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December 1996 Vo 1.2 N o.8 DEPARTMENT Industry Flash

gi CanadaWatch

CD-ROMs:CKnWe Keep UpWith TheChangesY--"

By Jeff Evans

BUSINESS Christmas 1996 — Is It Time For SomeCheer>

By Gary Davies

NETWORKING Switches and Routers — Working Together to Build Scaleable Networks

By Gus Malezis and Chuck Semeria

LABTEST 166MHz Pentiums:

Eyeing ThePerformance, And Price ........................

New Products

By Chris Fisher, Steve Halinda and Tim Bingham-Wallis

COMDEX Comdex in Las Vegas .

Asiascape

By Grace Casselman

28 40

VOICE RECOGNITION Look Who's Talking

Sourcing Directory

By Paul Lima

THE NETWORKCOMPUTER People

New Wave Of NCsDominates Oracle Open World Conference

By Jeff Evans

44

RETAILING Calendar

Production Promotion: Maybe It Is Rocket Science

By Paul Weinberg

NOTEBOOKS Collected Numbers

Surf our Website http: //www.ccwmag.corn 4

Notebooks — No Holds Barred

By Edward Trapunski

THE PUNDIT The Golden Age ofTech Support

By Graeme Bennett

WH O L ESALER December 1996 hr rgltwwwccwmag corn

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WHY NOT D EAL W IT H T H E B I GGEST> Buying parts the usualway>No-name brands of no known origin, No assurancesof reliability or compatibility. No support. That's no way

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to build a computer. Much less a business. Switch to Acer components. Every Acer product meets the toughest quality standards in the industry. And that includes just about every kind of component your system needs, From monitors and keyboards to motherboards, sound cards, chassis, and CD-ROMS, AcerOpen has it all! And you' ll rest easy knowing every Acer component works together. It's proven everyday. As a matter of fact. Acer built the world's fifth largest PC company around these parts. At Comtronic, we' re your one-stop Acer source. Our warehouses are packed to the ceiling with Acer quality products. And all at prices that figure to leave you plenty of margin.

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E DI T O R ' S

D ES K

Dissembling the NC I recently assembled my first network computer. And believe me, it was tricky! I had to pull this tab, push this side — then 'the whole thing kind of collapsed; and I had to try it again.

Alright, so maybe it was just a cardboard life-sized model of the JavaStation that Sun provided so I wouldn' t forget the physical attributes of the new system. (It's a small, but stylish purple and grey affair — see page 44 for a photo.)

Almost every traditional computer manufacturerhas been evaluating the concept of this new computing "paradigm," (as Sun likes to call it). Please see "New Wave Of NCs...," on page 44 by Jeff Evans.(This issue we we l come Jeff as Ca n a dian Computer Wholesaler's new Toronto Editor.)

Mapping It Out For amap of the current scenario,consider: On one side are the big NC-advocates: Sun, IBM, Oracle — to name a few of the big boys. With a stated goal to reduce corporate IT costs by centralizing computing on the server, allowing only a very 'thin' client to sit at the desktop level; these vendors are paving the way for lower-cost, terminal-like devices, where applications and data are downloaded on-the-fly (Java expects to play a big role here). While the CPU will provide desktopprocessing and allow for an attractive GUI — users won't have the flexibility to customize their desktops, load on software without permission of the network . administrator, or even download data off the network. Hooray! — say the advocates, as this more "centralized" view of the world will be where the real cost-savings lie, as software management, upgrades, and administration can all happen centrally.

Of course — as Bill Gates is quick to point out — t his will mean higher-cost servers, heftierdatabases,plus more powerful management software and networking; which neatly coincides with the areas of expertise of the major NC advocates.

Yet, Gates hasn't laughed off their efforts. Rather, Microsoft has attempted a p re-emptive s t rik e t h r ough t h e j o i n t announcement with Intel of t h e N etPC. Instead of changing basic architectures, the NetPC is a striped-down, standardized version of today's traditional personal computer, with an internal hard disk for caching 6

only; and no end-user expansion slots. The basicmessage is: we can reduce the costof corporate computing without throwing away the baby. Traditional computing can be adapted to offer more or less network-centralized applications, and when a thin client is appropriate (for "heads-down" data inputters, or to people who don't need the full functionality of PCs), then invest in the most basic PC model — the NetPC. So who's got it right? A popular answer is: "Well, both." Many corporations currently running terminal environments will closely examine NCs — to give their users more desktop processing power and attractive interfaces. Moreover, those moving to automate new workers, may indeed consider NCs — particularly for single-task workers or employees with only modest computing demands. And while many companies may choose to sit back and evaluate the NC's potential and progress over the next while, those most frustrated with the insecurities and management challenges associated with today's networks — will likely be among the first to test out NC scenarios.

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Tim Bingham- Wallis

A Plea For Standards Whichever way the wind blows — the most important factor to consider will be stan dards. All industry players had better take care to ensure their offerings interact and are truly compatible with the others in the market-place. The last thing users want is a return to the proprietary computing 'para digm' of the early '80s.

Have a wonderful holiday season.

WH O L E SALER D e c ember 1996 ht tp//www.ccwmag.corn

Grace Casselman Editor

-.+,

Paul Lima

"'-.

Gus Malegis,g @P Paul Weinberg

Production Qaff Sherly Ho sn KurilHartwig -'; " Key Account Manager (East) Tino Wong Key Account Manager (West)Jamie Lei ghton -ACCOuntManagerS Marsha Miller

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Controller Christine McPhi ti' Accounting Farida Aini Circulation Farida Aini Esther Palivoda

Founders Kent Liqin Chen': W~~ Li Ding:

The Home Front Now what about the home user?

Rather than expecting a lot on the Internet appliance front from traditional PC vendors — look to players in other industries. Telephone manufacturers (including Nortel) are developing systems that will expand the telephone's capability to down load text-based information (even Web con tent or E-mail) onto phone screens. In certaingeographicalareas,people athome are already sitting down at their telephones to check and reply to their E-mail.

And no doubt many homes currently equipped with video game machines would be interested in an upgrade to allow games players to surf the 'Net. (Development is already well underway on that front.)

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Publisher Douglas Alder, Aimtyciate Publilibygra Juriy.Prange Habi Smgh Khalsga' ti! i)I Editcr Grace'Casseln tan .>V,~,'s .„';; Toronto Editor Je+Esp oans CorttrjbutingIII/ilbit3 Graertite Bennet't "=.~'-

Canadian Computer Wholesaler is ', !~published 12 times a year « by „,,"'4"r 6ii'nada Computer Paper Inc.

Head Office "

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Toronto, Ont. Canada M6K3J8

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Contents of canadian Computer IVttolesnler subject to copyright.

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P UB L I S H E R ' S D E S K

Morphing in two Directions Two big trends appear to be shaping up in the computer industry, ifthe evidence from Comdex is to be believed.

The computer as we know it is continuing to morph in two directions: Mobile h andheld computersand Web-based Java PCs. Both of these new trends imply a simplification of what a computer does and the related maintenance and training requirements. In one direction we are seeing new simpler portable computers represented by the new CE Windows handheld units. In the other direction is the emergence of products designed to simplify the basic PC into a Web-dependent E-mail and information gathering device.

This direction is represented by Sun's new JavaStation and the NetPC. You will hear volumes about the technology of these two new directions. No doubt magazines will be launched just to explain them. My question is who is going to sell these units?

Pessoaal Digital Assistance'tss Someone should go out and trademark the name Personal Digital Assistance as a great name for a store specializing in handheld computers. I would do it, but I am not likely to go into retailing any time soon.

We have already seen that with basic electronic organizers and low-end PDAs, manufacturers can make them simple enough to put in a retail box and sell them in electronics boutiques. When the complexity goes down, the number of outlets that can sell these units goes way up. They become like microwaves — a day's training and an orangutan could sell them.

If the new Windows CE platform is too easy, then the units will likely become commodities. It will be difficult for clone-makers to jump into this game. This is an area where larger manufacturers will likely dominate and chain stores or volume resellers will predominate.

It is yet unclear how well this market will do.

The Apple Newton has had slow sales, due to high priceand so-so marketing. One report Iheard suggested that the company had only sold about 100,000 units this year — not exactly a mass-market phenomena.

I have seen some Newton-specific stores in major Canadian and U.S. cities, but they always seem deserted when I visit them. The Newton units w ere kind of an odd ball— not even Macintosh, definitely not Windows. Software packages had to be specifically written to the Newton operating system.

Windows CE will no doubt benefit by the success of Windows in general. If adapting the software to run on the CE platform is relatively easy, 8

Microsoft could have another winner on its hands One thing that the Newton experience suggests is that if the area grows, and consumers demand cus tom solutions, then a market will emerge for resellers to supply these options (and someone will make a million bucks with the store named Personal Digital Assistance M r ).

Advertisers' Index Company Name Telephone Page Accton Canada (604) 214-0768 AD Metro (613) 273-3111:-, Canbell Group Ent. Inc. (604) 279-2366

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Wsb PC PCs have been lambasted by business consultants for lower productivity in many businesses, despite billions having been spent to automate companies Numerous surveys have pointed out that the cost of the average PC is farexceeded by the training, con figuration and software support cost of the unit over three to five years.

The promiseofthe Web PC, orthe Java-based PC is that the consumer or employee would have one of these units placed on their desk and then never have to deal with another configuration has sle. The Web, by its nature, promises a much sim pier interface to information gathering and manipu lation. The unit would be reduced to a monitor, key board, modem, a CPU and some RAM — no disk drives to fiddle and configure. The premise is that these units would sell for $500 and up, perhaps even lower if the consumers can use their existing TV sets as monitors.

New reseller channels will no doubt emerge to sell these units. I met a cheerful fellow on the plane recently who had come back from a multi-level marketing seminar where a telephone-based Web PC was being touted as the next road to riches. To the home, these units will likely be sold on a lease by cable companies.

In thepast few weeks, Rogers Wave has been announced in more Canadian markets. This service uses cable to provide high speed Internet access and looks very competitive with the telephone companies ISDN services. Selling a box for Web TV would be a natural extension for this company Traditional computer reseller channels will not be blocked out of these sales Corporations will still look to resellers to pro vide these units, but clearly new channels will pose competition.

Challenge anti Opportunity for Rssslisrs

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The lifeblood of many computer resellers is going to be challenged if either of these two new comput TKP Electronic (Canada) er evolutions take hold in a big way. No doubt the (604) 279-0320 traditional computer will not disappear, but many of Trumpet Distributors (604) 279-9963 the potential customers for computers will be look 1-800-881-2288 ing at these options as alternatives As always, resellers who adapt and grow will Ultlnet 1-800-663-3441 flourish. HK9 Doug A/der White Knight Distributing Publisher 1-800-668-6188 800-852-5039

WH OL E S ALER D e c e m ber 1996 ht t p//wwwccwmag.corn

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pf With such features as a large 11.3" SVGA or 12,1" XGH Active Matrix LCDscreen, Infrared port for wireless communications, Pentium CPU, 6x CD-ROMdrive, Glide Pad Finger Mouse, and brilliant multimedia stereo sound system, Sharp Electronics is writing the next chapter in notebook computing.

Designed and manufactured by Sharp — that means proven reliability backed by national service support networks, incentives and our experience that only the leader in mobile technologies can provide. We not only give your customers high performance notebooks, but give you the tools to make profitable sales and post sales support like the Sharp Rapid Exchange Program.

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Toshiba notebook line adds full multimedia capability Last month, Toshiba of Canada, Information (6X for the Satellite 200CDS, 10X for the SystemsGroup(ISG)rolledoutfivenewmod- rest), large, high resolution color screens, els of notebooks, all of which offer full stereo sound, large, fast hard drives (up to Multimedia PC (MPC) capability, across a 12.l-inches with 800by 600 resolution with wide range of configurations and price points.

16.7 million colors), 16MB EDO RAM According to Robert Grossman, vice- (expandable up to 144MB on the Tecra president and general manager of Toshiba of 510CDT), and an array of additional features, Netscape, Oracle sign deal Canada, ISG, "With the debut particularly on the higher end Netscape Communications Corp. and Oracle of t h e T o s hiba S atellite :, models, including Lithium Ion Corp. have announced two agreements in " 200CDS, f ul l m u l t imedia .' batteries, sophisticated power which they will integrate, market and distribcapabilities are now standard ,management features, digital ute each other's products. across allnew Toshiba of video acceleration, and built-in Oracle will bundle Netscape Navigator Canada notebooks. Toshiba is modems. with the NC software operating environment first to bring the features that Toshiba continues to be the produced by Oracle's subsidiary — Network were previously reserved for P>., '<"" I < ~:.. leading notebook vendor in .

Computer Inc. Oracle says it will not offer .' the higher end right down to Canada, with about 27 per cent any other third-party browsers bundled with the entry level, so that more of market-share. its Intel-based NCs. our customersaccess the feaThe company r ecently In a separateagreement, Oracle enter- tures they need for today' s announced a worldwide, comprise and workgroup database servers will be resources intensive mobile computing." The p r ehensive warranty program in association bundled w i t h Ne t scape C o mmercial new models include: the Satellite 200CDS w i t h U nisys, where mobile computer cusApplications, including Netscape Merchant and Satellite Pro 430 series, aimed at the t o m ers will be offered an international warSystem, Netscape Publishing System and price sensitive executive and small business r a nty fulfilment network. Problems that can' t Netscape Community System. Moreover, user, the Portege 660 CDT ultra-portable b e resolved over the phone will have service Netscape won't offer non-Oracle database ($8,299), forthe premium,ultra mobile desk- c o -ordinated by Unisys, with a no-cost-tosoftware w i t h Ne t scape C o mmercial topreplacementnotebookuser,andthe Tecra t h e-customer turnaround of between three Applications. Netscape will also deliver 510CDT, also for the high end desktop a n d fivedays.

Oracle Universal Server-based versions of its replacement market. Not all prices on the new As well, after a good reception to the Netscape Live wire Pro a n d N e tscape models were finalisedat thetimeoflaunch. new l i n e of Toshiba consumerPCs in the SuiteSpot server family to market. + All the new models are based on the U . S., Toshiba Canada may releasethe second Pentium processor, with clock speeds ranging g eneration of Toshiba consumer desktops in from 100MHz (Satellite 200CDS), to Ca n ada in mid-1997, according to a Toshiba 120MHz (Satellite Pro 430), 133MHz (Tecra s ource. The new line can be expected to offer Meridian Data signs DynaTek 510CDT)and 150MHz (Portege 660CDT). s o me spectacular digital video capabilities, DynaTek Automation Systems Inc., in North All models feature built-in CD-ROM drives a c c ording to the source. + York, Ont., has signed an agreement with Meridian Data Inc. of Scotts Valley, Calif., to distribute Meridan's full line of CD-ROM network software and servers across Canada. IBM, Intel ally on desktop management with agreement DynaTek is a distributor and manufac(NB) — Intel Corp. will incorporate IBM's Wake On LAN technology in its Fast Ethernet turer of SCSI mass storage subsystems, adapters and LANDesk Client Manager software, and IBM in turn will use those products in C D-R O M desktop computers based on Intel's Pentium and Pentium Pro microprocessors, as part of the Advanced Manageability Alliance the two companies have announced. j ukebo x e s a nd R A I D IBM computers incorporating the Intel products with WakeOn LAN will be availstorage prodable in the first quarter of 1997, company officials said. According to IBM spokesperIlcts. son Bill Hughes, the alliance also gives Intel the right to sell the products to others.

DynaTek The Advanced Manageability Alliance is s~ctly an agreement between IBM and will distribute Intel, and isn't intended as the beginning of a larger industry group involving other venM eri d i a n ' s dors, Hughes said. He also denied there is any connection between this announcement f ull l i n e o f and recent maneuvering — that has included IBM, Intel, and other companies such as p rod u c t s Sun Microsystems Inc. and Microsoft Corp. — over new "network computer" or including: CD Net Software for configuring Internet appliance designs that might compete with traditional PCs. and managing shared CD-ROMs for all netIntel's Fast Ethernet silicon technology and IBM's Wake On LAN technology — which work platforms; CD Net CD-ROM Network allows a PC to be turned on by remote control over a local-area network — are the key elements .

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Servers and Subsystems; and CD NetRecord CD-Recordable Network Software.

The relationship will also include an ongoing, cooperative channel marketing campaign including advertising, sales and rebate promotions, and support initiatives. + 10

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of the agreement today, Hughes said, but in time other products may be exchanged as well.

"This is not just a one-off technology agreement," he said. "It's going on for a while."

The two vendors claimed their goal is to make it easier for their customers to manage desktop computers, install and upgrade software, deal with support issues, and reduce costs.

They said they are working on further technology that will allow corporate PCsto be controlled

by IBM's LAN Client Control Manager and Intel's LANDesk Configuration Manager. +

WHO L ESALER December 1996 htrp/!wwwccwmag.corn

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hftpllwwwccwmag.corn December 1996 W H O LESALER 1 3

C D- R O M s Ash said the market for 'multimedia upgrade kits' bundles containing a CD-ROM drive, a sound card, speakersand a selection of software, have declined considerably in the last year.

He said: "People just want the drive by itself, either to put a CD-ROM drive in a PC that doesn't have one, or to upgrade from a 2X drive to 8X or IOX. They already have asound card and speakers,and they increasingly don't want to buy a bundle of CD-ROM titles, only a couple of which they'd ever want to use."

This raisesthe spectre of consumer resistance to a new, incompatible format.

On the onehand, if consumers decide they want DVD, then dealers will benefit from increased replacement sales as well as new sales, with higher prices and profitmargins. On the other hand, though, there is the possibility of retailers getting stuck with unsold oldmodel CD-ROMs if DVD catches on Brand Awareness Isn't Big more quickly than According to Ash, most retail customers regard CDexpected, or with "' ÂŽ ROM drives as a commodity, and have relatively little if unsold stocks of any brand awareness. Margins are so low, that selling DVD drives if the C D-ROM drives has become as much a service to attract new technology flops, or, even if, as and keepcustomers,as a m ajor profitcentre.

Bill Gates found out, if it just takes longer than expected The multi-changer CDfor new technology to catch on.

