September 20th, 1999

[2:15 PM] Direct From France - Integrating Macs In A PC Environment.
by Philippe Bogdan

For this year's Apple Expo "SVM Mac" put out a special issue featuring Christophe Conte, the man in charge of organizing this event. Christophe Conte proudly announced that over 30% more people than last year applied for a free entry card beforehand (either on the Net or by filling out and sending a page from a computer magazine). This lead to an attendance of over 90 000 people this year : "As far as numbers are concerned, the Paris Apple Expo is catching up with San Francisco MacWorld Expo."

What is sure is that the exhibition hall was again very crowded today. I also have to state that the organization of the event was exemplary, and coming from a French man it's a real compliment, believe me :-)

One of the most interesting conferences today was "Integrating Macintosh computer in another environment." The conference was attended by a fair amount of corporate executives who work on a Macintosh computer in a PC network. The conference was handled very well by an Apple France network specialist and the emphasis was put on mainly two products : Dave from Thursby System software which is translated and distributed in France by ALSYD, and Microsoft Office 98.

DAVE is an easy to use TCP/IP based application, written for the Macintosh using a NetBIOS driver (that support WINS, Windows Internet Name Server). With DAVE, Macintosh users can access, read and write files on PCs without having to download the files on the Mac or use Microsoft Office 98 for the Mac or Virtual PC with PC applications for example. Microsoft Office 98, itself being fully compatible with Office for the PC, also makes things easier. With DAVE, both PCs and Macs can forget about their difference on an Intranet or Internet Network.

Why is it so important? Because the corporate world in France still doesn't take Macintosh seriously in the "real" world of computers. Macintosh users are often consider to be eccentric in most offices. Because of this it is really important for their integration in the company network to be flawless and transparent.

I am personally convinced that Apple should stress compatibility and network transparency, if only to make life easier for Macintosh users in this environment. For the European market, this is vital for Apple to gain significant market share. Offering the same quality training that we got at this conference today to network administrators at French companies could help too, I think.

The other great news concerns another group of people using Macintosh computer as their primary tools: professional musicians.

Creamware - maker of Triple DAT audio-sequencer on PC - announced the Macintosh beta version of their powerful PULSAR audio software.

PULSAR is actually a combination of a PCI card with 4 SHARC DSP boards and software including a complete modular audio environment, mixer, effects, samplers, and synthesizers. It has been available for the PC for a while and is now being tested with major Macintosh audio and MIDI software.

PULSAR was actually running on Pentium II 400 at the Apple Expo, but the Mac version is said to look and feel similar. I'll try to bring you more information on this products and other music software tomorrow after attending the conference on "Using Macintosh computer of Music."

Philippe Bogdan lives and work in France. His exclusive coverage of The Apple Expo comes direct from Paris.

Apple France