European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - May 3, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 14 the stars and stripes computers tuesday May 3,1994disc-overing a whole new world cd rom technology helping to get More people into the act by Steve Lour a. New York times. Even As the collapse or the planned merger of Bell Atlantic and Tele communications inc. Raised new doubts about the Promise of interactive television some experts arc saying that a glimpse of television s future is Here now a on the screens of nearly 2 million Home computers. A a a a Quot from the instructional like the Mayo clinic family heat Fadook and Art gallery a guided tour of the National gallery in lord in to the sheer escapism of shoot a pm up games with lifelike Gore and pornography computer discs known As cd rooms arc offering an Eclectic array of video clips Anima Tiberi sound and text. V for Microsoft corp., a Best seller has been its $99 Encarta multimedia encyclopedia which a company executive said sold by the a hundreds of thousands a at Christmas. A the discs which a few years ago were largely restricted to storage of dry statistical data have made their Way into Home office and rumpus room As the fastest growing segment of the $29-Bil-lion-a-year software Industry. And the new popularity of cd rooms is attracting the interest of Hollywood bid rectors Rock stars and an army of unexpected multimedia warriors like William. E. Colby the former director of the Central intelligence. / a. Quot a v. Colby recently began work on a cd rom computer game tentatively called a inside the cia1�?T a a game that May gain a plot line or two thanks to the intriguing charges against Aldrich h. Ames a Cia official accused of spying for Moscow a the new software auteur have plunged into the business As Price wars and advancing technology have produced affordable computers that can offer video images approaching movie Quality with stereo sound. A computer software has become a real medium of expression instead of a Field for specialists said Esther Dyson editor president Clinton a fiscal 1995 Federal budget is one of the items available on cd rom a compact disc designed to hold computer data a along with a lot of other things. Of release 1.0, a software newsletter a a it a not just for techies anymore a will Harvey a software designer says he has adjusted with the new technology. A a in be developed along with the Industry a he said. A if i did no to id be out of  a. A a compact disc technology is largely responsible for broadening the horizons of software. A a. Originally invented for sound recording the Silvery discs were adapted for data storage by the mid-1980s in the cd rom format rom stands for a read Only memory a meaning the disk once it is recorded cannot be changed. A cd rom can hold More than 450 times the data of a conventional floppy disk a crucial Advance because displaying video sound and text involves huge amounts of digital computer code. Moving pictures in particular have a voracious digital appetite. A single compact disc can store the equivalent of 330,000 pages of printed text but Only about 45 minutes of a movie. A a since the outset Microsoft and dozens of smaller software companies have pushed cd rom technology. But it was largely ignored by Consumers until late last year. Before then computer makers did not routinely offer machines equipped with compact disc players. A without a sizable Market software developers were reluctant to invest aggressively in making titles. A yet that hardware soft Vare standoff finally ended last fall As Price wars put computers in More Homes and Consumers discovered multimedia titles a a we a been talking about cd rom software for five years without much of an audience a said Tom Corddry a manager of the multimedia business at Microsoft. A but the turnaround in the Christmas season was just stunning. We were caught by Surprise and  keep up with  Microsoft has 10 multimedia titles today including Art gallery the Encarta encyclopedia and Cine mania a movie compendium with dialogue movie clips and reviews by Leonard Mai tin Pauline Kael and Roger Ebert. A a a / dozens More titles Are being developed. A. Microsoft a cd rom multimedia titles now provide about a third of the company a consumer business up from less than 2 percent two years ago Cord dry reports. Analysts put the fast growing cons urn. Or units sales at $200 million now and expect an increase to $450 million by 1996, roughly 10 percent of Microsoft a total revenues. Personal computer makers have wit pcs cd the same surge in demand for cd rom technology a machines equipped with compact disc players and typically stereo speakers. V a a it a really taking off particularly in the High end of the consumer Market a said Dell computer corp. Chairman Michael Dell who defines a High end As machines costing More than $2,000 Dell based in Austin Texas will sell roughly 500,000 personal computers with cd rom players this year five times last years level Dell said. A similar trend is under Way Industry. Wide. The number of households owning personal computers with compact disc players increased nearly fourfold last year to 1.9 million according to the link resources