ROM drives, introduced by I "Looming over the entire CDROM As well, retailers may find that v endors such as N E C a n d the problem of 'too many multihardware and software market media titles, too little shelf space' Panasonic, have had only modest success, compared to the is the unanswered question will get even more acute if new popularity of m u l tidisk CD titles jostle for space of Digital Video Disk (DVD) DVD-only audio players in the consumer with the older format. technology. " electronics market.

Major PC manufacturers It appears that most PC are preparing to move into the owners would rather devote the extra few hundred dolDVD CD-ROM market, as they plan test introductions lars in incremental cost for a multi-disk CD-ROM playof consumer PC models with DVD drives as a standard er to other, higher performance purchases, such as extra feature.

RAM, graphics card, hard drive capacity, or a bigger Toshiba, for example, which has entered the U.S. monitor. retail market with a line of premium-priced (and initially Aside from resistance to the extra cost of a multivery well received) desktop home PCs, hints that it changer CD-ROM drive, the ergonomics of computer intends to introduce the next generation of its home deskuse seems tohave conspired against the success of that top PC line into Canada in mid-1997, complete with product.

DVD drives as a standard feature.

A PC user is never more than a few inches away And Eventually, from the CD-ROM drive. Changing disks is a minor chore. A CD audio user, however, mingling with guests at DVD For Notebooks a party, or attempting a seduction on the couch across the Also according to Toshiba, which ; g room from the sound system, finds getting up and manu- has recently unveiled a full ally changing disks much more of a nuisance, hence the line of notebook PCs with built-in CDgreater receptiveness of that customer base to the multiROMs as a standisk product. dard component in DVD â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Mountain, or Molehill? business notebooks, Looming over the entire CD-ROM hardware and softDVD fo r m o bile ware market is the unanswered question of Digital Video computer users is likeDisk (DVD) technology. If the copyright fears of softly 12-18 months away, but it ware content publishers can indeed be allayed (perhaps is likely to come eventually. by some sophisticated encryption techniques), DVD The CD-ROM has gone from an might become a big factor in the market by the end of exotic, rare technology to a must-have, heav1997. ily discounted commodity in about eight years, but DVD drives have more than 4GB in storage capaciif anything, its rate of change, in terms of markets, prices ty, compared to .65GB for a regular CD-ROMs. This and technology, seems destined to accelerate in 1997, allows full length feature films in extremely high quality providing a difficult, fast moving target for the reseller to digital video format to reside on a single disk. The DVD catch. HXi9 drives are supposed to be backwards compatible (will run the current 650MB capacity CD-ROM disks), but DVD Jeff Evans is Toronto Editor for Canadian Computer formatdiskscan'tbe read by current,non-DVD drives.

Wholesaler He can be reached at jeff@tcpon.ca.

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WH O L ESALER December 1996 http//www.ccwmag.corn

C D-R 0 M s

CD-ROIUls: Can We Keep Up With The Changes' ?

Oversupply, BVD Arivent i>IarIe 1 996 Tumultuous A.nA Just Wait 'Til You See 1 99 7!

by Jeff Evans Bill Gates, when visiting Toronto two years ago, said: early as the late 1980s. The first CD readers for computwhen he saw the potential of CD-ROM technology — a i ers were massive external units (usually SCSI models), cheap, huge capacity storage and publishing medium for ' w hich had a snail-like data transfer rate of about 150Kbps computer software — he figured that all computer users: (so-called single speed), and cost as much as $1,000, for would immediately rush out and add CD-ROM drives t h e early Apple Mac version. to their computers. "It didn't happen nearly as ' .

Quickly, however, costs declined as production quickly as I thought it would," he commented, i n c reased, and data transfer rates increased in increments "But it did happen eventually." of 150Kbps, to the point where the current state-of-theIn 1995, worldwide sales of: ar t 10-speed (IOX) CD-ROM drive reads data at rates up CD-ROM drives expanded:, to 1.5Mbps, a respectable fraction of a hard drive's data massively from the year 't . ransfer speed. before, reaching as much as 35 million units. '. They All Ciot In On The Game However, in antic-: A host of manufacturers jumped into the CD-ROM drive ipation of e v en . :market, including Toshiba, Pioneer, Phil ips, Acer, stronger sales than: Plextor, Creative Labs, TEAC, Goldstar, Panasonic, that, manufacturP i n nacle, Hitachi and Sony. ers made millions more : NEC, i n particular, established a reputation for qualCD-ROM drives than they could: i t y, with its SCSI interface cards and CD-ROM drives, sell. Warehouses in Singapore and else-: that made it a major supplier of premium priced drives. where in the Pacific Rim were packed to the : The price collapse of 1996, however, has transformed the ceiling with unsold product. market drastically. CD-ROMs have become a low-price, What was worse, as new, faster models of eight- : .Iow-margin commodity (6X drives were selling at a loss speed and 10-speed CD-ROM drives began to come off: l e ader retail price of US$39 at the Comdex/Chicago show). Technology leader NEC, of assembly lines,emergency measures had to be taken to sell battered by the price cutting and . by the increase in the cost of the older, slower four- and six-speed QlA m drives while they were still sell- ~ eXtAh Co/54 Qf a r Uf5-Changer J a p anese yen, has found the CDse ga ~;.gorlyrrliCS ROM drive market a very hostile able. The result was a price-cut-; CD,' OM drIV .-' !~g, tingfrenzy,which was greatfor ,: envi r onment, and has cut back its e pp «!,:, &i,,+4W: %;-: ta a rticipationin i t , a t i eastfo t h e c onsumers, butt i b t f o ts~'~ ' P 'have conspired ag'ainst the p time being. u factu rers.

A ccording t o D a v e A s h , ~@U +~ ;0f ~+ ~t rggy~isirt"" ' s The History owner of Multimedia Connection a Philips, the inventor of the origToronto-based CD-ROM software inal Compact Disk technology, had attracted a lot of sup- : store, "Almost every new home PC (more than 90 per cent) port from computer vendors for the CD-ROM medium as .' being sold today, has a CD-ROM drive pre-installed."

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C D- R O M s Ash said the market for 'multimedia upgrade kits' —: Thi s r a i ses the spectre of consumer resistance to a bundles containing a CD-ROM drive, a sound card,: n ew, incompatible format. speakersand a selection of software, have declined con- ' .

On the onehand, ifconsumers decide they want siderably in the last year.

DVD, then dealers will benefit from increased replaceHe said: "People just want the drive by itself, either: ment sales as well as new sales, with higher prices to put a CD-ROM drive in a PC that doesn't have one, or: and profit margins. On the other hand, to upgrade from a 2X drive to 8X or 10X. They already, :though, there is the possibility of have a sound card and speakers, and they increasingly: r etailers getting stuck don't want to buy a bundle of CD-ROM titles, only a cou-:. with unsold oldl, model CD-ROMs ple of which they'd ever want to use." if DVD catches on Brand Awareness Isn't Big more quickly than According to Ash, most retail customers regard CD- I expected, or with ROM drives as a commodity, and have relatively little if u nsold stocks of ~ " ' ® any brand awareness. Margins are so low, that selling : D V D drives if the CD-ROM drives has become as much a service to attract ' . new technology flops, or, even if, as and keepcustomers,as a m ajor profitcentre.

• Bill Gates found out, if it just takes longer than expected The multi-changer CDfor new technology to catch on.

ROM drives, i ntroduced hy O~' S', ug-' As well, retailers may tind that . +, j „t, yggj if ~ ~ 9 ,"i9nPq'e '.ar g " ' : tliI the problem of 'too many multifr :-:.-,,» vendors such a s N E C and ,„ Panasonic, have had only mod"9; ; @ ' media titles, too little shelf space' f , r e st success, compared to t h e IS' 'Ul ' fla SVf e U ' 'CfU88 f l ~ wi l l get even more acute if new p opularity o f m u l t idisk C D DVD-only titles jostle for space audio players in the consumer with the older format. tM electronics market.

Major PC manufacturers It appears that most PC are preparing to move into the owners would rather devote the extra few hundred dolDVD CD-ROM market, as they plan test introductions lars in incremental cost for a multi-disk CD-ROM playof consumer PC models with DVD drives as a standard er to other,higher performance purchases,such asextra feature.

RAM, graphicscard, hard drive capacity, or a bigger Toshiba, for example, which has entered the U.S. monitor. retail market with a line of premium-priced (and initially Aside from resistance to the extra cost of a multivery well received) desktop home PCs, hints that it changer CD-ROM drive, the ergonomics of computer intends to introduce the next generation of its home deskuse seems to have conspired against the success of that top PC line into Canada in mid-1997, complete with product.

D VD drives as a standard feature.

A PC user is never more than a few inches away And Eventually, from the CD-ROM drive. Changing disks is a minor chore. A CD audio user, however, mingling with guests at DVD For Notebooks a party, or attempting a seduction on the couch across the Also according to Toshiba, which room from the sound system, finds getting up and manu- has recently unveiled a full ally changing disks much more of a nuisance, hence the line of notebook PCs M greater receptiveness of that customer base to the multiwith built-in CDdisk product.

ROMs as a standard component in DVD — Mountain, or Molehill? business notebooks, Looming over the entire CD-ROM hardware and soft- D VD f o r m o b i l e ware market is the unanswered question of Digital Video computer users is likeDisk (DVD) technology. If the copyright fears of softly 12-18 months away, but it ware content publishers can indeed be allayed (perhaps is likely to come eventually. by some sophisticated encryption techniques), DVD The CD-ROM has gone from an might become a big factor in the market by the end of exotic, rare technology to a must-have, heav1997. ily discounted commodity in about eight years, but DVD drives have more than 4GB in storage capaciif anything, its rate of change, in terms of markets, prices ty, compared to .65GB for a regular CD-ROMs. This and technology, seems destined to accelerate in 1997, allows full length feature films in extremely high quality providing a difficult, fast moving target for the reseller to digital video format to reside on a single disk. The DVD catch. HXi9 drives are supposed to be backwards compatible (will run the current 650MB capacity CD-ROM disks), but DVD Jeff Evans is Toronto Editor for Canadian Computer format diskscan'tbe read by current, non-DVD drives.

W holesaler.

He can be reached atjeff@tcpon.ca. '

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Prepare fOr taXSeaSOn a

wit h T h e C a n a d i a n T a x T u t o r ' ber o f C anadianeducatorsareworkingintheir own ways on the Problem of keeping children Calgary-based Can Tax and Wmnipeg's The ,aw y&ommaPProPriateInternetcontent.

Jacks Institute have launched a software Calgary-based Net ShePherd Inc. has packageto combine an income ta haling ' "" announced a content rat ng Program called coursetw' with lannin software i n advance , the S~safe Challenge in co-operat on with

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According to CanTax, The Canadiari'-.I 'd e federal government's SchooINet, 'While Tax 7 toris designedto help Canadians get ', Vancouver-based Net Nanny Ltd. has just organized to prepared theii. annual income t ' tax return. It features hands-on instmctim K vin MacDonald, a spokesperson for by tax aud or Fvelyn Jacks and includes , Net Shepherd, said his company launched 1996 t t , ft b C T the S~Safe Challenge to have teachers, W hen consumers buy and register'their ' l i brarians, and other qualified educators rate f]' ware, they' ll receive a rmal filing version Merisel signs with Se roughly 57 million documents available e CanTax T 997 7 software ~ when h tit is available ~ bl Techmar Technologies next February Fb — just in time to t file f i l 1996 1 9 96 on the World Wide Web. Through a collaboMerisel Canada Inc. has announced the rative rating system using Net Shepherd' s income tax returns. signing of a distribution agreement with DAX Hound software, participants will The Canadian TaxTutorcan handle 'w hat Techmar Technologies. assign ratings ranging from general through if s cenarios, Techmar wasnamed as a result obJectionable to documents, and also by 4 such as charitaJ of the acquisition of the assets of quality using a five-star system. These ratble donation Rexon Inc. of Longmont, Co., by ings will be placed in a database for future and RRSP conLegacy Stor a g e Syst e ms ' reference. tribution levInternational Inc. of Markham, Ont. SchoolNet, the network the Canadian els, and print Techmar'sSmartArray series of government set up to link Canadian schools., the results on a I RAID products are new to the distri--' is supporting the project,, and Net'Shephefd draft tax ret'urn. bution channel. SmartArray features issued a challenge to schools in the United Users can earn 'ax ' " Ultra Wide SCSI 3, 2GB and 4GB . : :,:-:ta:-,::;" t States to participate as well., C~ . f ." , r , i , ,fI,", MacDonald said his company plans'a hard disks, PCI disk array controllers,'- '-.",:;,;;: i . f.

Participation &om The Jacks Institute,' fm'co'mand a maximum throughput capacity of up . major promotion of the project in the U.S. pleting the course. of 80MB/sec. y Th CCanadian The d i TTaxTu Tutor hhas a suggested td According to Merisel, SmartArray is Les Jickling, marketing coordinator at retail price of $59.95. designed for LANs and enterprise networks Net Nanny, said schools are showing a and is compatible with major operating sysCanad i a n S t a C kl e ' N e t growi ng i nterest in his company's software ',,-, whi c h allows parents or teachers to limit tems, such as Novell NetWare, QS/2 and COntent COnCernS Windows NT. access to Web sites. This is partly because the issue is getting a lot of public attention lately and partly because schools are using Ingram Micro launches ', the Internet more and more, he said. i Internet catalog Net Nanny has just released Version 3.0 Ingram Micro Inc. (Canada) has launched an HEtSHHtHNP II tic. af the software. One new feature is the option Internet-based electronic catalog, providingv st - of creating a "Can Go" list, so 'that;only lists resellers with password-protected, real-time ed sites are accessible, as an alternative to the access to information on inore than 26,000 earlier version's "Cart't.GO" approach, which t roductsfrom 550 manufacturers„,:: updaMg tokeep up th th d Resellers can visit In Mi c r o 's Web ' " ery of new sites that needed blacking. site at h:/ www.imcan.corn/, to look up price -, Jickling said businesses are also show.~ r and roduct availability. avmlab t A full-text search r ing interest in Net Nanny because it allows them to control time-wasting use of the Internet at work without blocking employIngram Micro's In-Depth Manufacturer InformationLibrary features sales and marNet Nanny has a suggested retai price keting materials, technical information and of f39.95. ra publications, training manuals and channel support. Using Adobe's Acrobat software Canadian ISP Group ro p and Portable Document Format (.pdf), the

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comPany says the library Provides a storeAs part ot the startsate chaiienge initiative in canadian house of manufacturer information that is ~. school««nwa«ls,htetshePh«dine/s.~«uttve.v!«-- t-: (NB) — The Canadian Association of ' President, technotogv, demonstrates the rating Process -Internet Provideis (CAIP) has created a volin exedan rI'ese l l lers can Print, store or B to teacher sharon Horn and student Torte Heming at '

mail stored documents.

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members and o ther I n ternet service providers (ISPs) will follow.

The code pledges compliance with all applicable laws, and in particular commits ISPs not to knowingly host illegal materials on their systems. It also promises respect and protection for users' privacy, and a commitment to public education about Internet issues and technology.

Margo Langford, general counsel f@. iStar Internet Inc. in Ottawa and chair of the CAIP group that drew up the code of conduct, said there is no.formal policing mechanism at the moment — but CAIP may at some point in the future make a commitment to comply with the code a condition of membership in the organization.

CAIP currently has about 40 members, or about 10 per cent of Canada's ISPs, Langford said.

Langford said the code's commitment not knowingly to host illegal material means ISPs will remove material that is illegalsuch as child pornography — if it is brought to their attention. Clauses in the code also commit ISPs to make a reasonable effort to investigate legitimate complaints about cohtent they host, and will notify the content provider or abuser of the complaint before taking action.

ISPs can control World Wide Web contentposted on their servers,and can stop carrying specific Usenet news groups, which are usually made available. to an ISPs subscriber by loading them onto the ISP's own server.

An ISP cannot do anything about its subscribers obtaining illegal material from sour' elsewhereon the Internet,Langford added.

On the privacy front, the code of ethics states.,that ISPs will provide private information to law enforcement authorities only as required by law.

the show on its Web site. Then a company employee got the idea of expanding this concept to other galleries.

T o date, t h e P o wer P l ant, t h e Vancouver Art Gallery, the Edmonton Art Gallery and Glenbow Museum, the Art Gallery. of Ontario, and the .amilton Art GaBery in Hamilton, Ontario are live on Artwave. The Winnipeg Art Gallery„ the London Regional A rt s k ; ;-; Historical Museums in London, Ont., the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, the Musee d' art contetnporain de Montreal, and the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in Halifax are expectedto be live by December.

Using Java, Rogers has created a site where visitors can take a "virtual tour" of the galleries, seeing images of the rooms in the gallery and then clicking on individual art-works to-zoom in on detailed images. A Java-enabled Web browser is needed to take advantage of this. '. Innes said the site- is extensive, with about 1,500 pages. Some of the participating galleries already had a presence on the Web, she said, but "none of them had anything like what w'e've put together." Rogers hopes that more art galleries will join the project in future, she said. K69

Rogers puts Canadian art on the Web (NB) — Rogers Communications Inc. has launched a Web site called Artwave@Rogers, which links six Canadian art galleries and will grow in future to include more. The site uses Sun Microsystems IncA Java language to provide some unusual features.

The site, at http//www.attwave.rogers.corn, is not a money-making venture, according to Rogers spokeswoman Jan Innes. It grew out of Rogers' sponsorship of a Toronto art exhibition last year. Innes said that, when Rogers sponsored the show at Toronto's PowerPlant contemporary gallery last year, the company arranged to display images of the artwork in

J•

Canadi an Computer IIVholesalei W e welcome yourideas welcomes your opinions on regarding news and feature • topics forCanadian Computer current issues in the market, plus your feedback on our Wholesaler.Feel free to publication. contact the editors directly with your suggestions.

Please write: The Editor; Editor: Grace Casselman Canadian Computer Wholesaler Call: (403) 262-7890 Suite 503-425 Carrall St. Fax: (403) 262-7892 Vancouver, B.C. V6B 6E3 Toronto Editor: Jeff Evans Fax: (604) 608-2686 Call: (416) 535-8404 Fax: (416) 588-8574

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Lastyear'sslumpin retail sales,duetotheIYindows5 launch,won't berepeatedthis year, experts say

by Gary Davies

Most Canadian children probably missed it, but last year the computer industry actually experienced two Christmases. The first occurred inAugust when Microsoft Corp. celebrated its worldwide launch of Windows 95. The second took place at the usual time of year and was actually much less ballyhooed.

