Assorted newsbits from various sources......

According to industry reports, Stac Electronics has won its patent
violation lawsuit against Microsoft Corp and Microsoft won a countersuit
for trade secrets violation. Stac was awarded $120 million in compensatory
damages while Microsoft was awarded $13.6 million. Microsoft is not
required to recall installed copies of MS-DOS 6 that contain DoubleSpace,
but they immediately pulled the compression feature from new MS-DOS
copies. The area of the court decision that is of concern is that Stac
violated a Microsoft trade secret by "reverse engineering" a feature of
DOS 6 that automatically loads a data-compression technology to work with
an operating system -- and Stac included the feature in Stacker. Other
companies in that cottage industry should pay close attention to what
happened in this case according to sources close to the proceedings!

At the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference in San Francisco recently,
Senior Microsoft VP Paul Maritz pledged that Chicago, the next major
release of Windows, will be available by the end of this year. There will
apparently be two more test releases but users are reportedly skeptical,
saying current copies are "an alpha's alpha."

Early February Novell began shipping Novell DOS 7, an upgrade to its DR DOS
6.0. The DOS variant includes NetWare client support, peer-to-peer
networking, desktop network management, network installation, Stacker
disk-compression and pre-emptive DOS multitasking. Cost is $99 while users
of DR DOS or the NetWare Lite/DR DOS bundle can upgrade for $39.95

The 1994 Micro Channel Products and Service catalog is slated for
availability in June 1994 from the Micro Channel Developers Association.
They plan to expand the scope and add new categories such as systems,
market statistics, bus comparisons and more. They also plan to have an
interactive version of the catalog on CD-ROM. Listing of products and
services are FREE. All interested parties should submit their requests as
soon as possible. The deadline for entries is March 15th. Display
advertising is also available at low cost. MCDA, 2280 N. Bechelli Lane,
Suite B, Redding, CA 96002; Tel: 1-800-GET-MCDA or 916-222-2262

Apple is supposedly taking another crack at the personal digital assistant
(PDA) market when it announces plans for a trimmer version of the Newton
MessagePad. The new release, code-named Lindy, will have a list price of
$700 and feature 1MB of RAM, plus deferred handwriting recognition that
allows users to write on the PDA screen in electronic ink and have the
writing recognized and translated later. By the way, Motorola is expected
to announce their first PDA shortly, complete with wireless capability
while AT&T scrapped its pen-based Eo PDA because of sluggish sales and
Compaq is delaying the rollout of its pen-based mobile communications
device until the fall.

Apple is expected to unveil its line of Macintosh systems based on the
PowerPC on March 14th.  Macintosh Quadra PCs were recently reduced as much
as 18%. The PowerPC-based Macs will compete in price and performance with
leading low-end RISC workstations and Pentium systems. One desktop 60MHz
model, the Power Macintosh 6100/60, starts at $2,000 and includes a
PowerPC 601. A 66MHz model will also be introduced at $3,000 and an 80MHz
model at $4,500.

IBM supposedly will continue to clone its own version of Intel 486
microprocessors but will not clone Pentium processors. A patent
cross-licensing agreement for the R486, IBM's version of the 486, has been
extended but IBM will rely on Intel for Pentium products. Industry
insiders see the move as an effort by IBM to concentrate its efforts on
the new PowerPC chip. In recent reorganization moves, IBM split its
advanced work-stations and systems division into separate client and
server product groups -- moving its low-end RS/6000 Model 250 workstation
featuring the PowerPC under the domain of its power personal systems
division. Also, IBM will discontinue the sale of Ambra, its lowest cost
line of PCs in Europe due to continuing price cuts in other PC lines.
Ambra will continue to be sold in the USA and Canada.

AT&T Global Information Solutions (formerly NCR Corp) announced a line of
high performance MicroChannel-based desktop PCs. The AT&T 3325 series is
designed for financial, retail, transportation and government users.
Prices range from $2,165 to $3,380 for the three machines based on Intel
i486 processors and upgradable to DX4 and Pentium-based OverDrive
processors.

The top brass at the Department of Defense are reportedly testing a new
method of encrypting electronic mail, "signing" electronic documents and
checking that email they receive has not been tampered with. Army generals
are among the first 300 beta testers of the National Security Agency's
Tessera public-key encryption computer card based on the PCMCIA standard.
The Tessera Crypto Cards are a key part of the DOD email system of the
future, the Defense Message System (DMS). In the mean time, new software
lets three current email packages work with Tessera PCMCIA cards as well.

WordPerfect has added the State of California to its Customer Advantage
Program, which gives large customers special licensing rights, competitive
pricing for new purchases, and a choice of maintenance plans. The
agreement also extends discounts that should save the state and local
government $4 million a year in software and support.

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