dacs.doc electric

THE TIMING for our BeOS presentation at the June meeting couldn't have been better, with Be, Inc. slated to go public at any minute. Unfortunately, I was busy getting our latest products ready to ship with Microsoft Office 2000, so I was unable to attend. However, after speaking with several DACS members who were there, and reading Wally's article, I felt the BeOS wasn't given a fair presentation.

I have been interested in the BeOS for many years and have watched its progress closely. It has been working on the next-generation operating system since the company formed in 1990. Its goal was to start fresh and create a multimedia operating system, building a new product not dependent on old technology. After using it on an old, "useless" Pentium 133, I'm inclined to believe they've succeeded.

Last year we joined the BeOS developer program and have been looking for the right time to enter the BeOS market. BeOS is definitely gaining momentum and is being used to replace Windows on free or low-cost computers because the license fee is much lower (or even free). You'll be seeing more deals like the ones they've done with AST, iDOT.com, and Microworkz. The AST computer is especially interesting, because they're selling BeOS as a dual processor, 1 gigaherz machine because BeOS takes full advantage of the two processors, unlike Windows NT or other multiprocessor operating systems.

Be recently sent a free copy of BeOS 4.5 to all of their developers, and I'll be taking a close look at this first public release of BeOS in this article. I had an extra Pentium 133 computer lying around, and since it had Windows 95 on a 2 gigabyte drive with a lot of free space, I figured I'd install the BeOS on a portion of that drive. BeOS comes with a special version of Partition Magic, and it takes less than 15 minutes to add a BeOS partition to your computer. Partition Magic creates a special section of the drive for BeOS without disturbing your current operating system. When you boot, it gives you the choice of which operating system you want to use.

Installation was fast and easy, and the only real configuration I had to do was to set up my display and network card. The display settings worked great, and I was able to change the resolution and color depth easily. The original network card I used didn't work correctly, but when I replaced an old ISA 3Com EtherLink with a generic PCI NE 2000 compatible card, it worked immediately. Unlike Windows, you don't need to reboot after making changes-saving a lot of time when configuring a new system or adding new hardware. The hardware choices are very limited for BeOS, and you should visit www.Be.com to make sure your system will work with Be before buying.

I spent some time playing with the system, changing settings, running demos that came with the BeOS, and just having fun. The BeOS is stable, but it is not without quirks. It runs very well on my old, slow Pentium, but I had a few rare occasions where programs acted strangely-but there were no major crashes. One of the quirks that bothered me was the choice to reverse the OK and Cancel buttons in dialog boxes, almost causing me to lose data or make a bad decision.

The one thing that makes or breaks an operating system is the number of applications that are available. The main reason Apple is still around is the large number of devoted developers, with Microsoft leading the pack. It's rumored that Microsoft makes more money on each new Mac than Apple does. I truly believe that Office 98 was a key deal that helped save Apple. There are hundreds of thousands of applications for Windows, tens of thousands for Macs, and only a thousand for BeOS. I expect the number of programs to grow as Be becomes more widely available, but this should be the primary focus of Be right now. Without a large development commitment to the platform, it will surely die.

The first large commercial developer to commit to the BeOS platform is Metacreations. They are porting Bryce 4 to the BeOS, and I believe that many more announcements will follow. We're looking at marketing our Web site, www.webspice.com, to the Be community. I tested using our Web site and art with the BeOS, and it worked flawlessly. Getting in early on a new operating system is risky, but can pay off if the platform gains a lot of users. The Web browser, NetPositive, is not as advanced as the latest version of Navigator or Internet Explorer, but it handled forms and secure pages easily. BeOS is well suited to surfing the Internet, and it includes ftp and telnet programs as well. I even had BeOS up and running as a simple Web server in minutes, but the Poor Man program is limited.

The key application that has kept BeOS alive is Gobe Productive. The nice folks at Gobe sent me a review copy, and there is a free limited demo on the BeOS 4.5 disk. Very similar to Microsoft Works, it includes several key applications, including Graphics, Word Processing, Spreadsheet, Presentation, and Image Processing. Every BeOS user should purchase this program-it does everything that's missing from the BeOS for basic computer tasks.

The Word Processing application is probably sufficient for most users, specially novices, but I miss some of the advanced features in Microsoft Word, such as real-time spellchecking, Visual Basic for Applications, and some of the advanced editing features. It does about 90% of the important features of Word, and if you're writing letters or creating simple business correspondence, you'll be fine. The documentation is well written and is in HTML format.

The Spreadsheet is a powerful program capable of most tasks, and that can even create charts. Graphics is a simple vector drawing program, enabling you to create simple diagrams. The real star of the suite is Image Processing. While it's not PhotoShop or PaintShop Pro, it's fun to watch how fast it performs the filters that take much longer in PhotoShop. You can do most of your image editing in this program, and only a pro will miss the high-end features in PhotoShop. You can pick up Gobe Productive for around $79 from www.bedepot.com.

You can purchase the BeOS online for around $69 if you're interested in trying it out. Visit www.Be.com for more information. Don't write them off yet-I think we'll be hearing a lot more from Be soon.