W hy? Because most vendors, distributors and retailers agree the hype surrounding the Windows 95 launch began to die off right around the time Christmas sales start to ramp up. The result was an overdosed consumer and a lot of upset retailers.

"Last Christmas was horrible, " said Larry Wasser, who is chairman and CEO "You can of Beamscope Electronic than you Entertainment. "The combination of the (Quebec) refere ndum, along w i t h t h e Windows 95 launch, really hurt sales."

You would be hard pressed to find anyone who would disagree with Wasser's assessment ofthe '95 holiday season. The huge marketing campaign Microsoft threw behind the Windows 95 launch really skewed traditional holiday sales and left even the most seasoned analysts stumped for an explanation.

"I don't know what it was," said lan Hayes, a senior analyst with marketing research firm AC Neilson. "Things were progressing well during the fall months and then they really flattened out over Christmas."

The likelihood of such a recurrence this Christmas is remote, Hayes says, if only because alaunch the size of Windows 95 is not in the cards. "Sales (this year) have been really weak through to the end of August, which is the complete opposite from what happened last year," Hayes points out. "All indications are the September to December cycle will be much stronger in '96."

20

AC Neilson's figures show that shipments of desktops and notebooks are extremely high heading into the holidays. "Besides my gut feel, these figures seem to indicate that retailers are extremely excited about the coming Christ mas season," Hayes says.

And what will be the big sellers this season? Resell ers across the country are in agreement that anything with the word 'multimedia' attached to it will sell very well.

"The whole concept of multimedia has taken on a new meaning this year," said Ed Calalang,assist ant manager of Campus

new products on the market already. And as far as price comparison goes, you can get a lot more for your money this year than you could for the same price last year."

Oziel says the driving force behind sales this Christmas will be the consumer' s interest in the Internet.

"The Internet will definitely sell well and it has become a standard offering in most of our products," saysAndre Turgeon, directing of product marketing and operations for IBM Canada Ltd. "Therehas been a realincrease in sales because of (the Internet)," said Jason Willms, manager ofthe computer departthis year

get a lot more for your money could for the same price last year."

— Computers at the University of B r i tish Columbia in Vancouver. " Most of t h e requests we get are for 3-D cards, upgrades, games, MPEG movies, 33.6 modems — anything the individual has heard of or read about in computer magazines."

Wasser says there's no question the industry is healthier at present than past years — the real question is the financial health of the consumer. "Just how much disposable income is out there?" Wasser asks, " If there is a fair bit (of disposable income), the major concern of vendors right now is that there will not be enough supply to meet demand."

Sid Oziel is another who feels optimistic about the coming season. The consumer marketing manager for Compaq Canada Inc. says that with interest rates at a 60 year low, all indication are "the economy is picking up." There is a good selection already out there. All the vendors have their

WH O L E SALER D ecember 1996 vr rpr//wwwccwmag.corn

ment at the Future Shop in Calgary. "It is becoming Sid oziel something that kids need for school, and this year parentscan defi nitely get more bang for your

buck."

Turgeon however, has a differing opinion about the Christmas outlook. 'The industry growth in the last half of '95 was quite healthy, somewhere around 12 to 13 per cent," Turgeon said. "We' ve only seen about three to four per cent growth this year and it will likely only pick up to eight or nine per cent growth in the last half of this year."

However, IBM is banking on significant sales of its new S-Series line of Aptivas to boost Christmas sales.

And if Santa doesn't come through w i t h a pro s perous Christmas — well, there's always Windows 97. HK9 Gary Daviesis ajournalist based in Calgary, specializing in high technology.

N EW

P R O D U CT S

In addition to providing solutions to more than 20,000 problems, Symantec says Handyman performs 16 regularly scheduled software and h ardware checks, which includes looking for viruses, low disk space, low memory and disk errors.

Seagate expands drive line Currently available at most software retail Seagate Technology Inc. has expanded its o u t lets, ethnew utility also includes Norton Medalist product line of 3.5-inch hard drives, C r ashGuard with Anti-Freeze. According to the w ith t h e 3. 2 G B company, the additionMedalist 3240 and al utility protects users Dr. Solomon releases the 4.3GB Medalist from losing files as a anti-virus toolkit 4340. result of application B oth dr i v e s crashes and freezes. In (NB) — Dr. Solomon's, the anti-virus specialist some cases, company, has unveiled the Management Edition i n c o r p o r a t e . /!; ;,".,f~'pI, of its anti-virus toolkit. According to officials Seagate-manufacCrash Guard can with the company at the Networld+Interop show t ured heads, printed , . "jump in" when a 'gl:.i' ' ~>' in London, England, where the package was circuit boards and crash or f reeze is launched, the software is designed to assist anIT media. They incoroccumng, make necdepartment in the management of anti-virus porate a 4,500 rpm essary corrections and software on networks. rotational speed, a allow a user to contin1 2-mi l l i s e c o n d The first release of the software will ~~e ue working. cater for Windows NT-based servers, average seek time, , ii PC Handyman vi ' Windows for Workgroups systems, Windows a n i nternal d a t a requires a Windows 95, and Windows NT systems. Plans call for transfer r at e of 95-based multimedia subsequent releases to provide similar facili88Mbps and a 128K PC powered by a ties for Novell NetWare-based networks. buffer for storage486DX o r fa s t er "The key purposeof the Management hungry applications, m icr o p r o c e s s o r Edition is to coordinate and control the pro- says the company. using at least 8MB of tection of the entire network by treating it as a The products memory (12MB recsingle entity," said Mike Hill, the company's ship with Seagate's ommended) an d director of product marketing. "This is partic- DiscWizard installation and partitioning 15MB of hard disk space. ularly helpful for companies with increasing software.

Symantec Canada Ltd. can be reached at numbers of workstations and servers."

According to Seagate, the drives achieve (416) 366-0423. + According to Hill, "Whether installing, a mean-time-between-failure r ating o f updating, configuring, scheduling or alerting, users 300,000 hours and come with a three-year T ake a peek at n e w no longer have to think about the individual server limited warranty.

Symantec products on-line or workstation unless they want to," he said.

Seagate is at (408) 438-6550. + (NB) — Symantec Corp. has posted on the The software splits neatly into four main Internet a sneak preview version of WinFax modules: scheduler, task scheduler, response Symantec's PC Handyman PRO for Microsoft WindowsNT fax software. manager, and messaging agent. All of these tackles 20,000 According to Symantec, the new NT facilities are set up and configured by the computer problems product has functionality similar to current management console, which distributed oper- (NB) — Symantec Corp. says its new PC WinFax PRO 7.5 for Windows 95, but ational elements of the Management Edition Handyman is designed to reach Windows 95 includes a TalkWorks telephony option, and and Anti-Virus Toolkit to selected machines. users who are tired of being placed on hold an Internet fax capability According to officials with the company, for tech support or spending hours reading "When Windows NT 4.0 began shipping the packagealso tracks versions of software complicated manuals and books in hopes of we announcedthatwe were developing a verinstalled on individual machines and will solving a simple problem. sion of WinFax PRO specifically for that update them when necessary, configuring just Combining automated repairs, instructional platform," said Mare Camm, general managabout everything. "Our clients are frequently video clips and text-based instrucfions, the $50 er ofSymantec's Communications Business asking us to work with their existing manage- program addresses more than 20,000 problems.

Unit. "Since then, we have been getting many ment tools," Hil l s aid, adding that the Symantec, well-known for diagnostic and requests from people, especially in the corpoManagement Edition will g enerate SNMP problem solving tools such as Norton Utilities, rate market, who want to test the software (Simple Network Management Protocol) says Handyman is for the millions of Windows before it ships. Since there is no full-featured traps to address this issue.

95 users who do not have access to a corporate fax application available today that specifiThe Management Edition is claimed to technologist to solve everyday conflicts which cally supports NT, and because we feel confirun "transparently" across Internetwork occur withcomputers. "PC Handyman is like dent that the software we have now is very Packet Exchange (I P X), Tr a nsmission that good friend who understands computers stable, we have decided to post the preview of Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) an has all the right answers immediately," said WinFax PRO for Windows NT, which supand NetBIOS based networks, or any combiEnrique Salem, vice president and chief tech- ports both NT 3.51 and 4.0, on our Web site nology officer at Symantec. for anyone to download and evaluate." nation of all three.

The package is expected to ship on both sides of the Atlantic in the first quarter of 1997, with a price of round the US$650 mark.

Dr S o l omon's W e b s i t e i s at http: //www.drsolomon.corn. +

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hnp//wwwccwmag.corn December 1996 W H O LESALER 2 1

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PRO DUCTS

According to Symantec, the Sneak Preview of WinFax PRO for Windows NT also includes TalkWorks, the WinFax telephony option, plus the ability to send faxes via the Internet. TalkWorks provides users equipped with a voice-enabled fax modem, with the ability to set up their computer to answer the telephone and record voice messages along with faxes. It also supports speakerphone features, includes a fax-on-demand capability, and support for Caller ID where available. The I nternet fax capability is a service built into WinFax PRO that uses the Internet, enabling users to send faxes from their computer to any fax machine or device that exists off the Internet.

The preview requires a minimum 486-based PC running Microsoft Windows NT 3.51 or 4.0, with a minimum 16MB of RAM (32MB recommended),28MB hard disk space for a full installation, and a Class I or Class 2 compatible faxmodem. A voice-enabled modem is required to use the functionality of TalkWorks.

The Sneak Preview of WinFax PRO for Windows NT is available for immediate

download at http: //www.symantec.corn/winfaxnt. T h e I I M B fi le i s called

NEC ships light LCD projector

wFpNTsp.ExE. e

Building a better mouse pad?

Command Position Products of Houston has releasedthe Mouse Surf Board, a rigid, lapsupported surface to enhance mouse rotation and tracking.

According to the company, the product also allows the user to maintain a 'body-neutral' / r s houlder a n d wrist p o sition while mousing — reducing the chances of repetitive strain.

Its features 'cable keepers' to maintain the right amount of mouse cable, 0.5-inch guard rails to prevent mouse-runaway, and holes for storage in a hanging position.

The Mouse Surf Board retailsfor US$15. The product is distributed by Neutral Products LP, at (214) 444-9512. + •

(NB) — NEC Corp.'s NEC Technologies subsidiary is now shipping its newest LCD projector unit, the MultiSync MT800, dubbed

by NEC as "one of the lightest and brightest true-SVGA projectors on the market."

NEC's MultiSync MT800 projects an image brightness of 300 ANSI l umens; weighs a bit more than 15 and-a-half pounds; and is five inches tall, 12 inches wide, and 16 inches deep, said Bruce Eric Anderson, NEC Technologies spokesperson.

The projector is aimed at the business market and is ideal for "road warriors" who need a portable unit and require a bright projection for presentations. Resolutions from 640 x 480 to 1280 x 1024 are supported, and provides true VGA (640 x 480) and SVGA (800 x 600) images. Resolutions from 1024 x 768 and above are displayed in a compressed mode.

Both Macintosh and PC platforms are supported, officials said.

Designed to be used with notebook computers, the MultiSync MT800 also works in a "loop" in which the projector is tied to both a notebook and a separate, larger monitor to be used by the presenter, Anderson said.

Other features i nclude I n terlink'8 VersaPoint Remote Control Technology,

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P-Pro 180 Pentium I processor w/built-in cache $ 1 6 33 P-120 Pentium I processor,256k cache, FX $ 1 5 03 P-133 Psntium ® processor, 512k pb cache, HX $1569 .

P-100 PentiumI processor,256k cache, FX $1982 P-Pro 200 Penlium ® processor w/built-in cache $ 2 222 P-166 Psntium ® processor 512k pb cache, HX $1810 P-120Pentium I processor 256k cache.FX $2020 Add 14" .28dp monitor to the above $298 P-200 Pentiumiprocessor 512k pb cache, HX $1993 --.. P-133 Pentium I processor, 512k pb cache, HX $2086 Add 15" Intslliview .28dp digital monitor to the above $349 Upg 1 mb PCI to Bullet S364V+ video with1mb 50ns P-Pro 180 Pentium ® processor w/built-in cache $ 2 129 P-166 Pentiumi processor, 512k pb cache, HX $2327 P-200 PentiumI processor,512k pb cache,HX $2509 EDO RAIIII $30 P-Pro 200 Pentium ® processor w/built-in cache $ 2 718 P-Pro 180 Pentium ® processor w/built-in cache $2646 15" to17".26dp Intelliview Nl mtr 5 2mb 63 64V+ video $411 „,l!IIQTvBBR JSq/ARDuCEI/'@„QAII(4II(font(If'rif Ist'Prfqsx):;„:„,i4„': '. „;I UPG I Jpg 16mb EDO to 32mb EDO amw4~ wmwa $69/ 9 5 P-Pro 200 Psntium ® processor w/built-in cache $3234 'r YRO I1'OliVXA804~ eb'RA'8;,Ihll'EL'$$AT(glildpU/8126.

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16 mb RAM (true 64-bit with 2xsmb 72-pin SIMMs), 1.09 GB EIDE HDD, Intel-Triton chipsel, axCD-ROM, true 16-bit surround sound, 104 enhanced keyboard, 1 mb 32-bit PCI:, video, full screen MPEG, mouse, fast 256k pipeline cache (P133-P200) incr speed by 13-17%, multimedia spkrs

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WH OL E SALER D e c ember 1996 h rrp//wwwccwmag.corn

I

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N EW constitute a "genetic blueprint" for Lotus, which can be used to control both the projector and the source of a presentation, like a note- Papows contended.

Lotus vice-president Tim Dempsey told book computer; and a 24-hour replacement serthe teleconference attendees that, to further vicethat' s free of charge for the firstyear,and its position in the groupware market, Lotus is for an additional charge for three more years.

Another "neat"feature of the MT800 also adding an optional set of services for LCD projector, Anderson said, is something fault-tolerance, reliability, usage and billing that's extremely to t h e f or t h coming Lotus Domino 4.5. low-tech, relativeFeatures to come ly speaking: the I&' standard with Domino shipping case. It is 4.5 will include a set of d esigned to b e shipped via FedEx Web site creation and management tools called or other carriers, Domino. Action (formerly and c a n be they were code-named checked as cargo on airline flights.

Net.Action); POP3 mail support; calendaring and The case and projector can also be carried onto airplanes for scheduling; and the built-in Simple Message storage in overhead compartments or under a Transport Protocol (SMTP) M essage plane's seat. NEC's case is also very strong: Transport Agent (MTA), available in Domino "We can actually put (the projector) in the case 4.0 only as a separate option. and jump up and down on the case, and never Lotus also unveiled a new pricing strucdestroy it," Anderson said. "We' ve already tureof US$995 for a single-processor edition done that on several press tours." of Domino4.5 and US$2,995 forDomino 4.5 The MultiSync MT800 carries a sugSMP (symmetric multiprocessor). Domino gested retail price of US$9,999, and is avail- Advanced Services option will be priced at able through NEC resellers.

US$1,000 for either edition of Domino 4.5.

NEC Technologies can be reached at Lotus Weblicator is slated for release in the first quarter of next year for US$29, with beta (905) 795-3600. + downloads from the Lotus home page availLotus intros Weblicator, able by the end of 1996.

Domino Advanced Services More information on Lotus products is ( NB) — L otus Development Corp. h a s available at http: //www.lotus.corn. + unveiled Domino Advanced Services, a new Inventech cleans mice service option for its Domino servers for Notes and the Web; plus Lotus Inventech Inc. is shipWeblicator for Browsers, a new ping CleanTrack as a capability that will add the abilsolution to the hassles ity to cache, store, search, and of dirty mouse balls. replicate server-hosted Web Indeed, as the compages on Web browsers. pany points out — dust, "The Web browser war is lint and oils collect on winding d o wn," r e marked the internal rollers, interLotusPresident Jeffrey Papows, fering with the effectivespeakingduring a recent teleconference. "The ness of the mouse. next stage is all about Web servers," Papows CleanTrack's thin, washer-shaped foam asserted. material has a plastic cover that fits over the Although Lotus "invented" workgroup trackball, adhering with a temporary adhesive. collaboration w it h L o tu s N o tes, "new Sizes are available to fit entrants" like Netscape and Microsoft are trackballs from 11.2 mm to 34 now talking about servers that will adopt this mm in diametre. A package of "r general approach, according to the Lotus two, is priced at US$6.95. chief.

Visit h t t p: //www.invenMicrosoft, for example, is now announc- tech.cornform ore information.+ ing on its Web page that it is "number one in groupware," Papows pointed out. "And I • ISM releases haven'tseen Microsoft claim to be number two VisualAge for Basic in anything for a good long while," he added.

(NB) — I B M C o rp. has released But "groupware isnoteasy for beginners."

VisualAge for Basic, also known as "Bart," a In contrast, groupware and collaboration programming environment designed to

P ROD UCTS

extendthe ease of use of the Basic programming language into two new arenas for the enterprise: multi- platform applications on both the server and client sides, and object development.

Scott Hebner, IBM's program manager for object implementation, contended that Microsoft's Visual Basic does not provide the ability to build "true objects." Instead, "Visual Basic has been used mainly for client-side productivity applications," he said.

IBM's "Bart," on the other hand, is designed for server- as well as client-based applications, supporting the current rise of "network-centric computing," according to the program manager.

VisualAge for Basic lets developers use visual scripting language to produce applications for a wide range of server and client platforms, as well as multivendor object environments and relational database management systems (RDBMS), "all in the same box," summed up the IBM exec.

From a single CD-ROM disk, Hebner elaborated, applications can be developed for OS/2, Windows 95 and Windows NT clients; in addition to OS/2, Windows NT, and AIX 6000 servers. Documentation is also included in the disk.

Server-based applications provide enhanced securit y and maintenance, Hebner said. Logic is optimized when stored proceduresand user-defined functions reside on the server, because there are "fewer callsmoving across the network."

Also, unlike V isual Basic, I B M 's VisualAge for Basic supports inheritance, polymorphism, and encapsulation, according to Hebner. "You can build classes and subclasses, and then use these to build new objects," he said.

The suggested retail price is US$119.

