Still, he couldn't help squeezing Scott McNealy a little when he bumped into the Sun CEO at Comdex. Scott had little to say, other than "Tribble was the best hire we ever made." Now this column goes to press before the news is final, but it looks sweet for the NeXT faithful. One tip: Look for some other big names to sign up for OpenStep before the year is out.
The deals are the capper to an interesting month, beginning with Sullivan's stopover in San Jose for the exclusive Developer Briefing. He wasn't on the invite list, of course, but that was nothing that a late-night round-robin at the hotel bar couldn't cure.
Most of Sully's confidantes pronounced themselves pleased by NeXT's attitude and promised sales, though NeXT may be hedging slightly on its plan to move 100,000 units in 1994. The biggest surprise of the event was Steve's musings about possible software acquisitions, which left more than one developer muttering the words Claris and Appsoft.
Another surprise was the plan NeXT is putting together for European indirect distribution. The only problem is they forgot to run it past d'ART's Wilfried Beeck, who is understandably protective about his share of the lucrative German market. Back to the drawing board.
Also out of Germany comes the news that HSD's parent company, itself a subsidiary to a Berlin-based holding company, is reorganizing under German bankruptcy laws. Now Dave Peter and HSD-US are bidding for the parent's 51-percent ownership. That would make the U.S. firm fully independent for the first time.
Then it was on to Comdex, where NeXT's activities also had a third-party spin. You had to be looking for NeXT to find its booth at the Sands Convention Center, a major Comdex venue but decidedly secondary to the main hall, where the big boys slug it out with elaborate booths, production numbers, and gimcracks. The story there is that NeXT health-care developer Logibec had a line on space in the main hall, which it hoped NeXT would use to showcase third parties. At the time, NeXT planned only an off-floor suite, and it passed on the chance for the choice location. Later, when the third-party idea was resurrected and NeXT applied for exhibit space, NeXT found itself on the periphery at the Sands.
Rather than compete with the PC riffraff, many of the UNIX and object environments didn't bother to show. Sun put in an appearance, but Hewlett-Packard didn't send its PCs or workstations. That's too bad, since Sullivan hoped to check out the hot HP Pentiums the company is assembling for Swiss Bank. Also missing in action was Compaq.
Data General showed its obligatory NEXTSTEP system, but there are disquieting signs out of Westboro. Only weeks after sending a technical team to NeXT to help finish PDO, the company may be growing weary of playing second fiddle to HP's servers. A reorg of DG's marketing department puts its commitment to NEXTSTEP up in the air.
Speaking of Swiss Bank, Dwight Koop and entourage commandeered a limo for a whirlwind Comdex turn. Too bad they didn't manage to complete the contract for a Wingz-to-Mesa converter. Athena has other projects that can't wait, including Mesa for OS/2, which is expected to ship concurrently with Mesa 2.0 for NEXTSTEP.
Meanwhile, the bank continues as a source of people as well as money for the NeXT community. The latest job-hopper is Jeff Kwam, one of SBC's top IT managers, who will take his talents to Systemhouse. First assignment: rescue the ailing NEXTSTEP installation at Phibro Energy. The major integrators realize they need deeper management talent, an issue that's also hitting home at Pencom, which just reorganized its services group.
Finally, here's the scoop on the Aldus-Altsys double switch. The guts of FreeHand, the Mac/Windows illustration program from Aldus, will be replaced by Altsys's Virtuoso technology, while Virtuoso, the NEXTSTEP product, is to get the FreeHand moniker. Get that? Virtuoso 2.0, with multiple-page layouts, will ship first in early '94. The new packaging and minor Aldus marketing support will follow.
The renewed appreciation for developers continues as the focus shifts to the East Coast Developer Conference on Sully's home turf. To slurp in style from a Sully mug, slip him some news before the event at 415/978-3374 or e-mail to sullivan@nextworld.com. RSA public key available upon request.