving workstation multimedia technology
on workstations forward aggressively.
Authoring software is a bottleneck, though. Steve Jobs tells me that
there's more multimedia s/w and h/w being developed for NeXT than any
other platform. Not sure that's true, but his computer does offer
tremendous audiovisual performance for the price.
I'm getting more interested because we have a new client that whom
we're helping to develop strategies. I'd love to hear anybody's
thoughts on what direction the vendors should take.
Nick Arnett
Multimedia Computing Corp.
3501 Ryder St.
Santa Clara, CA 95051
(408) 737-7575; fax (408) 739-8019
(We publish monthly reports, market studies, conferences, etc.)