IBM Canada Ltd.can be reached at (905) 946-9000. +

Comtronic adds

accelerator card Comtronic Computer Inc., of Markham, Ont., has announced the ExpertColor Series DSV 3325P S3Virge accelerator video card.

According to the company, the product provides up t o 3 0 frames-per-second motion video quality on Pentium-based PCs. And, by the click of a mouse, the user can change re s o lution, colordepth and refresh rates.

The suggested retail price is $189.

Comtronic is at (905) 479-8336. HXi9

htrp//wwwccwmag.corn DBcember 1996 W H O LESALER 2 3

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by Gus Matezis and Chuck Semeria For the past several years, resellers who provide end-station adapters without expensive hardware upgrades. Finally, productsto network managers have had a variety of ; :their total transparency to end-stations makes administrative overtools for building large, complex networks, includ- . :head very low, simplifying adds, moves and changes. ing repeaters, hubs, bridges, routers and gateways.

The use of application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) techBut recently, a new tool — the LAN switch — has nology allows a switch to simultaneously forward packets across all taken the networking industry by storm. ports at wire speed, providing much better performance than a tradiThe impact of LAN switching has been dramatic, tional bridge.

Gus Maietis causing resellers and network administrators to rethink the fundamental rules of network design and leading to confu- ;' .~O+t~ng gy sion about the placement of switches and routers in corporate networks I Ro u t ers operation at Layer 3 of the OSI Reference Model and have Switching and routing serve different functions and most net.- , ' more software features than a switch. Functioning at a higher layer working environments will be required to use both. In certain appli than a s w itch, a router distinguishes among the different network cations within a network, a switch provides the ideal solution. In oth- : l a y er protocols such IP, IPX, AppleTalk or DECnet. The additional : ers, a router is the most appropriate choice. And protocol knowledge available to a router allows it to there are some applications for which either a ."Tha emeglng I . popularly of make a more intelligent forwarding decision than a Th ' switch. Unlike a switch, a router provides users switch or a router may provide a satisfactory with seamless communication between individual solution based on a careful examination of net- s witching 'products can b e ' viewed as a r eaurgence of LAN segments. And unlike a switch, a router deter, brjdge techrtqiogy,jp a Sitrtpier: mines the logical boundaries between groups of netSwitching Technology lowermost, jigher-perform'ance.- work seginents.

Switching technology operates at Layer 2 of the A router provides a firewall service since it „ and hitiher-oort-density device."a OSI Reference Model. The emerging popularity I Itttt ', @ .. ~ ~ f orwa r ds only traffic that is specifically addressed of switching products can be viewed as a resurto go across it. This eliminates the possibility of: gence of bridge technology in a simpler, lower-cost, higher-perforbro a dcast stormpropagation,thetransmission ofpackets fromunsupmance and higher-port-density device. Like abridge,a switch makes . p o r ted protocols, and the transmission of packets destined for a relatively simple forwarding decision based on the destination ': unknown networks across the router.

To accomplish its task, a router must perform two basic funcMAC addresscontained in each packet. Generally, this forwarding tions. First, the router is responsible for the creation and maintenance decision does not consider other information buried deep inside the : packet. Unlike a bridge, a switch can forward data with very low : of a routing table for each network layer protocol. These tables may be created either statically via manual configuration or dynamically latency, providing performance than bridged-LAN performance.

Switching technology allows bandwidth to be scaled in both : ' using a distance-vector or link-state routing protocol. After the routshared and dedicated LAN segments and can alleviate traffic bottle- , ing tables are created, the router is responsible for identifying the pronecks between LANs. Today,switching products are available for. : tocol contained in each packet, extracting the network layer destination address and making a forwarding decision based on the data conEthernet, Fast Ethernet, FDDI and ATM technologies. In the near future, switching products will be available to add bandwidth in IEEE . : tained in the specific protocol's routing table.

The enhanced intelligence of a router allows it to select the best 802.5 Token Ring environments. forwarding path based on several factors rather than just the designaSwitches Are Like Bridges, Only Faster tion MAC address. These factors can include the hop count, line Like traditional bridges, switches provide many internetworking benspeed, transmission cost, delay and traffic conditions. This increased efits. Switches economically segment the network into smaller colliintelligence can also result in enhanced data security, improved bandsion domains, providing a higher percentage of bandwidth to each width utilization and more control over network operations. The disend-station. Their protocol transparency allows them to be installed advantage is that the additional frame processing performed by a in networks running multiple protocols with little or no software conroutercan increase latency,reducing performance when compared to figuration. Switches use the existing cable plant, repeaters/hubs and a simpler switch architecture. '

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WH O L E SALER D ecember 1996 t rrpllwwwccwmag.corn

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Where to Use Switches

that of repeating hubs, many users will elect to install switches.

One of the key factors determining the success of any network design The widespread availability of low-cost switching technology will have implications for both building and campus backbone netis the ability of the network to provide satisfactory interaction between clients and their server. No matter what improvements are works.There will be an increasing demand forhigher-density backmade tothe campus backbone or WAN infrastructure,users judge a bone switches with a large number of high-speed ports to connect the network by its abihty to provide prompt and rehhnks from individual workgroups. Eventually, the able service. ."No matter @@at improveIT osnts majority of desktops will be on dedicated IOMbps vrin A switch is a special-purpose device specifEthernet connections, the majority of servers will ,O+a ,C4 v ically designed and tuned to address LAN perforbe on switched high-speed connections and ATM t f m' '51fit S iIf, 8$, will be deployed in building downlinks and campus mance problems resulting from bandwidth shortages and network bottlenecks. Switches solve these backbone networks. problems by providing high aggregate bandwidth, 8 b ff ity to ~ ide p r em pf Bmd Future of Routing high packet throughput and low latency at an rOIIabio Oe Ice," Routing is the key to developing successful interextremely low cost per port. They are not designed networking solutions. The challenge for resellers is with the principal goal of providing intimate control to provide products that will integrate switching with routing for a over the network. Switches should be viewed as bandwidth providers, systems approach to network design. not as the ultimate source of security, redundancy, control, or network Initially, switches will meet all of the organization's bandwidth management. scaling requirements and provide the performance that is needed. As Where to Use Routers network complexity increases, however, resellers must work with Unlike a switch, which is specifically designed to add bandwidth network managers to control their new switching environments-using capacity, routers are designed to provide security, policy and network segmentation, redundancy, firewalls, and security-to make them work management. efficiently. At that point, the availability of sophisticated routing will One of the primary functions of a router is to provide traffic isobe essential to grow and scale large switched networks. RKl lation to help diagnose problems. Because each port of a router is a Gus Malezis isgeneral manager, network systems for 3Com separatesub-network, broadcast traffic is not forwarded across the Canada Inc. inToronto. Chuck Semeria is marketing engineer, router. The definition of network boundaries makes it easier for a netnetwork systems, for 3Com Corp., Santa Clara, Calif. work manager to provide redundancy and to isolate problems resulting from broadcast storms, misconfigurations, chatty hosts and equipment failures. Routers keep these potentially disastrous events local to the area in which they occur, preventing them from spreading across the corporate network.

• T HARDWARE • • g~ A router provides intelligent packet forwarding. Since a router Graphics Adapters ) %~i operatesatLayer 3 of the OSI Reference Model and has access to Tile eco d-fmlcvt ol'Iheve nine hoards onnur AuloCAD to t. wat Ihe Focus 3 Ihe Mua TrueSpeed. By opting turdlird. more information than a switch, it has the ability to calculate the most ~LaeS pony dnvem inIcedol Ihe Sy verutnt•, Ihugh,you'Bg le*rue n nien efea.

Apr.13, B I 393 efficient path across a network based on a combination of metrics lures. bird' wye view.. panning. pnp-up ttlceuv, rU m g. By th'I ttltr you I'etl thin, ho e er. S3 pl n. mb h pptng such as delay, throughput, reliability and hop count. In addition, «pdated AulnCAD dn ver. that auppnrl Ihre feuturet. routers may employ other methods such as 'policy' to control the flow of traffic and restrict the propagation of routing information.

These capabilities are most effective where WANs are used or where National Distributor of multiple LAN technologies are involved.

2 the Max Video Cards Another important benefit of routers is their ability to support • PCI Weitek VRAM mesh network topologies that provide active redundant paths. Unlike • PCIS3 TRIO64,TRIO 64 V+ • PCI ARK 2000 switches and bridges, which require a loop-free topology, routers • PCI ARK 1000 National Distributor impose no constraints on network topologies, not even on those that • PCI ET4000W32P of GIGABYTE contain redundant paths and active loops. '

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Segmentation Probably the area of greatest confusion about switches and routers is their ability to segment a network. Since switches and routers operate at diff erentlayers of the OSI Reference Model, each device performs a unique type of segmentation designed to benefit different application needs. A switch is a special-purpose device intended to segment a LAN with the particular goal of providing additional bandwidth. A router is a general-purpose device designed to segment a network with the goals of limiting broadcast traffic and providing security, control and redundancy between individual broadcast domains.

Future of Switching The price of switching technology will continue to decline as a result of enhanced ASIC development coupled with efficient manufacturing and distribution techniques. As the cost per port of switches approaches

Motherboard

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n" Fisher, Steve Halinda and Tim Bingham-Wallis One..4f-the, largest cave@ts. for individuaIsi and in inany cases companies purchasing new computers, is the concern that a computer purchased today will be obsolete tomorrow.

Onc of the most common questions we hear is: "Should I wait for prices to come down or for new technology to become availabie7" Inevitably, the answer is "it depends" The computers you purchase today will be obsolete in terms of current technology in no time. But, and this is a big but, this does not mean they will cease to be able to do thc work they were purchased for or that they will not yield a return on investment, whether this be in a tangible or an intangible form.

Prices of technology will always be, on a downward trend in relation to the particular product% life cycle, and there will always be something new on the way in the coming months. To this end, we put it to people: if you can do morc or useful work with what is available today, don't wait to make your purchase.

The life of computer technology is a lot like animal years. To a dog, one human year is seven dog years, thus for many breed of dog, if they live past 10 years, they' re on borrowed time. Computer technology at. the system level has.-this same characteristic, A system inigcht serve its: master for 10 years, but at this stage it's becoming quite decrepit. At the component/product life cycle level, the story is quite different, with the various parts having animal years more akin to the gnat than that dog.

28

WHOLESALER December 1996

/r r pr/wwwccwmag.corn

Indeed,. for items such as processors and expansion cards,one human yearcould be as much as 150 years in marketing, production or sales.

We got our first preview of Intel's MMX technology this month. The computer-iit question, from Comtex, was benchmarked and examined but is not included in this survey as the units will not start shipping until the first quarter of '97. Still, the 166MHz processor scored extremely well on standard business applications benchmark. In fact, the machine literally left the competition in the dust, outperforming the fastest computer'in this survey by 10.3 per cent.

This healthy increase in computational ability isn' t even aproduct of MMX, as there are very few programs available that take advantage of this already, and certainly none in our general purpose business benchmark. Rather, the increase in performance is due to the extra 16KB of I.evel-2 cache,oui the pack%I,"; 32KB as'tipposcd to 1,6KB,"â&#x20AC;&#x17E;,.' on today's Pentiums. As ther buying pubBc catches wind of "' this performance increase on the horizon, it may make disposing of stocks of vanilla Pentium's a little more difficult with more people than usual holding out on a new computer purchase in favor of waiting for the ever looming newer, faster technology.

The New Computing Midrange This holiday season, we look at the upper midrange (or probably by the time you read this, the midrangc) 166MHz Pentium computers. As usuiI, vendors and the industry in general have upped the ante in terms of price, performance and features, Many systcii1s are loaded with the newest 33.6Kbps tnodems, an extremely capable,feature-rich graphicscard from companies such as ATI or Matrox, a speedy CD-ROM drive, SX to 10X speed.

Implementation of these new comINinents, as well as the almost ubiquitous move'ment to VX and, HX PCIsets, has ktI again moved performance to new levels for this class of computer. The computatiotnil performance we are beginning to reach is breathtaking, even around the mid-level, but it is the attainability of these systems, due to their extremely competitive pricing that mÂŽcs for the reaI excitement.

As per usual, the concise information on systems' configurations and performance can be found in the accompanying chart. The vendors' comments and views, as well as our notes on the systems can be found in this review.

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T EST It has a full set of features, including 512KB of pipelinecache, and a 33.6Kbps fax modem. Performance was not quitewhat we' reused to from Express Micro systems but nonetheless, a good overall value.

patibility (with major operating systems and applications), connectivity and performance are the key strength of Compucon machines All machines come with well-documented technical information for future upgrades in hardware and software usage Editorts' Noes This was one of the fastest systems in the survey. This system is loaded with all quality components, including a fast video WinFast video card with 2MB of EDO RAM and a Quantum Fireball 2.1GB hard drive for high transfer rates.The system includes a 28.8Kbps fax m odem, and comes with a three-yearwarranty.

Advance Interface Express Micro P166 Reseller Authorization: Reseller candidates cannot be geographically located near existing authorized dealers.

Authorization is subject to the vendor's discretion.

Suggested Retail Price: $2,999.99 Street Price: $2,799.99 Marketing Support: This includes: national end-user advertising, dealerreferralprogram, local product shows, marketing materials, product brochures, POP display, demo evaluation units, dealer demo incentive program, and product training.

Maintenance Relationship: Resellersare the front end of customer support. Depot warranty is available for both resellers and end-users across Canada.

Optional on-site service is available.

Volume Discounts: Prices are based on a volume and per order basis.

Demo Unit Availability: Demo units are available on an individual basis.

Additional Channel Support: • 1-800 toll free technical support.

• Internet product information.

• Local product road shows.

Advance Interface's View Of The Market: Advance Interface says: "Multimedia is becoming the trend in PC market. Over 80 per cent of our desktop systems are MPCequipped."

Systems' Strengths: The company says it uses the best possible components with an emphasis on pricing and performance. "With Matrox Mystique Video 3D we deliver our MPC 166 system with blazing fast 3-D video. All systems are CSA/DOC approved, Windows 95 and Windows NT certified."

Editors ' Notes: The system uses a new Mystique video card and the popular 2.1GB Quantum Fireball HD. 30

Comtex Reseller Authorization Reseller authorization is based on geographic location Suggested Retail Price COMPU CON CIPV $2,649 166 Multimedia StrerePtce:i Reseller Authorization: $2,619 Based on geography. 'Vicinity' is subject to R res elliPecr e the discretion of COMPUCON. $2,380 Suggested Retail Price: tMa kenrgSiupport: $2,895 • Co-op funds for marketing and advertising Street Price: • Cost sharing for exhibitions $2,795 • Literature and brochures Marketing Support: • Internet and telephone support • Will share cost on dealer exhibition.

• Product training seminars • Provides marketing materials. ntMae i a nceti Rn elao sh pnw tihReisrelles •End-userleads arereferred to the nearest Authorized service centers across western reseller.

Canada Maintenance Relationship: Volume nD scious:t •Resellersare the frontend of end-usersup Volume discounts are based on the quantity port. ordered • Final warranty is by the manufacturer at DU e mAova nla tili y/ bietis Roircti ns:t depot.

Available only to authorized dealers Volume Discounts: tAddionail n ChaSeluprpno:t None.

This includes joint sales support and a sched Demo Unit Availability: uled road show One system is available per authorized Pt o rduSctteghrsn: reseller for a 10 per cent discount. includes the Microsoft Sidewinder Com pucon' s View Of The Multimedia Com Comtex game pad with this multimedia offering puter Market: Erdots'itNoes: Compucon says: "Demand for multimedia This is one of the few systems to use the new machines will increase in step with techno ViRGE chipset from S3. According to the logical a n d ne t w ork im p r ovements scoreswe obtained, the card performs reason Multimedia systems will become the basic ably well. The overall score was relatively system for the home and workstation." low on this machine, mostly due to a slower Systems' Strengths: hard drive. All in all, the system is complete All Compucon systems are designed to meet and competitively priced industrial server standards as if they will be running 24 hours non-stop. All components and internal system layout are well selected Comtronic Computer and engineered. All systems are designed Resrand elleAuthornzatoi i Must be a reseller VAR, SI or consultant built for multimedia and communication by taking the EMI (electro-magnetic interfer Sutggesetd RealPrice:i ence) into account. EMI would affect perfor$2,349 t rS e e P t icr e : mance of audio/video part and also commu nication stability. Reliability, stability, corn $2,199

WH O L E SAL'ER December 1996 hr tpltwwwccwmag.corn

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Alberta OHice 4710 14th Street N.E. Calgary, AB T2E 4LF (403) 291-1488 fa 2 9 1-0$$

Central OHice 3-24SW Beaver Creek Rd. Rtchmond Hill, ON L48 1Ll (908) $86-3862 fxt 886-3090

Atantic OHice 1-200 Wright Ave. Bartmoath, NA. 8 3 8 1 R6 ( 902) 468-9$9$ fxt 468 5 9 $ 8

All trademarks ttnd logos are the propert r of their respective owners

L AB

T EST

Reseller Price: $2,009 Marketing Support: • Nation-wide marketing and advertising campaigns for products in both industry and end-user publications.

• POP, marketing materials and product literature, for approved dealers, • Custom co-op marketing programs for individual resellers.

• Product sales incentive programs.

• Product training.

Maintenance Relationship: • Comtronic'sand manufacturers'w arranty on all products sold.

•Two-yearpartsand labor w arranty on all systems.

• On-site service available.

• Nation-wide complete service and RMA department for all resellers and their customers.

Volume Discounts: Dealer pricing is determined on an individual basis, depending upon quantity, nature of order, and purchasing arrangements.

Demo Unit Availability: Custom evaluation units are available for testing, upon approved dealer request.

Additional Channel Support: • National 1-800 hotline.

• Web site with an on-line catalog and product information.

•Technical service and support through E-mailcorrespondence and fax-back.

Editors' Notes: Thissystem was very well priced,butperformance on this system was lacking due to the use ofan Overdrive processor, as opposed to an original Pentium CPU. It i ncludes a 33.6Kbps fax modem, a fast Western Digital 1.6GB hard drive and a 10X CD-ROM by Acer.

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Suggested Retail Price: $2,850 Street Price: $2,700 Reseller Price: $2,280 Marketing Support: LCF will provide marketing materials such as system brochuresto the reseller on request.

