NeXT Nugget News Digest (vol. 3, issue 8, June 30, 1992) _____________________________________________________________ Table of Contents I. NeXT Appoints Bernhard Woebker VP Europe II. NeXT Announces Final Private Financing Round; $65 Million Credit Line III. NeXT Announces POSIX/GOSIP Compliance for NeXTSTEP 3.0 IV. Pencom Launches NeXT Training Services, NeXT Consulting V. NeXTSTEP Release 3.0 Fact Sheet _____________________________________________________________________ I. NeXT Appoints Bernhard Woebker VP Europe New VP Completes NeXT's European Reorganization REDWOOD CITY, Calif., June 29, 1992 -- NeXT Computer, Inc. today announced that it has appointed Bernhard Woebker as its new vice president of Europe. This appointment completes NeXT's reorganization of its European operations, which has been taking place during the past six months. "Attracting a world-class person like Bernhard is a real coup, and indicative of how serious we are about Europe," said Steven P. Jobs, NeXT's chairman and CEO. "Several of our U.S.-based customers are multinational companies who already have a strong presence in Europe. Now that we have the right European management team and a cohesive strategy in place, we will be working with these existing companies, as well as attracting new European customers." Woebker, 42, assumes his new position at NeXT starting July 6. A well-respected manager and technologist who has spent most of his career in Europe, the German-born Woebker was most recently Pyramid Technology's senior vice president for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. "I am very excited about joining NeXT as vice president, Europe," Woebker said. "NeXT leads the computer industry in object-oriented technology, and now has significant momentum in the U.S. market. This is an excellent opportunity to leverage both of these assets into a European success. In many ways, Europe is ahead of the U.S. in understanding the value of creating custom application solutions, and NeXT's technology can drastically reduce the cost and time of implementing these solutions. The opportunity for NeXT in Europe is very large." Other Changes in NeXT's European Organization NeXT's European executives are now located in NeXT's country offices in Munich and Paris, to be close to customers. Woebker will be stationed in the Munich office, along with Herbert Schwab, recently appointed NeXT's head of finance and administration for Europe. In Paris will be Paul Vais, who returns to his position as technical director for Europe after serving as acting VP of Europe since early February, and Randall Sosnick, responsible for legal and HR affairs. With several other changes, NeXT's European organization has now been evolved to support the company's mission-critical custom applications strategy, which focuses on delivering the benefits of NeXTSTEP to larger organizations through a direct sales channel. "One of my first priorities since joining NeXT has been to bring Europe into line strategically, to duplicate the success we are seeing in the U.S.," said Peter van Cuylenburg, president and chief operating officer of NeXT. "While this has necessitated significant changes it is already working well" We've seen stronger sales there in the second quarter, after a weak first quarter. "Bernhard's appointment as NeXT's vice president of Europe solidifies our European team and strategy. Steve and I have the utmost confidence in Bernhard's management acumen and understanding of the opportunities now facing NeXT worldwide." Bernhard Woebker Woebker joins NeXT following a distinguished career in the European computer industry. He leaves Pyramid Technology, where he was most recently senior vice president for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. In this position, he oversaw 90 people and generated sales of $50 million in fiscal year 1991. Before joining Pyramid, he spent 15 years with Nixdorf Computer AG, culminating his career there as vice president, Open Systems. Prior to this assignment, he was president and CEO of NCEC (Nixdorf Computer Engineering Corporation) in Burlington, Mass. Before joining Nixdorf, Woebker spent three years as an assistant professor at the Institut for Computer Science at the Technical University Hanover, where he taught various computer science courses including compiler theory, artificial intelligence and computer graphics. Woebker received a diploma in mathematics and computer science from the Technical University at Hanover. Bernhard has served as a Board member for both the OSF (from its inception through 1991) and X/Open (1989-1991) consortia. ____________________________________________________________________ II. NeXT Announces Final Private Financing Round; $65 Million Credit Line FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Allison Thomas Allison Thomas Associates (415) 780-3786 (818) 981-1520 NeXT Announces Final Private Financing Round $65 Million Credit Line Available REDWOOD CITY, Calif., June 29, 1992 - NeXT Computer, Inc. announced today that it has secured further private financing, in the form of a $55 million credit line from Canon Inc. and a $10 million credit line from Steven P. Jobs, NeXT's chairman and CEO. This is expected to be the final round of private financing that NeXT will require. NeXT may draw upon these credit lines as needed. At a future Initial Public Offering (IPO) of NeXT's stock any funds borrowed under these credit lines would convert to equity in NeXT at the IPO valuation. "Canon has been a long-term partner of NeXT, and this financing is just one more example of their commitment to our success," said Steve Jobs. "NeXT is now fully funded." said Peter van Cuylenburg, NeXT's president and COO. "These credit lines are the perfect financing instruments for NeXT. They provide more than we require to fund our anticipated growth, yet give us the flexibility to use as little additional funding as possible. Any funds used would convert to equity at the valuation achieved at an IPO, without any premium or discount." NeXT continues to capture leading-edge customers with its highly acclaimed object-oriented NeXTSTEP software and hardware. Recently published industry data from International