corp., a Market research firm. By 1995, link says the total will be 8.6 million households. The computer software Industry is Rushing to tap this new Market. The hum. Her of cd rom programs has grown gradually but steadily to about 2,500 to _ lies v. A this year link estimates the Industry a Library of offerings will double to 5,000 titles. \ a a a a a with the Market opening up and technology allowing a new breadth of offer Ings the software Industry is enjoying a new found diversity. A the Range of development is incredible a said Gina Smith editor in chief of electronic entertain ment a new consumer Magazine that covers multimedia software a Rock musicians Hollywood directors and just about every celebrity in the world is trying to get in on  Rock stars plunging into the Market include Peter Gabriel David Bowie and the group Motley Crue which has come out with a cd rom called digital deca Deuce. The Rock disks feature songs videos Laden with special effects clips of concerts even promotions for causes like amnesty International. Tap a computer key if interested skip it if  the software you need together in 1 Box. By Joe fas Binder United press International you could conceivably buy a computer in one part of the store and smart suite in another part of the store install the software at Home and never visit a computer product Vendor again. Smart suite 2,1 is the newest version of Lotus development  entry into the growing Field of a every thing you Ever need product kits for the personal computer. A Quot a a. A a Lotus is the Cambridge  company that caused an upheaval in the desktop computer Market by coming up with the original version of 1-2-3, a spreadsheet program that made users aware for the first  that they needed More than 640 kilobytes of memory. That Long ago version of 1-2-3 allowed people who Deal with numbers to Deal with a lot of numbers a such As those compiled by a business. The More memory in your computer the bigger your spreadsheet could be. 1-2-3 release 4 is part of smart suite. So is Ami pro 3.1, freelance graphics 2.01, Lotus organizer and approach 2,1, each of these is a powerful stand alone application that does one thing and does it Well. The idea is almost As old As the personal computer a design a series of programs that allow users to process words numbers relate information and plan a business Day. Microsoft made millions with a package called works which includes programs that work the same Way. So when you learn the commands for processing words you re going to find very similar commands in the database management program. Today Microsoft continues to sell works works for windows and a a a suite set called Microsoft office. Smart suite is designed to compete head to head with Microsoft office. Comparing works to smart suite is like comparing a Rowboat to a Battle Cruiser. They both do things in a similar manner but Only on a theoretical level. For example works will let you process words. Microsoft office 4.0 includes the very powerful word processor known As word 6.0. Smart suite includes Ami pro 3.1, a word processor that is so powerful it very nearly qualifies As a desktop publisher. ,. And of course Ami pro inc codes something Etsey you Don t get with a Little integrated software package a some serious learning curve. Learning to use Ami pro will Cost you some time at least if you want to use its vast and powerful word processing Powers. But since Ami pro works under the windows operating system Many of the keystrokes w ill be familiar to people who use other programs. I always gets you help and so on. Of course the other four programs in the suite work under windows also. Each of these is also a powerful stand alone application. Freelance graphics for example lets users build really professional looking business presentations. And freelance graphics also supports information created by. Users of Lotus organizer which is included in the suite and the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet program. You can probably see a calculated relationship Here. Each of the programs inside smart suite is designed to work like others to share what Lotus Calls a a common user  smart suite also share some things like a spelling checker which works for All of the applications. That saves disk space and allows users to enter specialized words Only once no matter which of the smart suite programs they Are using. This common user interface and the shared look and feel Are also features of Microsoft office 4.0, and if you Quot buy a Microsoft product it will almost certainly work but smart suite programs also work great. It fact Ami pro is More than an equal to Microsoft word which is what the office package uses to process words. Office has no personal information manager. Smart suite does. And there Are a number of other minor differences. A a. A. A a. A a a a. Overall the Choice of a suite is a personal Choice much like marriage. Once you spend a lot of time and learn the intricacies of smart suite you re not Likely to change to something else without a lot of personal anguish. You re there to stay. Smart suite carries a suggested retail Price of $795, another reason that if you invest in this you re Likely to slay