Also, LCF will run advertising in major computer magazines, and will display the iNET system at Comdex and Pacific Rim shows in Canada to maximize exposure.

Maintenance Relationship: Resellers are the front-line for customers, but LCF will also provide technical support.

Volume Discounts: Volume discounts are available for resellers who order more than 10 pieces at a time.

Demo Unit Availability: Demo units are available at special pricesone unit per location.

LCF's View Of The Multimedia Computer Market: LCF says: "The multimedia computer market will increase dramatically in the coming year.

Due to the popularity of the Internet and multimedia software, the multimedia computer will take up a significant share of the whole computer market.Due to the usefulness of multimedia software, more companies will require multimedia to be the market standard."

Systems ' Strengths: According to LCF: "The strength of our multimedia systems is their quality reliability, compatibility, stylus look, and exceptional technical support. Since we only use the name brand components in our systems, quality is assured.

In addition, through strict quality control in assembly and strong technical support team we believe that customers are well satisfied."

Editors ' Notes: This system is priced higher than most of its competitorsbut offered above-average performance and a host of quality components such as the ATI 3D Expression and a USR 33.6Kbps fax modem.

• Co-advertisingwith selected dealers.

• Web page technical support.

• Periodic on-site training.

Maintenance Relationship: Dealer support is provided with the Mynix Depot.

Volume Discounts: • 10 — two per cent off.

• 50 — five per cent off.

• 100 — eight per off.

Demo Unit Availability: Demo units are available to volume customers.

Additional Channel Support: • Bilingual documentation.

• Optional on-site service for all systems.

Mynix's View Of The Multimedia Computer Market: Mynex says: There will continue to be tremendous growth in the multimedia market. We position our product in two sections: the corporate sector with video conferencing and multimedia applications; the home computer market" Systems ' Strengths: According to the company; Mynix systems pass the ISO9000 system for quality control.

They are Win95, NT and Novell-certified.

Editors' Notes: Mynix's offering is competitively priced, and an overall good value. Customers will like the new Matrox Mystique and the 28.8K fax modem included inthe package. Due to incompatibility problems with our benchmark suite, this machine was unable to complete the testing process.

Mynix Technology

LCF Advanced Technology iNET P166 VX-M computer Reseller Authorization: There is an application for authorization.

However, resellersare required to purchase at least $10,000 a month from LCF to maintain authorization status.

32

Reseller Authorization: Resellermust have an office or a storefront with at least one technical support person.

Suggested Retail Price: $2,385 Street Price: $2,165 Reseller Price: $1,885 Marketing Support: • Product brochures.

• End-user leads go to resellers.

WH O L E SALER D e c ember 1996 ht tp/twwwccwmag.cpm

Packard Bell Marketing Support: • SDEC sheet.

• POP • Co-op advertising.

• Monitor wraps.

• Training reps.

Maintenance relationship: Resellers may offer a s ervice contract option. Packard Bell offers an optional service contract above the one-year full service warranty.

L AB

Demo Units: Demo units are available in limited quantities, restrictions apply.

Additional Channel Support: • Spec sheets.

• Product flyers.

• Co-op advertising.

• French kits.

• Monitor wraps.

• POP marketing.

• Sales and training reps.

• Marketing support.

Systems ' Strengths: Packard Bellsays: "By offering the Media Select unit with instant Internet and TV viewing we feel we are offering something no one else can offer, something the consumer will find exciting and useful."

Editors ' Notes: Packard Bell's latest line includes a full set of multimedia components, including the option of output to TV. The system's performance w as average, and features a2GB Maxtor hard driveand a 33.6Kbps fax modem.

assigned dedicated support personnel.

Volume Discounts: Volume discounts are negotiated with each deal.

Demo Unit Availability: Demo units are available. Terms and conditions are based on customer requirements.

Additional Channel Support: • National support through Patriot support personnel.

• Depot and on-site warranties for single and multiple years depending on customer needs.

•Warranty programs are custom-tailored.

Patriot's View Of The Multimedia Computer Market: Patriot says: "The multimedia computer market will continue to grow and expand.

The advent of MM X te c hnology combined with more powerful processors and video cards, will keep customer interest high. A combination of lower prices and increased usability will continue to fuel the market."

Systems ' Strengths: According to Patriot, those include quality components,on-site warranty coverage, and severalsoftware bundles to choose from and complete customization.

Editors ' Notes: Patriot offers one of the less expensive systems in the survey. Unfortunately due to an incompatibility with BAPCo (our benchmarking software), the overall system performance could not be calculated.

a gttEllEMCE gE EISC

Dec. 96

Patriot Computer

NEC

Reseller Authorization: D etermined ona case-by-case basis.

Suggested Retail Price: $2,053 Marketing Support: Evaluated on a per-incident basis.

Maintenance Relationship: Resellers are encouraged to act as first-line support to the end user. Patriot will act as a second-levelsupport group. Resellers are

Reseller Authorization Requirement: It varies, depending on resellers' size and location. NEC is rolling out a new Retail Partner Program called "More Power To You" targeted at smaller retailers buying Ready systems from NEC's main distributors.

Estimated Street Price: $3,949 (monitor not included, subject to change).

T ES T

Marketing Support: • MDF Funds.

• Demo Program (discount prices on demo units).

• Price protection.

• Third-party support to ensure appropriate POS, and support materials.

Maintenance relationship with resellers: • One-year parts and labor on-site warranty.

• Optional extended warranty program, (three-year on-site service with next business day response).

• NASC-certified resellers can perform services on behalf of NEC. Volume discounts: The price the reseller pays is based on the relationship with the distributor.

Demo u nit availabilitylrestrictions: • One unit per store location.

• 'One to show, one to go' program.

Additional channel support: • WebWay — NEC's exclusive Web site for Ready customers.

• Telesales —NEC's support group, at 1-800284-4484.

• Customer serviceand support 1-800 number, seven-day, 24-hours-a-day technical supporL • FastFacts program.

NEC's Views On The Multimedia Computer Market: NEC says: "We want to offer more than just the basics: we offer premium sound,premium audio, premium power. NEC is starting to get out of the 'value' category and moving more into the premium category. We' re taking things like video and moving to 3-D graphics, we' re providing top-of-the-line sound quality."

NEC Comments: According to the company: "People want a powerful PC that is easy to use, has the latest technology and provides a good value. Our Ready PCs have: incredibly fast Pentium processors atspeeds up to 200MHz, the Merlin video help wizard and WebWay, with one-button Internet access to meet these demands."

Editors ' Notes: This machine is well designed and offers excellentoverall performance. NEC hasoutdone itself, with the Ready 9628 giving the consumer a full set of quality components and extras such as a Iomega 100 Zip drive, a 33.6Kbps modem andloads of first-rate software. Furthermore. The company has managed to put out a system that performs better than most of the smaller vendors that are typ-

ically quicker to bring higher performance machines to market. While the system is the most expensive we reviewed, given the

http:/Avwwccwmag.ccm December 1996 W H O L ESALER 3 3

Every product bearing the QDI mark of

quality reflects our principal; that o f a P"

us: =:

committment to offer uncompromised quality and services for even the most

I

discerning.

s

•

s

S

•

s

s

•

•

•

ISO9001 ratings in product design,

manufacturing and servicegrace our mainboards, with unrival quality being the result of employing the most advanced

surface mount manufacturing process and in-circuit testing. Every board carries our

rtrrt ) ,jy

f

extended 2 year warranty, and peace o

mind is assured by our worldwide technical support.

Choose wiselyfor your platform into the digital world; make QDI mainboard your

s„~„

s

only choice.

Pentium® Pro Processor

Based Motherboard • Intel PentiuPro m' Processor 150/ 166/180/200Miwi fzthIntel440FXchipset • One enhanc edparallel port(SPP/ EPP/ ECP) support, twohighspeedserialports (16550FastUARTcompatible) Onefloppy port supports upto 2floppy drives (360K/720K/1.2M/1.44M /2.88M) • Max. 256MB onboard.Support ECC (Error Checking8 Correction) • Concurrent PCIarchitecture • Support lrDAInfrared. OnboardtwoUSB

A comprehensive range ofPentium' processor based maindoards is also available. Call for details NONfp WORLD CLASS MAINSOARD

Please contact the following offices for your local QDI dealers information.

ODI COMPIITER (CANADA), INC. 75 Shields Court, Unit 4, Markham, Ontario, L3R9T4 Tel: 1-905-9403827 Fax: 1.905-9409709 ODI COMPIITER (VANCOIIVER), INC. Unit 4, 13520 Crestwood Place, Richmond, 8.C. Canada V6V 2G2 Tel: 1-604-2786789 Fax: 1-604-2788918 ODI COMPIITER (MONTREAL), INC. 2845 Halpern Street, St. Laurent, Quebec, H4S 1P8, Canada Teh 1-514-3356811 Fax 1-514-3356822

~cDtil:I: I w

P' „ QJEt cf

5/F Somerset House Taikoo Place 979 King's Road, Hong Kong

GROUP

Another New Innovation From QDI

5 eedEas (Hong Kong, November 7, 1996) â&#x20AC;&#x201D; QDI (Quantum Designs (H.K.) Limited), a top ranked motherboard manufacturer in Asia Pacific, today announce an unprecedented technological breakthrough in the motherboard products - SPeedEasy A GREAT IDEA: SPeedEasy is a new user friendly technology for easy CPU speed setup during system installation or CPU upgrading. It represents the first jumperless motherboard in the world.

TECHNICAL CONTENT: SPeedEasy is an enhancement of system BIOS. This requires superb techniques in software BIOS handling and is a reflection of the strength of the QDI BIOS team.

Traditionally, it has been essential for system integrators to use jumpers to enable or disable different motherboard configurations. The increase in complexity of CPU voltage and frequency choices have made the procedure even more complicated. If a jumper is set improperly, the PC can't be turned on or the CPU will be burnt out, SpeedEasy has eliminated such problems as all jumpers have been replaced with a user-friendly BIOS setup procedure.

ADVANTAGES: 1. The correct CPU speed can be set quite simply in BIOS. 2. Users can select the CPU speed at any time without opening the system case or needing to refer to a complicated user manual.

3. BIOS can automatically set the CPU core and I/O voltage according to the CPU type selected.

4. Users do not need to find out the locations of different jumpers and thus, the possibilities of wrongly setting the jumpers will be zero.

DELIVERY: Sp e e dEasy wi ll f i rst be found in Q D I 's Explorer II Pentium motherboard which is using Intel's 430VX chipset. Mass production is already available and it will be officially launched during Comdex Fall '96 at Las Vegas, USA. "The introduction of SpeedEasy demonstrates that we have moved a giant leap forward in technology," said Mr. Anders Cheung,Vice President of QDI. "Being the pioneer of such a design, we strongly believe that SpeedEasy will penetrate into the PC market quickly and will be the mainstream of motherboard technologies," he added.

BACKGROUND QDI is the largest PC motherboard manufacturer in Hong Kong and distributes their products through 21 overseas offices.

With strong RatD capabilities, QDI consistently introduces products incorporating with the latest technologies. The manufacturing base of QDI is located in Legend Science and Technology Park in Huiyang, China. Besides, QDI has three RM) centers in San Jose, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong respectively. QDI has successfully been accredited the ISO9001 in 1995.

SpeedEasy is a trademark of QDk Other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners.

Contact: Edmond Cheng Tel (852) 25164815

Fax (852)25165397 e-mail:clh@legend.hk.legendgrp.corn

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE NOVEMBER, 1996

Contact: Michelle Yue Tel (852) 25164878 Fax (852)25165397 e-mail:ysfi l e gend.hk.legendgrp. corn

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features of this machine the extra cost seems highly acceptable.

'gggl6

OA COMP

ucts. Headquartered in M arkham, Ont., Samtack also has offices in Ottawa and Montreal.

Editors ' Notes: This is a well-priced system that performed well considering its 16MB complement of RAM. The system comes equipped with some good quality components including a 2.1 GB Quantum Fireball hard drive and a USR 28,8Kbps fax modem.

Authorization Requirements: Dealers mustprovide service and support, with a maximum of two or three dealers per city.

Marketing Support: • Nation-wide advertising.

• Ready to use marketing materials.

Demo Unit Availability: Demo units are available, with restrictions.

Technical Support: • Dedicated Internet technical support.

• Web site includes updated documentation, and new drivers.

Vendor Comments: OA Comp says: "OA's intent is to provide quality computers for corporations and the general public. We provide up-to-date configurations and toll free technical support.

STD We use only quality components, have strict Reseller Authorization: quality control, and a complaint-handling Resellers must fill out credit and dealer applisystem to ensure total customer satisfaction." cation forms, provide sales forecasts (rolling forecasts), purchase a demo unit for two months, and maintain a monthly/quarterly purchase quota.

Suggested Retail Price: $2,999 Street Price: $2,699 Reseller Price: $2,450 Marketing Support: • Joint advertising locally.

• Link or listing from STD's Web site.

• National and regional advertising.

• Special promotional discounts on products.

Samtack • First-hand information on new products.

Authorization Requirements: • Sales and technical training and seminars.

Resellers need to set up a basic account.

Maintenance Relationship: Marketing Support: • Channel marketing assistance.

Resellers can offer their own support.

• Joint visits with resellers to corporate cusMaintenance Relationship: tomers.

All systems include a two-year parts and • Monthly or quarterly visits. labour warranty.

• Resellerscan offer theirown support,or Volume Discounts: join STD's national on-site support proYes. gram.

Support: Resellers can access a 1-800 technical sup- Volume Discounts: Volume discountsare available,perpurchase port line. order. There are also monthly, quarterly, and Vendor Comments: yearly volume rebates.

The company says:"Samtack isa brand name Demo Unit Availability: with good pricing, making it easy to sell.

Samtack is a broad line, Canadian-based dis- Demo units are available for resellers at a certain percentage off the regular dealer price. tributor of high quality brand name PC comThe limit is two different models per store, ponents, peripherals and multimedia prod38

WH O L E SALER D ecember 1996 tt ttp//wwwccwmag.corn

and they must be kept on display for two months.

Additional Channel Support: • There is technical support through a 1-800 number, E-mail and a BBS. • Web site technical support provides driver downloads and answers other questions.

• There is nationwide support through 11 offices across Canada.

STD's View Of The Multimedia Computer Market: STD says: "We believe the multimedia system is moving away from being a personal system to a family system. Users can enjoy the computer with the family members on a big screen TV: using the Internet, playing 3-D multi-player games, banking, or for education.

STD will move to promote a full line of family room multimedia systems for all family members."

Systems' Strengths: According to the company: "We use the highest quality components including: 512KB Cache 430HX mainboard, Panasonic 8X CDROM, Sound Blaster 32 3-D sound card, Supra 33.6Kbps Internal voice/fax modem, desktop gooseneck microphone, Microsoft NaturalKeyboard, and Yamaha Speakers.We also include comprehensivesoftware bundles. All hardware is properly configured and software installed and ready to go."

Editors' Notes: The STD system comes with an interesting expansion card, a TV device. This allows STD's computer to be used on a television set offering the same functionality as other telev ision-based computers such a s th e Destination products from Gateway 2000.

System performance was excellent when you take into consideration that this system was e quipped with only 16MB of RA M a s opposed to the 32MB in most of the other systems.

TK-IDM Darius Discovery P166MHz Multimedia Reseller Authorization: Retailers and VARs must have been in business forone year.Home-based consultants are requiredto have been in business for at leasttwo years,or require references from other suppliers stating the consultant is knowledgeable and technical enough to serve their customers.

Suggested Retail Price: $2,550 Street Price: $2,600

L AB

T EST

Performance

Reseller Price: $2,140 Marketing Support: • Co-op advertising based on sales per month.

• Demo systems for trade shows and seminar purposes.

Maintenance Relationship: Faulty systems can be shipped back to the vendor within the first 60 days, however, resellers must receive authorization first.

Volume Discounts: Discounts are based on volume. Educational sales also receive special pricing.

Demo Unit Availability: • Demo system purchases are available for three per cent off the reseller price.

• Demo units can be customized.

Additional Channel Support: TK-IDM is in the process of setting up a fax back service.

TK-IDM's View Of The Multimedia Computer Market: The company says: "We feel multimedia is the future. In the past CD-ROMs and sound cards were only options. Today 80 per cent of the systems we ship are have either a CDROM or sound card. We offer special multimedia packagesevery month. We may do light modifications from month to month to meet market changes. We keep our multimedia products up-to-date by listening to our resellers' suggestions."

Systems ' Strengths: TK-IDM says the company configures all CD-ROM and sound cards for resellers so when they sell multimedia systems to their customers all the drivers are configured properly.

Editors ' Notes: A newcomer to the pages of Canadian Computer Wholesaler, this system from Darius features 512KB of pipeline cache and a USR 33.6Kbps fax modem. Overall performancewas slower than expected as a result of a slower hard drive and video subsystem.

Ultinet Reseller Authorization: Resellers must provide reseller certificate and purchase a minimum of two systems or $2,000 in parts per order.

Suggested Retail Price: $2,274 Street Price: $1,995 Reseller Price: $1,895 Marketing Support: End-user leads are provided.

Maintenance Relationship: Resellers can provide their own support, by changing parts themselves, or they can call Ultinet directly.

Volume Discounts: • 1-10 — five per cent off street price.

• 10-20 — seven per centoffstreetprice.

• 20+ — eight per cent off street price.

Demo Unit Availability: None, but demo units may be prepaid in advance, with credit issued when they are returned.

Additional Channel Support: • Faxback.

• Internet site.

• Toll-free hotline.

Ultinet's View Of The Multimedia Computer Market: Ultinet says there's been large growth in this market. "Our systems are positioned to provide the most speed for the least cost, while utilizing the latest technical advances in PC components."

Systems ' Strengths: T he company points to the I ntel HX TR I OON PCIset with M o torola 68000 16MB Cache Controller.

Editors ' Notes: This system performed quite well but the caching controller did cause some minor incompatibility problems. Additionally the controller didn't seem to offer any significant performance boosts. Overall, the system is complete, with all accessories.

In the category of performance, the system from Compucon gets our vote. Of the systems in this survey, it managed to outperform its competition. We especially like the out-of-the-box experience from Compucon. Thesystem documentation is excellent. This system

"

- '

packs, a lot of performance and quality components.

Overall For a combination of performance and overall system design, NEC takes the award in this category.