Data Corp. (IDC) placed NeXT fourth in desktop workstation shipments in 1991, ahead of both IBM and SGI. NeXT estimates that that it has achieved 20 percent market share in the commercial workstation market, about half of its estimate of Sun Microsystems' market share. "We entered the commercial workstation market less than 18 months ago and our market share is already half of Sun's, and growing," said Jobs. "Watch for us to continue taking market share away from Sun." NeXT Computer, Inc. designs and markets the industry-acclaimed UNIX-based NeXTSTEP object-oriented software environment, and designs, manufactures and markets workstations that run NeXTSTEP. NeXTSTEP and NeXT workstations are used by medium and large organizations to develop and deploy mission-critical applications, using both custom and shrink-wrapped software. NeXT is headquartered at 900 Chesapeake Drive, Redwood City, California, 94063. ____________________________________________________________________ III. NeXT Announces POSIX/GOSIP Compliance for NeXTSTEP 3.0 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: NeXT Computer, Inc. John Synk, (703) 506-3937 NeXT Announces POSIX/GOSIP Compliance for NeXTSTEP 3.0 WASHINGTON, D.C., June 25, 1992 - NeXT Computer, Inc. announced today that it will offer full POSIX and GOSIP compliance for NeXTSTEP 3.0 for federal government and other customers that require these standards. Providing a version of NeXTSTEP that completely supports these standards allows NeXT to compete for the entire range of federal hardware and software procurements that mandate POSIX and GOSIP. "NeXT products have tremendous appeal to government users, and with this announcement NeXT becomes a full-fledged player across all federal markets," said Fred Giordano, regional federal sales manager for NeXT. "POSIX and GOSIP compliance, and the interoperability they provide, are important components of NeXT's overall strategy of combining industry standards with NeXTSTEP's innovative object-oriented system software. These standards are key additions to NeXTSTEP 3.0, which will provide the broadest set of interoperation tools available from any workstation vendor." NeXT also announced it plans to support the C2 government specification for security of a computer's operating system from unauthorized penetration. NeXT products supporting POSIX, GOSIP and C2 standards for NeXTSTEP 3.0 will be available in Q4 1992. Details on pricing and distribution will be announced at a later date. POSIX and GOSIP Standards Required by Federal Government POSIX, or Portable Operating System Interface, is a generic operating system interface and environment definition based on, but not restricted to, the UNIX operating system. The goal of the POSIX standard is to allow any software application developed under POSIX to run on any computer system that is compliant with POSIX. POSIX compliance is currently required for most federal RFPs. GOSIP, or Government Open Systems Interconnection Profile, is a set of hardware-independent networking protocols and tools designed to work across diverse computer platforms, replacing the variety of competing network protocols with a consistent standard. GOSIP compliance is currently required for most federal RFPs. "Support for GOSIP is part of NeXT's continuing commitment to providing organization-wide interoperability," Fred Giordano said. "NeXTSTEP 3.0 system software, for example, also includes integrated support for AppleTalk and Novell NetWare support. GOSIP adds an additional and significant building block to this collection of connectivity tools." About NeXT Computer, Inc. NeXT Computer, Inc. designs, manufactures and markets professional workstations based on the revolutionary NeXTSTEP object-oriented system software. NeXT computers are used by medium and large organizations to develop and deploy mission-critical custom applications, which can run alongside a robust suite of advanced productivity applications. NeXT is headquartered at 900 Chesapeake Drive, Redwood City, California, 94063. The Washington, D.C. office is located at 1650 Tysons Blvd., Suite 650, McLean, VA 22102. ____________________________________________________________________ IV. Pencom Launches NeXT Training Services, NeXT Consulting For more information: Pam O'Neal Doug Cooper/Paula Johns Pencom Software Cooper/Iverson Marketing (512) 343-1111 (619) 292-7400 pam@pencom.com cooperiver@cerf.net PENCOM LAUNCHES NeXT TRAINING SERVICES, NEW NeXT CONSULTING TEAM; Joint Activities With NeXTedge Planned AUSTIN, TX - June 29, 1992 - Pencom Software is doubling its staff of NeXT engineers in order to launch a training and consulting team specifically dedicated to serving both developers and end user organizations equipped with workstations from NeXT Computer, Inc. Already a NeXT-authorized systems integrator as well as a NeXT software developer, Pencom has added the new services in order to capitalize on the growth NeXT has recently experienced in key vertical markets, particularly the financial services industry. The new training services will be performed in some cases with NeXTedge, NeXT's service and support group, which Pencom will assist with post-sales support and possibly other activities that will be announced at a later date. "Pencom has been involved with NeXT on many levels -- as a customer, a product developer and as a co-bidder on several projects," said Ed Taylor, President of Pencom Software. "We are excited to embark upon a whole new relationship with NeXT through our expanded services." Pencom also plans to initiate NeXT-specific training courses in various regions across the country. The courses will be designed for software developers looking to create applications for NeXTSTEP, NeXT's object-oriented development environment and graphical user interface. Consulting Group To Aid Large End Users Pencom's consulting services group is available immediately to perform a broad range of functions, including high-level design and rapid prototyping, applications development, database design and development, networking and other services designed for NeXT end users. The company is targeting these services toward end users who have just purchased multiple systems