PC Expo show report: day one

But first, an interesting development: Big Tent Media Labs has hired JosephR. Jones, a graphic artist and Web developer from Phoenix. Joe will beredesigning all of our Web sites and helping me with the technical work at Big Tent. Expect to see more of Joe's writing on the Web site and in WinInfo. Joe has had a long and successful career with the Internet despitethe fact that he's younger than he deserves to be. He came with us to New York as well, joining Adam Ray, the president of Big Tent, and I for the show.

We flew into Pennsylvania Sunday afternoon and drove to New York with HowardSobel and Joel Diamond of Wugnet. This was my first trip to New York in almost ten years, but its as crazy as ever. Generally the Wugnet guys try tostay near the show but this year's event was so huge most of the hotel roomsin the area were sold out. Consequently, we had to stay at the St. MoritzHotel, which overlooks Central Park. In hindsight, this actually worked outpretty well: we have a great view of the park and we're only a short cabride away from anything. Joe and I checked out the park and walked over to Rockefeller Center last night and then met up with Larry McJunkin, also of Wugnet, and ate dinner in Times Square. As you would expect, it was anotherlate night.

So we missed the keynotes again.

Michael Dell promised that his company would release a full line of easilymanaged personal computers this year, including a NetPC Microsoft demoed atthe show, during his keynote address this first day of PC Expo. Dell alsoannounced his unfaltering support of Microsoft-based PCs: "The outcome of Unix vs. NT has been determined, and NT has won," he declared (no doubtdue to his company's generous OEM deal).

Don't tell Apple's Helen Hancock, however. The company's Chief TechnologyOfficer previewed MacOS 8 and Rhapsody for the PC-heavy crowd at her ownkeynote address and committed the company to cross-platform development andsupport of Java. Apple's Rhapsody will ship in native Intel and Windows95/NT subset versions next year along with a PowerPC version and a "yellow box" add-on for the MacOS. The "yellow box" is essentially an updated version of NeXT's OpenStep APIs.

We arrived at the show around noon and headed into the throng. PC Expo isabout as large as Fall Comdex (i.e. it's much, much bigger than SpringComdex). Just about every conceivable software and hardware company is hereso we spent the first day taking in an overview. Some of the interestingdevelopments today include:

Well, I've got a group of hungry people waiting to eat here, so I'd betterhead out. Tomorrow, I'll have news about Monday's parties and more shownews