Very sleek looking, and very fast, N EC has done a g r eat jo b i n

assembling this system. Quality components include the

b r and

new 3D Rage chipset from ATI, and a built-in lomega 1 OOMB Zip drive, a huge 3.2GB hard drive from IBM, and a 33.6Kbps fax modem. g The system is more expensive than the others in this survey, but you also get the peace of mind that comes with NEC's support and

warranty plan.

5

Price/Performance If you want the most value for your

dollar,':OA Comp's system startds s out as a clear winner. As with our two previously mentioned winners, this system features quality, brand-name components like a new Matrox Mystique, a 2.1 GB Western Digital hard drive, and a USR 28.8K fax modem. The sys-

tem's score was on the upper end of the scale, which made our deci-

Pj

sion easy. HXi9 Chris Fisher, Steve Halinda and Ttm g Bingham-Wallis are CCW's Test Lab editors; They can be r eached in Toronto, at (416) 535-8404.

http//wwwccwmag.ccm

December 1996 WHOLESALER 39

C OM D E X

CoIndex strikes again: handhelds steal show Intel' s Andy Grove makes bold predictions about mi croprocessors of 2011 • • 0 0 • •

• • • • 0 • • • • •

1•

by Grace Casselman

While the individual vendors of course Comdex Fall — for the thousands of brave souls who make the annual trek to the desert develop their own iterations of the WindowsCE-compatible devices — i t s eems the — namely, Las Vegas; the appeal is not (or not just) the opportunity to play the slots and Microsoft OS/applications offering is already driving standardization in t h e i n dustry. perhaps get out of the cold. Rather, faced with "Previous handheld products were all on difmassive crowds, long lines (200,000 attenferent platforms," said James Schraith, vicedees were anticipated this year), and a habitual shortage of taxis, many visitors would no president and general manager of Compaq doubt just as soon be elsewhere. Yet, some- Computer Corp., based in Houston, during a thingdraws them back year-after-year — the Comdex interview with Canadian Computer Wholesaler. Now, with "a common platform, chance to: put a finger on the pulse of the a lot of people are developing horizontal and industry; to see the latest-and greatest technologies; and to hear the thoughts first-hand vertical markets," he said. from the movers and shakersof high-tech Competing for Eyeballs business.

Intel CEO Andy Grove took the opportunity That is, of course, easier said than done. to outline the microprocessor of year 2011Jason Chudnofsky, president and CEO of based partly on the so-called Moore's Law show organizer Softbank Comdex Inc., said that sees processor speed double every 18 the five-day trade show would see more than months.

10,000 product introductions. "There's no The Pentium Pro microprocessor today memory lane for this industry — only prodincludes: 5.5 million transistors, operates at a uct upgrades," he joked. Moreover, he frequency of200MHz, achieving 400 milstressed that companies which are going to be lion-instructions-per second (MIPS), on a successful, need to be prepared to constantly process (transistor size) of 0.35 microns. But reinvent themselves, he added.

15 years from now in the year 2011, Grove Microsoft may be following that advice, said the processor will look something like as the company isn't sitting still with its this: it will include one billion transistors; it Windows s t rategy. R a ther, M i c r osoft will operate at IOGHz and achieve 100,000 announced that several hardware vendors MIPS on a process of 0.07 microns. "We' ll (including Casio Computer Co., Compaq have a lot of problems to deal with to get Computer Corp., H ewlett-Packard Co., there," said Grove, citing size issues and heat Hitachi Ltd., LG Electronics Inc., NEC Corp. dissipation as concerns. More critical, perand Philips Electronics) were demonstrating haps than that, will be the cost of financing and/or shipping handheld systems running the new production facilities which will be the Windows CE simplified version of required.

Microsoft's Windows environment. The What is needed to grow the processor handheld units on display at Comdex were market, said Grove, are more "eyeballs." He often completely surrounded by interested explained:"we are in a war for eyeballs," show attendees, looking for a glimpse and a adding that 1997 will be the year more PCs test drive of the new small form-factor sys- are sold than televisions. "We' re really after tems. the number of leisure hours people spend Along with a basic Windows interface; with television." users have access to tailored versions of In that light, Grove said the emerging Microsoft's Office products, such as: Pocket processing power in PCs will need to be Word, Pocket Excel and Pocket Internet applied to driving new compelling contentExplorer. such as interactive multimedia applications 40

WH O L E SALER D ecember 1996 i i irp//wwwccwmag.corn

with very high quality video and graphics.

"The business we are in is the delivery of information and life-like interactive experience."

Canadians at Comdex The emerging scenario of simplified content creation and distribution poses interesting challenges for Canada, commented Kim Campbell, consul general for Canada in Los Angeles (and f ormer Canadian Prime Minister), following a press conference at Comdex meant to promote Canadian hightech companies.

While Canadian governments have set cultural protection polices in the broadcast media, the new digital reality promises to be "harder to regulate," she pointed out. But she added it also means more opportunity, as Canadians will be able to greate and distribute their content throughout North America and worldwide on a more level playing field.

"This also helps to break the monopoly," she said, referring to the U.S. cultural industries.

The government-sponsored Canadian pavilion at Comdex included Toronto-based LaserMedia, which launched the Active Abs interactive fitness video; software that adjusts the workout on a daily basis, to provide the user with a continuous challenge. It's priced at $29.95.

And Calgary-based Axia Multimedia was previewing the Know Your Baseball CDROM — the multimedia resource of the Official Little League Baseball Education Program forplayers, coaches and managers.

It will cover the fundamental skills of baseball such as throwing, catching, fielding, hitting, bunting, pitching and base running, plus thebasicstrategies of defense and offense.

"There'sso much creativity and energy coming from these small companies," said Campbell. HXi9 Grace Casselman is Editor o f Canadian Computer Wholesaler.

She can be reached at graceOnetcom.ca

New processor technology regulates "body" temperature just like Brutus —our monitor lizard.

Brutus, a cold-blooded reptile, is very good at regulating his body temperature by knowing when to get moving and when to slow down so he doesn't overheat.

Sceptre's Soundx'" 4000 modular, multimedia notebook is also energy smart.

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Look who's talkin is voice recognition finally coming into its oI/vn?

by Paul Lima

systemscontaining speech recogni"The channel d oes' kno@tlovtf „to tion t echnology w o ul d r e a ch I US$26.3 billion by the year 2000. make money at this.- It's &t just He no longer makes dollar predicprice point. You have to under- tions. "Voice recognition is like the stand the vertical market-.400 per gross national product. How do you determine what part of the entire cent and dedicate -mles 'people computer industry is voice when and technical staff." voice recognition will be incorporated • into almost everything?"

- Os' l o f t M Meisel admits, "Speech recognition has grown fastest in the telecommunications If computers could talk, you might soon hear industry where it makes sense to replace one one asking, "Are you talking to me?" the dial pad interface with voice. It has grown Indeed, your answer might be, "Yes, slower on the PC because of the good GUI." now shut up, open Word and take a message."

Speech recognition also requires fast Speech recognition — operating system processing speeds and tons of RAM to opernavigation and dictation — is now part of ate effectively. Those requirements put IBM's OS/2 Warp 4 and will speech recognition out of the reach of most m ost likely be a p art an usersfor much of this decade. But even as upcoming ve r s io n of processor speeds increased and RAM prices M icrosoft W i ndows. B u t plummeted,speech recognition has remained droves of computer users virtually a non-starter on desktops except in have not yet shown an inclination to talk to vertical markets, primarily legal, medical and their computers, which begs the question: can the assistive market where companies use resellers profit by adding value to speech speech recognition to help employees overrecognition applications? come repetitive strain injuries.

For the last few years, pundits have preCanadians Demonstrate dicted that speech recognition would be the next big thing in desktop com- Speech Recognition Success puting. In his book: Dvorak "Tapping into vertical markets has huge Predicts, computer guru John potential, says Oscar Jofre Jr.,president and C. Dvorak called speech CEO of Edmonton-based AMASS Systems recognition the "killer applica- Inc. "You could live very comfortably worktion" of the 1990s. And a 1993 report from ing five per cent of the legal and medical pie Sage Research, in Natick, Mass., predicts the if you cater to their needs."

PC speech recognitionmarket was set for Catering to the speech recognition needs dramatic expansion. of the legal and medical profession is exactly It hasn't quite worked out that way. what AMASS has done. The company earns In 1994, William Meisel, who publishes virtually all its revenue integrating speech Speech R ecognition U p d at e M o n t h ly recognitionproducts for these markets and has openedoffices in Calgary and Vancouver. (http: //www.tmaa.corn) from his office in Encino, Calif., predicted the demand for all AMASS also plans to open an office in 42

WH O L E SALER D ecember 1996 hr tp/twww.ccwmag cpm

Toronto next year primarily because Jofre has not been able to find many resellers willing to add value to speech recognition p r odrr >, l)iclalititt ucts fo r v e r tical »vip /IIr t lf~ markets.

"The channel doesn'tknow how to make money at this. It's not just price point. You have to understand the vertical market 100 per cent and dedicate sales people and technical staff," Jofresays comparing speech recognition to Lotus Notes. "You don't make your money selling seats, you make your margins on customization. Resellers think it (speech recognition) is plug and play, and it's not."

M eisel a g r ee s th e "economies are there" for speech recognition VARs and SIs to profit from customization. "You can add value in the legal and medical markets. You can justify your mark-up for good vertical market speech recognition products."

The major OEM players in the speech recognition field are Waltham, MA-based Kurzweil Applied Intelligence Inc., Newton, Mass.-based Dragon Systems Inc., and IBM Corp., out of White Plains, NY. Each company produces its own speech recognition engine; the digital signal processor that converts vocal algorithms into digital texts:and produces navigation and dictation systems for consumer and vertical market use.

Last summer, Kolvox Communications Inc., the Canadian developer and distributor for LawTalkand OfficeTalk,popular speech recognition products for the legal profession

V OIC E

RECO GN IT IO N

thinking of substantive matters while trying to type," he said. and for office use, amalgamated with Pure Data Ltd. to form But after a few weeks working with his speech recognition WildCard Technologies Inc. based in Richmond Hill. applications, he began reaping productivity benefits. He now calls The merger combined Kolvox's speech recognition knowledge with Pure Data's fax communications and days of dictating into dictaphones "the bad old days" but admits things moved slowly until he LAN expertise. The new company distributes "Voice recognition is like the trained the system to his voice and set up 'boiler LawTalk and OffliceTalk, speech recognition applications running on all three OEM speech gross national product. Hp)tv do plates'(voice macro phrases thatproduce docurecognition engines — through more than 300 'you ermine what part ~e ment templates and standard paragraphs). dealers in Canada, the U.S., UK, Australia, Indeed, industry players predict that as entire computer industry is New Zealand and South Africa. According to a speech recognition is incorporated with operatvoice .when voice ing systems it will help resellers. They say as spokesperson,WildCard is also "pursuing the integrated messaging market" by developing .wI be incorporated into atm'ost more peoplebecome aware of speech recogninetwork connectivity and Computer Telephony tion they will be more likely they to try it. And verything?'

Integration (CTI) incorporating speech recogonce doctors, lawyers and managers look to S nition and voice, data and fax capabilities for implement speech recognition applications, — William Meisel Internet and intranet applications. t hey' ll be m o r e inclined to look for T Savoring several Flavors knowledgeable people to customize Speech recognition software comes in several flavors. their desktop to take full advantage of Navigation or command-and-control software enables users to that speech recognition technology. voice control the operating system and applications. For example, to So, the next time you find youropen your Microsoft Word software, you'd say, "Open Word." self talking to your computer, you may You'd retrieve a file with "Open (filename)" and print with the actually be completing some work — rather than merely working command "print file." out your frustrations over a system crash. HK9 Dictation software enables the computer to recognize speech that it converts to text or data. Effective dictation packages include Paul Lima (tiko@idirect.corn) si a freelance writer specializing in navigational software so users can keep their high-tech and communications issues. hands off the keyboard or mouse and still control their application and operating system.

7 Users of discreet speech systems must Sl Business* "Best Overall Notebook g' pau s e briefly between words for the system to Value" dealer suwey rallngsr Eurocom take dictation. Processor- and memory-hungry B.9 . 4rirs'I.'~",Bis;»g IBM B.2 continuous speech systems let the user speak NEC 7,B AST 7.6 at a more conversational pace. These tend to C ompaq 7 . 6 Tosnlba 7.6 be limited vocabulary packages used for data w rres entry or other narrow-vocabulary based applications.

ARgnificent r ~$" TFT Speaker-dependent systems require anywhere from two hours r O r 2lXQatter) to a half-day of training so they can recognize the user's speech patUp to 3hront)otterles terns.Different users can operate a speaker-dependent software Itrldm-CDNKC'out package on one PC as long as each user trains the application and f rI' 3 PC-Cardrlat saves his or her voice profile. Speaker-independent systems need almost no training by the speaker, although they may have difficul2MBPCIVideo lls ty understanding persons with accents or speech impediments.

8-VGA 800x600 Speech recognition is also used to teach foreign languages To 128MBEDO through interactive systems that speak BX CD-R OM a phrase, listen to you repeat it, and evaluate your performance. And telecommunications companies are ,g + us i n g speech recognition to add Directory Assistance services while reducing operator workload.

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Freeing the Hands Speech recognition dictation can either replace a support person or free up a support person for more productive duties, says Meisel.

Also, the user gets work back immediately rather than waiting 24 hoursforwork to be transcribed.

One lawyer who askednot to be named described himself as "not very computer-literate and a poor typist and said he shied away Erom computers before using speech recognition system for dictation. "I didn't think it would be practical to be working on files and

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T HE

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New4lfave OfNCsOominates OracleOpenWorldConference , „

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At this year's annual Oracle Open work maintenance, training, and service. A huge amount is World conference, held in early the so-called 'futz factor,' time spent and productivity lost by November in San Francisco, the major PC end-users trying vainly to solve problems with their comexcitement was caused by the unveiling plex PC hardware, software and connectivity technology. a • of a plethora of radically new network The network computer, or NC, is a new computer platcomputer prototypes — powerful, form designedtoreduce hardware and operating costs drasticheap multimedia devices without intecally, while still maintaining most of the flexibility and intugral hard drives, aimed at serving a new, itive user interface of a PC, according to Ellison. Oracle has Internet-oriented business computing published an NC specification to which dozens of hardware environment. manufacturers are building compatible devices.

The Utddanprototype for a NC-ambaddadtelephone According to Oracle's Larry Ellison A new division of Oracle, Network Computer Inc., is in a keynote speech during the conference, corporations have spearheading the drive to co-ordinate NC development. discovered that the operating costs of their huge numbers of Although based on a variety of processor architectures, networked PCsare imposing a staggering financial burden on including Intel, Spare and ARM CPUs, all of the new NC companies, A'cqgrding to various industry studies, the real, devices hitting the market will run a Web browser and accept annua'1cost. Baaing a Windows PC on a business network HTML (HyperText Markup Language — the World Wide Web is in the order ef US$8,000 to US$13,000. Only a small part standard) data, as well as Java applications. What this means, of this is harclvrare depreciation. Large amounts are for net- in practice, is that all the costs associated with software copy•

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T HE

N ETW O R K C O M P U TE R t't'Os

right compliance: viruses, file management and many other PC price/performance issues are simply lifted oif the desktop and left in the hands of the network system administration.

Ellison predicts that in a 'zero maintenance" NC environment, real operating costs may drop as much as 75 per cent per NC user.

Among the network computer devices on hand atthe conference was a 'prehistoric' network computer prototype from Sun, dating back to preliminary studies done in 1991-92.

Some of theNC vendors announced at the conference included: Acorn Computer Group, Inc. of the UK, with an ARM CPU based model for about $400; Akai Digital, with a US$349 NC set to ship in the first quarter of 1997; Funai Electric Co., with an 'under US$500' NC due to ship this month; IDEA, with a currently shipping NC for US$500; Proton Industrial Corp.'s Xavier set-top box for US$499, due sometime in the first half of 1997; and a wireless network NC from Uniden, also set to ship in 1997.

A week beforeOracle's conference, Sun Microsystems Inc. formally launched its JavaStation network computer, starting at about US$750.

IBM Corp. rolled out its first NC model — the IBM Network Stationa few weeks prior to the Oracle conference, at a suggested list price of around $800.

Ellison suggested that NCs embedded inside TV sets, phones, and other devices may cost as little as US$100 within ayear ortwo, as economies of scale and the savings of not

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h aving to have separate power supplies, casl~~ d I t ~ are realised.

According to Ellison, Java-based applications for NCs ... should start to flood the market by mid-199' rs,' -: s, There are more than 200,000 registeretfms dev (compared to around 400,000 registered Windows developers). Oracle has developed software to cony~ i : ml~ o f existing customised Oracle applications ~ , ' :;to'~ Java format.

As well, the expected arrival of ASDL phone services and cable modems ~ may open up a very substantial home and e8tucation market for NCs, to supplement the busuless market.

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For all that the network computer seettoii to offer some very persuasive potential, this is still a

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over pioneers who decide to once again brave technology's 'bleeding edge.' ,; d" Nevertheless, the network computer ~ V the computer business may never be the same again. ~ '

,

Jeff Evans is Toronto Editor fo r C ad ~ "Cb ~ W holesaler.

He can be reached atjeff@tcpon.dii.~

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reluct Promotion: It h Rocket Science lambe Industry analysts say there's a thin line betueen brilliant and hokey,and resellers need to tread itcarefully.

Two For The Price Of One? Five for the price of two? A free baseball cap with every modem? A game with each CDROM drive? A chance to win a trip to Las Vegas, Edmonton or Halifax?

Any reseller who's been in this business for awhile, has probably not only seen these promotion ideas, and many more â&#x20AC;&#x201D; but you' ve probably even tried them. Indeed, in this competitive, yet cost-constrained industry, it's a tough balance finding the right mix of substance and style. Many technologies don't sell themselves; and even those that do are often also for sale next door.

But do flashy retail promotions work?

We may never know, says John Lambert, Canadian merchandising manager for the U,S.-headquartered Computer City chain. He has been "bowled over" by the kind of gimmicks being tried south of the border by vendors through the superstores. They include using the full marketing force of Disney-costumed characters to lure consumers inside.