from NeXT. Consulting engineers are available to work with clients on site at locations throughout the country, or they can coordinate with the client from any one of Pencom's five nationwide offices in New York, Austin, San Jose, Boston and Reston, VA. Pencom has already begun hiring engineering professionals in order to augment its team of NeXT experts. It is anticipated that the financial industry will demand a large percentage of the group's services, although other vertical industries are also requesting Pencom's NeXT expertise more and more. "The financial market is an important commercial market for NeXT and always a place where technological innovation occurs," said Jim McCrory, NeXT's Financial Services Marketing Manager. "Our relationship with Pencom adds significantly to the depth of services available to NeXTstep customers on Wall Street." Established in December, 1991, Pencom's NeXT integration team recently won a bid from New York City-based Organization Resources Counselors, Inc. (ORC) to design and implement a new corporate computing environment that combines NeXT Computer Inc.'s NeXTstation Turbo computer with IBM's RISC System/6000. In addition to its system integration, training and consulting services, Pencom is the developer of co-Xist, a software product that allows NeXT users to run industry standard X Window applications on NeXT workstations. Pencom Software is a division of Pencom Systems, Inc., a New York-based firm providing software engineering and manpower resources to Fortune 500 companies and leading computer firms since 1973. Currently the largest recruiting firm specializing in the Unix/open systems market, Pencom employs over 400 people and maintains a large heterogeneous network of workstations including more than 45 NeXT machines. For more information, contact Pencom Software, 9050 Capital of Texas Highway North, Suite 300, Austin, Texas 78759. Telephone: _____________________________________________________________________ V. NeXTSTEP Release 3.0 Fact Sheet Product Overview: NeXTSTEP Release 3.0 is a new generation of NeXTSTEP object-oriented system software. NeXTSTEP, the only object-oriented system software currently shipping, greatly speeds the development of mission-critical custom applications up to five times faster than with competing environments. In addition, the NeXTSTEP graphical user interface lets mere mortal users take advantage of the powerful custom and shrink-wrapped applications written for the platform. Among the most significant enhancements of NeXTSTEP Release 3.0 are additional software objects that commercial and in-house developers can use to create their applications. Release 3.0 bundles three major new object kits, and third-party developers already market more than 100 additional objects aimed at a wide range of specialized tasks. Because NeXTSTEP is completely object-oriented, all these new objects fit seamlessly into the development environment, making the real promises of object-oriented computing available for the first time on any commercial platform. NeXTSTEP Release 3.0 also adds a number of new connectivity, communications and other standards to the already standards-rich environment of NeXTSTEP Release 2. ********************************************** **** Highlights of NeXTSTEP Release 3.0: ***** ********************************************** - New objects for the NeXTSTEP library, plus enhanced object-oriented technologies - Database Kit (DBKit), which provides a single, consistent interface to SQL databases from multiple vendors; extends the power of NeXTSTEP's object-oriented capabilities to the development of database applications - 3D Graphics Kit (3DKit), based on the RenderMan standard for photorealistic rendering and interactive manipulation of 3D models, enables easy integration of three-dimensional graphics into existing NeXTSTEP applications - Distributed Objects, which extends the simple yet powerful messaging model used between objects within a NeXTSTEP application to messaging between different applications and across a network - Object Links, a multimedia hyperlinking system based on Distributed Objects that enables documents to share dynamic information - PhoneKit, for taking advantage of high-speed voice and data transmission over ISDN as well as analog lines - Even more support for standards - Bundled Novell Client and AppleShare Client software, for accessing file servers and PostScript printers on NetWare and AppleTalk networks - Macintosh file system support - Improvements to DOS file system support - ISDN networking support (with inexpensive external hardware by Hayes Microcomputer) - CD-ROM support (includes ISO 9660, High Sierra, RockRidge and Macintosh formats) - PostScript Level 2 integration, which adds support for calibrated color output, imaging filters for faster printing and pattern support - Pantone Matching System, the premier standard for specifying colors in printed output - Expanded ability to share files, printers (from various vendors), fax modems and CD-ROM drives among networked users - Seamless client operation with all leading high-quality servers (e.g., Auspex, DEC, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Pyramid, Sequent, Sun, Teradata) - Global computing, automatically - Integrated foreign language support, so that all applications shipped with NeXTSTEP computers to be set by the user for English, French, German, Italian, Spanish or Swedish (in Japan, NeXTSTEP users will be able to work in both English and Japanese) - Other enhancements - Integration with NeXT's 360 dpi, four-color Color Printer - An integrated, multimedia on-line hypertext Help system - Multimedia file compression - Additional network administration tools Compatibility: Any application written under NeXTSTEP Release 2 will run in Release 3.0, and will automatically take advantage of many Release 3.0 features. Availability: August, 1992 Media: Installed on the hard disk of all computers shipped with NeXTSTEP 3.0; also included on a CD-ROM disk for back-up. Upgrades shipped on CD-ROM disk or as a right-to-use license. Pricing: Contact your local NeXT dealer or reseller ___________________________________________________________________