"Start me up---If you start me up I'll never stop!"
It's almost impossible to turn on the TV these days without hearing Mick Jagger wail on behalf of Microsoft's new Windows 95 operating system. But while thousands rushed out to buy Windows 95 last August, many pre-press system vendors have yet to start up their software-migration programs.
Reason: Vendors and their clients are waiting for the bugs to be worked out of Windows 95.
"We tend to be skeptical when it comes to new products," says Ed Houcek, vice president of sales and marketing for Software Consulting Services of Nazareth, Pa., which produces integrated advertising, business and production systems.
"It's not that we're not enthusiastic about it," explains Houcek. "but a few years back, IBM announced OS/2 and it took them a couple of years to get things straight. I expect Windows 95 will be much the same."
Harris Publishing Systems Corp. of Melbourne, Fla., a producer of software for editorial, advertising and pagination systems, will also sit out the early days of Windows 95. "We'll probably release our product on Windows 95 at 90 to 120 days after a stable release," says Russ Latch, Harris' product-marketing manager.
While it's the most tested software product ever---50,000 beta-testers were involved---Windows 95's size and complexity lend themselves to possible defects. Microsoft is already planning to release regularly scheduled software patches every 90 days. Another reason vendors are wary: Without 32-bit applications, it's very difficult to run multiple programs simultaneously on Windows 95 without crashing. Vendors and software developers predict it will take months for most of these upgraded 32-bit programs to become available.
Nevertheless, Microsoft and some pre-press vendors are touting the benefits of Windows 95's new features:
For some Windows-based development companies like Dewar Information Systems Corp., located in Westmont, Ill., Windows 95 could be great news. DewarView's Workflow Manager for Workgroups utilizes third-party software applications to combine traditional editing systems with the benefits of off-the-shelf software.
"We are primarily a Windows-based product," says Jeanne Laitinen, Dewar's marketing director. Windows 95, she says "may open up the market more if it's as big a success as they're predicting."
Ironically, Windows 95 promoters liken its qualities to those of its main competitor, Apple Computer's Macintosh. "The benefit is how the file-management schemes have been implemented in Windows 95," says Tony Paxton, Dewar's project director. "It's got the touch and feel of a Mac because it's all done in folders."
Which doesn't impress Robert Yoder, director of marketing for Baseview Products, Inc., of Ann Arbor, Mich.
"Almost as easy to use as a Macintosh' isn't important to our customers," Yoder says. "I mean, they've caught up, and we've been there for years."
He also says Apple customers are so faithful that "if you cut them, they bleed in six colors of the rainbow."
Other developers say they plan to swing both ways.
"The obvious part of Windows 95 is that there's going to be a lot of it out there. It would be really shortsighted on our part not to acknowledge that and not have part or even all of our product line offered to run on that platform," says Garth Despain, marketing director for Digital Technology International. Located in Orem, Utah, DTI markets database-centered newspaper publishing systems for display and classified advertising, pagination, and graphic and image management.
In the past, DTI developed all of its software for Macintosh. It's now marketing Javelin, a production-management database that includes both a Macintosh and a Windows version. The Windows 95 version will be ready in early '96.
"The broad acceptance of Windows 95," Despain says, "is part of the reason DTI decided to allow parts of its technology to migrate across platforms."
But DTI's cross-platform solution doesn't end the debate. "For us, it always has been Mac vs. Windows," says Despain. "For what we've tried to do for publishing, we've always considered the Mac to be a far superior tool and still do. But there's been enough changes in Windows 95 that we think that we can put parts of our system under Windows and not compromise our product."
Carol Memmott is a free-lance writer based in Chantilly, Va. Phone is (703) 802-6558.
©1997 Newspaper Association of America. All rights reserved.