Promotion IsNecessary Retail experts like Susan O'Dell suggest the overall i m pact i s h a r d t o me a sure.

Nevertheless, retailers "dare not stop promot ions," says O ' Dell, p resident o f t h e Mississauga, Ont.-based Service Dimensions Inc, since consumers expect to see them. She suggests that promotions require quite a bit of thought and analysis before they are introduced. Whatcan make a promotion "dumb," is when it is complex and not clearly understood, she adds.

O'Dell defines a promotion as "an inducement to buy a product within a partic46

ular time frame." Promotions often include two types of advertising, one focused on vendor image and brand awareness and the other on a specific product offering that is available at asetprice for "X" number of weeks. Both m essages infacthave to reinforce each other, says O'Dell, or the consumer will notice "the disconnection."

Industry analyst Bob Pritchard, president of the Markham, Ont.-based R. J. Pritchard & Associates Ltd. suggests that the superstoresin Canada suffer from smaller m argins and are therefore loath to g et involved in flashy promotions that are pricey.

Recently he encountered a lot of the standard Halloween witches and goblins fare at a local store in Toronto while buying cable, and he was not impressed. "They were really stretching it," he says.

Gimmicks have little impact on the typical PC buyer, according to IBM's own market research. Generally, that person is mostly considering such basics as price, quality and service, says Gary Isaacs,IBM Canada'sgeneral manager for consumer channels.

Consumers Are Savvy But the fact that consumers are more savvy about technology has made product promotions especially significant, says Derek Smith, Hewlett-Packard (Canada) Ltd,'s national sales manager. "People will visit six different retail stores before they' ll decide on a product."

At the Vancouver-based London Drugs chain, PC product promotions generally last for about three weeks in order for the details of the sale to filter down into the consumer

WH O L E SALER D ecember 1996 ht tp: /Iwww ccwmag.corn

market, explains CEO W ynne Powell.

Because of"luxury of economies of scale," his retail operation can afford to mail flyers to more than two million households in B.C. and Alberta where it has outlets.

A good promotion "wraps around an envelope of comfort." Special local attention has to be paid to local cultures, adds Powell.

Vancouver's large Chinese community, he says, react better to retailers who emphasize long-term relationships with customers.

ComputerCity'sLambert sayshe has seen upwards of25 percent gains in business with the use of promotions at his Canadian outlets.

The Manufacturer'sRole Manufacturers have done a better job of identifying their customer base compared to retailers, according to O'Dell, adding she is surprised to find that many resellers have little data on who are buying their products.

Where does the smaller retailer fit into all of this? O'Dell urges them to take advantage of marketing programs being oA'ered by vendors.

What is sparking much attention among the large vendors and retailers is psychographics. For example, IBM Corp. is one vendor which has identified its target market as "progressive families," a category that cuts across traditional demographic lines and is more focused on personality and attitude than on whether the consumer is single or has 2.2 children.

IBM's S series of high end Pentiums, which were recently advertised in print, carry "a cool and sexy" gray-charcoal look. "We are going to see more emphasis [in the industry] on the design of the product. It has

R E TA I L I N G already happened with consumer electronic products," says IBM's Isaacs.

Pritchard laments that independents have an "abysmal" record when it comes to self-promotion. This may help to explain his observation that manufacturers are gaining more "control" over the retail promotions they are funding. Up to now, he says, "thevendor has carried the can for price cuts and then been hitby reduced margins."

Co-Op Dollars Are On The Way Out Now, he said,co-op programs where the reseller matches funds provided by the vendor to support a sales promotion are on their way out. In situations like this, the vendor has not had full control and ended up with low margins, according to Pritchard. More of a priority, he says, are vendor-directed national or North Americanwide print or television campaigns which drive consumer demand for specific products in bundled systems through the entire reseller channel.

Confirming the trend away from co-op advertising is HP's Smith, who stresses a reluctance to be biased in favor of one retailer over another. "More market development is focused on a case-bycase basis."

Also, to keep the price of a bundled system down, vendors are loading less software with a promoted system, explains Smith.

Consumers may not want to use all the applications thrown their way, he says. "There is so much software coming with the PC already."

A lot of copying of each other's promotions occurs among retailers, notes Computer City's Lambert. It is hard to conceive of any single promotion being particularly original since it is bound to be taken up by the competition, he says. But, requiring less paperwork and easy to mount a r e rebates. Lambert says there is one simple reason: 70 to 80 per cent of consumers fail to mail in their coupons aftera sale to getreimbursed. He adds: "They are more likely if it is a $100 rebate than a $10 rebate."

Also popular, is free access to the Internet via a service provider upon the purchase of a bundled system. Industry analysts point out that many consumers are still timid about getting on the 'Net, and an Internet access promotion can not only be a good buying incentive, it can open up other hardware/software selling opportunities for resellers.

Amidst the marketing and promotion noise endemic to the PC industry, "we need to make sure the customer is aware of the product," says Ken Price, product manager, commercial desktops, for Compaq Canada Inc. That has meant less PC system promotions associated with sports events, celebrity sponsorships and free airline tickets, where the vendor is not front-and-centre from a visibility perspective, say many people in the industry.

A PC is a sales anomaly — an expensive item that is also a commodity, subject to cutthroat competition, says Toronto retail analyst John Winter, president of John Winter & Associates. And promotion can't just be seasonal or tied to special occasions.

Promotion in this business has to be year-round because a system is generally bought out of necessity, he said.

"Promotions do not work if the customer does not need the product. It then becomes extraneous clutter." HXi9

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N OT E B O O K S

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With the feature-packed notebook computers hitting the market today, at a lessened price differential â&#x20AC;&#x201D; there is ever-increasing opportunity to sell powerful notebooks as desktop replacement systems

by Edward Trapunski

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"My notebook is my only computer," says Steve Goldman, a lawyer with Berkow, Cohen, a commercial litigation law firm in Toronto.

With notebooks selling at twice the rate of desktop computers, Goldman represents a prevailing pattern as to how professionals and organizations are approaching their technology strategies. At his desk, he plugs his Compaq Contura notebook into a full-sized color monitor. He has thought about adding a regular keyboard but, because his typing fingers are nimble, he says he wants to maintain thefeelof one keyboard.

The notebook gives him the flexibility of taking his office with him. Since he types faster than he writes, using his notebook at

legal discoveries allows him to maintain eye contact with the witnesses as he examines them. By the end of the dis covery he can cut and paste his notes and instantly prepare a letter outlining fol low-up actions, or as they say in the legal profession, undertakings On vacation, at a client's office, or at home w ith a m o de m a n d Symantec's PCAnywhere software, he says his notebook gives him access to his files and his precedents with the oppor tunity for more time away L ast Christmas time I h a d an injunction brewing and I didn't know when it was going to come to a head," he says. "It did come to a head while I was on away on vacation. At about six o' clock in the morning I went to the lobby of the hotel I was staying at and drafted a notice of application and an affidavit. I E - m ailed it t o m y j u nior in Toronto directly from my notebook. He was able to annex various documents as exhibits and file it that day. I never missed a run on the slopes t

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The New Reality While once there with a big gap between the cost of a desktop computer and a notebook today there's only about a 20 to 25 per cent difference between a Pentium desktop and a notebook system

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Many computer vendors, (most notably Compaq Canada Inc.), have reduced their notebook prices while adding multimedia capabilities. In many cases, sound, video and CD-ROM are standard from entry level through the entire notebook line Toshiba of Canada, Information Systems Group, the market leader with 26 per cent of notebook computers shipped in Canada through retail sales (unit sales, according to A.C. Neilsen figures), has just introduced the Satellite 200CDS with a full set of multimedia applications as its most popular priced model For the next six months the focus will be on multimedia applications," says Robert Grossman, vice-president and general man ager of Toshiba of Canada ISG. "With high capacity proces sors, batteri es an d t hard drives and l arger screens, the notebooks we have i m ple mented are at a p arity wi th desktop computing He suggests this foretells a very positive implication for resellers. For every three desktop computers corporations are replacing as they upgrade, they choose one notebook and Grossman predicts within 18 months the split will be 50:50. "We have a

"At about six o' clock in the morning I went to the lobby of the hotel I was staying at and drafted a nice of appli cationand@nc affidavit:,'::-.I:=E-mailed it to my j ~ -in T o r onto directly from my notebook. He was able to annex various documents as exhibits and file it that day. I never missed a run on the slopes Steve Goldman 48

WH O L E SALER D ecember 1996 tt ttp//www.ccwmag.ccm

N OT E B O O K S

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wild ride coming ahead of us. It's going to allow resellers and value-added resellers to develop more multimedia applications packages to be sold to the end-user with more margin opportunity and profit."

With Pentiumprocessors,stereo speakers,internal CD-ROM drives and screens as large as 12.1 inches with high resolution, Compaq is giving an indication of its direction. And modularity is slowly making it way from the high end to popular prices.

With an average weight of 7.5 to 8 pounds and a thicknessof 2.3 inches in Compaq notebooks, Eric Dubois, notebook productmanager for Compaq Canada, says there is more functionality at a smaller size.

For 1997, he is forecasting a one-inch thin notebook, less than five pounds in weight, with a large 14.4-inch screen and a full-sized keyboard.

the notebook with plastic covers that can be as colorful or creative as the personality of the individual or organization warrants.

Since road warriors take their notebooks everywhere, this is an opportunity to make a forceful fashion statement.

The new PowerBooks are focusing on the advanced communications capabilities that allow access to the Internet and integration into an office network. "Especially

for sales presentations, being able to reach your office and access your network is absolutely critical," says Stan Ossias, product manager for notebooks at Apple Canada Inc. With a 64-bit architecture on its new Versa 6000 notebook, NEC says it can offer performance equal in speed and responsiveness to any desktop computer. Using home electronic products as the model for where they would like to take notebook computing, The Future Is Thin "As you decreasethe size of the notebook, NEC includes devices like volume control the only dimension you can reduce without buttons.

When people turn on the radio or televiaffecting the ergonomics is the thickness," he says. "Otherwise you end up with a sion they expect instant response. Greg smallerkeyboard and a smaller screen. In Myers,vice-president ofsales and marketing 1 997, 12.1-inch screens will b e mainfor NEC Computer Systems Division, says his computers will soon meet the same stream."

Integrating a notebook into a network is expectations. NEC is about to introduce a always more difficult than integrating a handheld device weighing less than a pound desktop. This is good news for the VARs and and running on the Microsoft CE consumer integrators because organizations will have electronics operating system.

What Myers sees down the road are to involve their channels in the set-up for maximum productivity. "The time is right modular ultralight-weight notebooks that now to buy a notebook," Dubois says. "The allow the user to add slices of functionality as price is good. Supply is good. There are no needed."Any company thatcan getfunctioncompromises in functionality anymore and ality and power into a package that's less that's why we are seeing this market taking than five pounds will do extremely well," off."

Myers says. "Ultimately several companies What used to be available only in desk- will end up doing it, but the one who gets tops is coming to mobile computing. As the there first with a design the market responds technology gap d i minishes, notebooks to will be a big winner."

The top five notebook vendors become a real desktop replacement possibility. With better ergonomics, bigger hard driToshiba, Compaq, IBM, Apple and NEC ves, andinfrared connectors in notebooks, occupy about 75per cent of the notebook the two computing environments are getting market and tend to introduce the innovations. pushedcloserand closer together.

The second tier, including companies "More and more companies are seeing like M i ssissauga, Ont.-based Impulse how their employees are more motivated to Computer Corp., benefits when the market work harder when they have more flexible m atures and open other avenues for integratenvironments,"says Eileen Nachshen, maring hardware and software.

But according to Impulse Computer keting manager for the ThinkPad brand at Corp. president Alok Sama: "People get deIBM Canada Ltd. "In the past, if customers were looking at mobile technologies they sensitized to everybody saying we are the would have had to pay a lot more, or cut back priceperformance leaders."

"What is there to believe when there is on technology.Now they have the choice." no uniquenessg We have to show them a In terms of look and design the Apple profitable vertical solution, a nucleus around PowerBooks have always led the way in s leekness and elegance. With i t s n e w which they can do business." R@9 PowerBook 1400 series Apple is offering the Edward Trapunski i s a To r o nto-based opportunity to customize the appearance of journalist specializing in high technology. http//wwwccwmag.cpm December 1996 W H O LESALER 4 9

A SIA S C A P E

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from š w s bytes

Sony enters the desktop videoconferenclng market Sony Electronics has announced that it is plunging full speed into the expanding videoconferencing market with its first desktop product, the TriniCom 500. Up until now, Sony has concentrated on the higher-end videoconferencing s y stems l i k e its US$15,000 TriniCom 4000.

The TriniCom 500 includessoftware, a Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) card, camera, and all the connective pieces to install a desktop videoconferencing system, for less than US$2,000. It needs a single 128Kbps ISDN line to operate.

According to Sony, when hooked up, the TriniCom 500 offers videoconferencing, PC phone capability, high-speed Internet, and remote local area network (LAN) access. The TriniCom 500 system also comes bundled with Databeam's FarSite software to support T-120 collaboration.

Kevin Allen, a spokesperson for Sony Electronics, pointed out that with the system, a user can communicate with virtually all standard-based videoconferencing systems.

Allen said the TriniCom 500 is fully compliant with the international videoconferencing protocol, ITU-T H.320.

The TriniCom 500 system supports high-speed Internet access via the Sony WinISDN driver. The system also operates as a PC-phone, allowing users to place and receive regular telephone calls from the same terminal.

The system requires just one PCI slot and has a BRI interface for videoconferencing over a standard ISDN BRI line (128Kbps). The TriniCom 500 system also supports international ISDN switching variants.

The I /4-inch video camera operates with a 60 degree viewing angle and scalable video window that allows the user to adjust the size 50

of the screen image. According to Sony, the supplied software interface allows the user to adjust video quality as well as contrast, hue, brightness,and color.The system supports multiple audio devices and includes handsfree operation via the camera unit's built-in microphone and a handset for telephone-style conversations.

The TriniCom 500 kit can be operated on either a Windows 3.1 or Windows 95based personal computer with a PCI bus, PCI SVGA card, and 16MB of RAM. The system also requires a 90MHz Pentium chip or above, at least 15MB of hard disk space, and a SVGA monitor.

The TriniCom 500 desktop videoconferencing system has a suggested list price of US$1,995. +

delaying launch until next spring because of a shortage of software titles but industry sources say the company is behind others in development of DVD hardware. +

Industry agrees on DVD copyright protection system

A multi-industry group charged with devising acopyrightprotection system forprerecorded DVD video disks has announced it has finalized asystem, just days before launch of the first players. The new system, demanded by Hollywood studios, will make it impossible to copy prerecorded disks and play them outsidethe U.S. before worldwide release.

T he rules were drawn up b y t h e Copyright Protection Technical Working Group's (CPTWG) subcommittee on DVD technology.The group includes representaDVD rolls out in Japan tivesof the major hardware manufacturers in Two Japaneseelectronics manufacturers have the DVD consortium â&#x20AC;&#x201D; computer manufacgiven the public its first taste of DVD video turers, motion picture studios and indusny players. Additional launches by other manu- associations. facturers and overseas will follow in anticipaThe major motion picture studios have tion of early success in the coming Christmas feared that the almost perfect reproductions sales season. offered by DVD technology would make Launching DVD players on Nov. 1, pirating of software rampant. With convenwere Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. and tional VHS video tape, the quality falls fast Toshiba Corp. with each copy generation. To get a reasonTwo stand-alone players are being ably good copy, users must acquire the origilaunched by Matsushita under the Panasonic nal or a first generation copy of it. brand name. The DVD-A100 and DVD-A300 DVD copies, on the other hand, are almost playersare capable of playing back pre- perfect, and a copy of the original or a copy of recorded DVD video disks, audio compact a hundredth-generation copy are almost identidisks (CDs), and video CDs. cal. This could result in copies spreading fast, Monthly production has been set at from friend to friend, with a resulting drop in 30,000 units for the players which will be the sales of the original version. priced at 79,800 yen and 98,000 yen respecThe solution drawn up by the committee tively. The major difference between the two includes four main areas. The data on each models is a disk will be microphone e ncry p t e d socket (for a nd onl y k ar a o k e DVD players discs), shutwill be able tle dial conto unlock it. trol and joyW hile i t i s stick-based easy to stop remote control and an RF output terminal copies from DVD-to-DVD because the sysavailable on the more expensive A300. tem is all digital, stopping analog copies is Toshiba also launched its first DVD more difficult. The disks will include the product, the SD-3000. The machine will be same MacroVision system used on commerpriced at 77,000 yen and include the ability to cial video tapes today to prevent duplication playback DVD video and audio CD discs. onto VHS tapes.

Both manufacturers have already A f u r ther s y stem, c a lled C o p y announced plans for other devices.

Generation Management System, is being Toshiba began selling a DVD-ROM employed to prevent duplication of the disk player for computer users on Nov. 26. data onto future DVD-RAM disks.

Matsushita is also selling a high-grade televiThe fourth area of protection is one of sion set with a built-in DVD player. the most controversial. Regional coding will DVD players plans have also been be added to new titles that prevent them from announced by Pioneer and Hitachi. Sony is being played outside the area in which they

WHO L ESALER December 1996 br' l t www ccwmag corn

A SIA S CA P E were bought. While details of this system are yet to be announced it is thought to split the globe into two regions: the U.S., and the rest of the world.

New disks bought in the U.S., often available before movies enter theatres overseas, will only play on disk players bought in the U.S. This system will not be implemented on titles that are widely available around the world so users will be able to transport most disks around the world and find no problem playing them.

While the encryption-based system is still undergoing final evaluation by members of the subcommittee, a provisional agreement has been reached that meets the goals and criteria with regard to digital duplication.

The encryption system is the same as that originally proposed and was the product of a cross-industry working group. It included members from the computer industry such as IBM which managed to achieve a reduction in the power needed to descramble the video without compromising the security of the system.

As a result of the announcement, both Toshiba-EMI and PonyCanyon have said there will be slight delays in the launch of their DVD video software titles.

The sub-committee has work remaining in the protection area. It will now work towards systems that prevent copying of audio disks and videotapes onto DVD disks. +

would continue to make its hard drives in Korea.

DiamondMax is the highest-capacity EIDE drive in the market. Maxtor claims to have a redesigned 3.5-inch drive for the DiamondMax series, which features capacity points of 5 . 1GB, 3 .8GB and 2 .5GB. DiamondMax drives use the same Formula4 four-disk head disk assembly (HDA) recently introduced in the CrystalMax line. The 5.1GB drive will cost US$449.

Maxtor officials say the drives feature new magneto-resistive (MR) heads instead of the thin film heads that were used in the

CrystalMax line. The seek times have been reduced to under 10 milliseconds, while the CrystalMax averages slightly less than 12 milliseconds.

Hake said the DiamondMax was targeted at the consumer desktop market, where Maxtor is strong. "With multimedia, the Internet and the Web eating up lots of storage and with 3Denabled processors set to fuel higher data size, this makes an ideal product," he said.

PC companies in Asia using Maxtor hard drives include Acer, IPC and AST, Hake said. He expected PCs with 5.1GB drives to be out as early as this December. HRE

All Kiuds of ComPuter 6 CD RON Accessories

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Maxtor consolidates its manufacturing in Singapore Maxtor, which already makes all of its 3.5inch hard disk drives in Singapore, will consolidate all of its manufacturing in the republic, the company said recently while launching a new 5.1GB hard drive.

The company is moving production of 2.5-inch drives from its parent company Hyundai's facility in Korea to Singapore. The move signals its re-entry into the notebook computer market, from which it had stayed away since 1993.

Launching a new DiamondMax family o f enhanced IDE hard disk d r ives i n Singapore yesterday, Bill Hake, vice-president for worldwide sales, said volume production w o ul d b e gi n i n Nov e mber.

DiamondMax is to be manufactured only in Singapore, which serves as the Asia-Pacific salesheadquarters for the company.

Maxtor already has in place the infrastructure to make the 2.5-inch MobileMax drives in Singapore, meaning not much additional investment is needed, Hake said. He could not comment whether or not Hyundai

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CD Storage Box

Mouse & Mouse Pad

Diskette Box

CSA Power Bar

Disk Cleaning Kit

Keyboard Drawer

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Custom printed mouse pad available. Any design k quantity are acceptable

Monitor Arm CD Cleaning Kit

New address: 4510 -3771Jacombs Rd. Richmond B.C. V6V 2L9 effective from 12fl2/96, Tel & Fax I remain the same.

CANBELL GROUP ENTERPRISES INC. 110-13431 Maycrest Way, Richmond B.C. V6V 2M3 Canada slNcF 1974

Tel: (604) 279-2366 Fax: (604) 279-2369 http: //wwwccwmag.corn December 1996 W H O L ESALER 5 1

01 Communique Laboratory Inc.

1450 Meyerside Dr., Suite 500 Mississauga, Ont. L5T 2N5 Tek (905) 795-2888 Fax: (905) 795-0101 http: //www.01.ca

3COM Canada Inc.

info@adamtech.corn ADI Inc.

2758 Avenue Pierre Bacher, Suite 100 Quebec, Que. G1J 5Y3 Tel: (418) 523-0060

Amsdell Inc.

250 West Beaver Creek Rd., Suite 15 Richmond Hill, Ont. L4B 1C7 Tel: (905) 881-3020 Fax: (905) 881-3023

Anixter

2225 Sheppard Ave. East Artria 3 Suite 1204 North York, ON Tek (416) 498-3266 Fax: (416) 498-1262

ADI Systems Inc. 2115 Ringwood Ave., San Jose, CA 95131

33 City Centre Drive, Suite 510 Mississauga, Ont. L5B 2N5 Tel: (416) 897-5665 Fax: (416) 897-6236

3D Microcomputers

Adobe Systems

150 Bullock Dr., Markham, Ont. L3R 1W3 Tel: (905) 472-8822 Fax: (905) 472-6633

¹1000-145 King Street, Toronto, Ont. MSH 3X6 Tel: (416) 360-2317 Fax: (41 6) 360-2917

Artisoft Inc. 10 Car(son Court, Unit 590, Etobicoke, Ont. M9W 6L2 Tel: (416) 213-8600 Fax: (416) 213-8602

3M Canada Inc. / Imation

Advance Integration Research (Canada)

P.O. Box 5757 London, ON N6A 4TI Tek (519) 451-2500 Fax: (519) 452-6262

9003 Inc. 181 Eglinton Ave. E., Suite 305 Toronto, Ont. M4P I J4 Tel: (41 6) 487-1777 Fax: (416) 483-2004 http: //www.aquazone.corn

AEtL Electronic 3771 Jacombs Rd.,;.

Richmond, B.C. VBt/ Tek (604) 279-0728

' "

."

.

'279-0726

Aaronic Technoldgy

555 Richmond St. W., Suite 1103 Toronto, Ont. M5V 3BI Tek (416) 504-2190 Fax: (416) 504-2193

Tel: (408) 944-01 00

7575 Trans-Canadienne, Unit500 St-Laurent Quebec H4T I V6 Tek (514) 956-0400 Fax: (514) 956-0323

Advance Interactive MultiMedia

7431 Britton St., Burnaby, B.C. V3N 3A6 Tel: (604) 517-0634 Fax: (604) 517-0643

Advance Interface Electronic Inc. 88 KonradCrescent,Markham, Ont L3R BT7 Tel: (905) 479-1443 Fax: (905) 479-1834 E-mail:aiei@onramp.ca Branch office: Richmond, B.C. Tel: (604) 270-8561 Fax: (604) 270-4953 Edmonton, AB Tel; (403) 436-9263 Fax: (403) 436-9258

Arvida Technology Ltd. ¹160, 6651 Elmbridge Way, Richmond, BC V7C 4NI Tel: (604) 303-2939 Fax: (604) 276-1830

ASCII Group Canada Ltd., The

2285 Maple View Dr., Stroud, Ont. LOL 2MO Tel: (705) 739-1155 Fax; (705) 739-9596

Asia-Link Computer Inc.

45A West Wilmot St. Unit 15 Richmond Hill, Ont. L4B 1KI Tel: (905) 731-1928 Fax: (905) 731-6875 Toll-Free: (800) 461-8079 Branch Office: Halifiax Fax: (902) 852-1453 Toll Free; 1-800-781-7036

AST Canada Inc. 255 MarhesonBlvd.West, Mississauga, Ont. L5R 3G3 Tel: (905) 507-3278 Fax: (905) 507-0586

AC Components Inc.

Advance MedalComputer 75 Konrad Crescent, Unit C, Markham, Ont. L3R BTB

ATI Technologies Inc. 33 Commerce Valley Dr. East, Thomhill, Ont. L3T 7N6

Acbel(Canada)

Agfa Division

Attachmate Canada Inc. 4260 Still Creek Dr., Suite 400, Burnaby, B.C. V5C 6C6 Tek (604) 294-9499 Fax: (604) 473-3990

461 Esna Park Dr., Suite 15, Markham, Ont. L3R H18 Tel: (905) 470-1933 Fax: (905) 470-1933

5500 Tomken Rd. Unit 8, Mississauga, Ont. L4W 224 Tel: (905) 602-7866 Fax: (905) 602-7871 Internet: smscanada@aol.corn Access 8 Inc. 20 Barnes Court, Building G, Concord, Ont. L4K 4L4 Tel: (905) 660-2425 Fax: (905) 660-9617 Toll Free: 1-800-666-5567

Access Graphics of Canada Inc. 50 Burnhamthorpe Rd. W., Suite 401 M ississauga, Ont.L5B 3C2 Toll Free: 1-800-827-9950 Fax: (905) 277-3390

Acco Canada Inc. 501 McNicoll Ave., Willowdale, Ont. M2H 2E2 Tel: (416) 499-1000 Fax; (416) 499-0757 ACCOUNTVVARE Distributors 34 Futurnity Gate, Unit 16, Concord, Ont. L4K I S6 Tel: (905) 738-9650 Fax: (905) 738-0570

Accton Canada Tel: (604) 307-6680

Ace Technology Inc.

5115 Trans Island, Suite 206, Montreal, Que. H3W 229 Tek (514) 485-2307 Fax: (514) 485-2494

Acer America Corporation 9-51 55 Spectrum Way,, Mississauga, Ontario L4W 5AI Tel; (905) 602-8200 Fax: (905) 602-7799

http: //www.seer.corn/aac/ AcerOpenComponent Solutions 1-800-265-OPEN ACP Marketinq Inc.

¹120-13751 May1ield Place, Richmond B.C. V6V 2G9 Tek (604) 278-2811 Fax: (604) 278-1 211 Toll-Free; 1-800-567-7227

Across the Ocean Mfq

8461 Keele St., Unit 28, Concord, Ont. L4K 1Z6 Tel: (905) 669-9667 Fax: (905) 660-7884 Acrotechnique International Inc. 3031 Markham Rd,, Unit 32 Scarborough, Ont. MI X I Lg Tek (416) 321-9085 Fax: (416) 321-9128

ADAM Peripherals Inc. 265 Hood Road,Unit3,M arkham, Ont. L3R 4N3 Tek (905) 305-1 277 Fax: (905) 305-1281 Toll Free: I-800-363-ADAM Internet:

52

Tek (905) 946-9660 Fax: (905) 946-9663 Toll-Free: (800) 206-2724

Bayer Inc. 77 Be(field Road, Etobicoke, Ont. M9W 1G6 Tek (800) 268-1331, ext. 4032 Fax: (41 6) 241-5409 Ahearn Et Soper Inc. 100 Woodbine Downs Blvd. Rexdale, Ontario M9W 5S6 Tel: (416) 675-3999 Fax: (416) 675-6589 Toll Free: 1-800-263-4258 AK Microsystems 245 West Beaver Creek Rd., Suite 9B Richmond Hill, Ont. L4B 1L1 Tek (905) 771-1155 Fax: (905) 771-1155 http: //akmicro.corn Akran Systems 2170 Thurston Dr„Ottawa, Ont. K1 G 5A7 Tek (613) 739-4000 Fax: (613) 739-4444 http: //www.akran.ca

Alberta Computer Cable Inc.

6-2216 - 27th Ave. N.E., Calgary, AB T2E 7A7 Tek (403) 291-5560 Fax: (403) 291-1112 Toll Free; 1-800-661-8564 http: //www.accinc.ab.ca Branch office: Vancouver Tek (604) 454-1003 Fax: (604) 435-8181

Allied Telesyn International

151 Carlingview Dr., Unit 5, Rexdale, Ont. M9W 5S4 Tel: (905) 803-8626 Fax: (905) 279-0050

Alpha Technologies Ltd.

5700 Sidey Street, Burnaby, B.C. V5J 5E5 Tek (604) 430-1476 Fax: (604) 430-8908 Web site: http: //www.alpha-us.corn Branch Office: Mississauga, Ont Tel: (905) 712-1010 Fax: (905) 712-1 012

Alternate Source Components Ltd. 775 Pacific Rd., Unit 32, Oakville, Ont. L6L 6M3 Tek (905) 825-3044 Fax; (905) 825-4132

Tek (905) 882-2600 Fax: (905) 882-2620

http: //www.attachmate.corn

Aves Marketing Inc. 6707 Sperling Ave., Burnaby, B.C. V5E 2V3 Tel; (604) 433-8273 Fax: (604) 433-8216

AVS Technoloqies Inc. 2100 Trans Canada Hwy, South Dorval, Quebec, H9P 2N4 Tek (514) 683-1771 Fax: (514) 683-5307

Axses Inc.

Boutiliers Point, Halifax, N.S. BOJ I GO Tel: (902) 826-2440 Fax: (902) 826-7274 http: //axsestllcarianet.net

AZERTY 5850 Cote de Liesse, Suite ¹300, Montreal QC H4T I B2 Tel: 1-800-361-5964 Fax; 1-800-463-7975

8-TEC 1023 Shorecrest, Lava), Que. H7W1R4 T ek (514) 945-7363 Fax: (514).:58,~ , <

Ballance Display

204 Oakdale Rd. Toronto, Ont. ', R „; ja.."

Tel: (416) 745-1868 Fax: (416) 7480827

Banyan Systems Inc.

2695 N. Sheridan Way, Ste160 M ississauga, Ont.L5K 2N6 Tel: (905) 855-2971 Fax; (905) 855-2894 Branch offices: Montreal, Que. Tel: (514) 426-2644 Fax: (514) 426-0326 Vancouver, B.C.Tek (604) 683-6503 Fax: (604) 683-6502

BASF Canada Inc.

345 Carlingview Dr., Toronto, Ont. M9W 6N9 Tel: (416) 675-3611 Fax: (416) 674-2536

Battery Boys Ltd.

964 Westport Cres., Unit 15, Mississauga, Ont. L5T IS3 Tek (905) 564-7865 Fax: (905) 564-4691

http: //www.a(ternatesrc.corn

Battery Network B.N. (Canada) inc.

Alternative Micro Parts Inc. 40 McPherson St,, Markham, Ont. L3R 3V6 Tel: (905) 771-8720 Faro (905) 771-8961

290 Place Datura,. Ile Perrot, Quebec J7V 7N3 Tel: (514) 651-3366/800-431-1220 Fax: (514) 651-6830

Althon Inc. 251 Amber St., Unit 5-6, Markham, Ont. L3R 3J7 Tek (905) 513-1221 Fax: (905) 513-1220 Branch Office: Richmond, B.C.Tel: (604) 244-8611Fax: (604) 244-8612

WH OL E SALER D e c ember 1996 hr tpllwwwccwmag.corn

Bay Networks Canada

5715 Yonge St., Floor 19, North York, Ont. M2M 4J1 Tek (416) 733-8348 Fax: (416) 733-1719

BBM Computers 33 Citation Dr., Suite 3, Concord, Ont. L4K 2S4 Tel: (905) 738-4452 Fax: (41 6) 738-1905

S O U R C IN G http: //www.indinc.corn Beamscope Electronic Entertainment 35 Ironside Crescent, Scarborough, Ont. M1X 1G5 Tek (416) 291-0000 Fax: (416) 291-5721 Branch office: Vancouver: Tel: (604) 821-0000 Fax: (604) 821-0434 Bell Et Howell Ltd. 360 Hanlan Rd. Woodbridge, ON L4L 8V6 Tel: (905) 850-6705 Fax; (905) 850-3500 Bernclare Multimedia Inc. 716 Gordon Baker Rd., Suite 105 North York, Ont. M2H 384 Tel: (416) 490-6516 Fax: (416) 490-6419

Calsby Computer Products f)41-42, 70 E Beaver Creek Rd. Richmond Hill, Ont. L38 3B2 Tek (905) 731-3861 Fax: (905) 731-3862 CanREP Inc. 301-7889 132 Street, Surrey, BC V3W 4G2 Tek (604) 599-1232 Fax: (604) 599-3616 Branch Office: Cagary AB Tel: (403) 255-0294 Fax: (403l 255-4902 Edmonton AB Tel: (403) 487-5578 Fax: (403) 489-1297 Toronto ON Tel: (905) 470-7342 Fax: (905) 470-7338 Montreal QC Tel: (514) 276-4477 Fax: (514) 276-3646

Canadian Advanced Industries Ltd.

http: //www.berne(are.corn Best Power Canada 1555 Bonhill Rd., Unit 11, Mississauga, Ont. L5T 1Y5 Tek (905) 564-7655 Fax: (905) 564-7657 BIM Computers Inc. 3986 Chesswood Dr., Downsview, Ont. M3J 2W6 Tel: (416) 630-1325 Fax; (416) 630-4213 Birde Marketing 111 Esna Park Drive, Unit 1, Markham, Ont. L3R 1H2 Tel: (905) 477-7722 Fax: (905) 477-7813 Branch offices: Kanata Ont, Tek (613) 592-5411 Fax: (613) 592-5415 Vancouver, B.C. Tet (604) 431-0426 Fax: (604) 431-0427 BK Systems International 25 Sheppard Ave. West, Suite 10

405 Britannia Rd. E., Suite 23, Mississauga, Ont. L42 3E6 Tek (905) 501-8375 Fax: (905) 501-8376

Toronto, Ont. M2N 6S6 Tek (416) 222-2185 Fax: (416) 222-2545

6390 Dixie Road. Mississauga, Ont. L5T 1P7 Tel; (905) 795-1111 Fax: (905) 795-2014 Toll-Free; (800) 263-1121

BOCA Research Inc.

CanaMicro Distribution Inc. 4400 Cote de Liesse Rd., Suite 110 Montreal, Que. H4N 2P7 Tek (514) 737-3631 Fax: (514} 737-3632 http: //www,canamicro.corn

Canbell Crou Enterprises Inc 110-13431 Maycrest Way, Richmond B.C. V6V 2M3 Tel: (604) 279-2366 Fax: (604) 279-2369

Canta Technoloqies Inc.

340 West Cordova St., Suite 701

Vancouver, B.C. V6B2V3 Tek (604) 687-2000 Fax: (604) 683-4911 http: //www20.mind)ink.net/8 PS/ Border Network Technologies Inc. 20 toronto St„Suite 400, Toronto, Ont. M5C 2B8 Tek (416) 368-7157 Fax: (416) 368-7789 http: //www.border.corn Borland Canada SoftwareInc. 200 Konrad Cres., Markham, Ont. L3R BT9 Tel; (905) 477-4344 Fax: (905) 477-6657 Brands Computers Et Electronics Inc. 30 Mural St., Unit 6, Richmond Hill, Ont. L48 185 Tek (905) 771-1 888 Fax: (905) 771-1 701 Brother International Corp.

1 rue Hotel de Ville Dollard des Ormeaux, Que. H98 3H6 Tek (514) 685-0600 Fax: (514) 685-0701 Toll-Free: 1-800-361-6466 Web Site: http: //www.brother.corn

BSD International Marketing

201 Spinnaker Way, Suite 4, Concord, Ont. L4K 4C6 Tel: (905) 669-6613 Fax: (905) 669-6614 http: //www.ktinet.corn BTW Electronic Parts 400 Esna Park Dr., Unit 11, Markham, Ont. L3R 3K2 Tel: (905) 479-0797 Fax; (905) 479-3601

BusinessVision Management Systems Inc. 2600 SkymarkAve.,Bldg.3,M ississauga,Ont.L4W 582 Tek (905) 629-3233 Fax: (905) 629-3208 http: //BusinessVision.corn

C.ltoh by CIE America Inc.

15-6400 Millcreek Dr., Suite 404 Mississauga,Ont. L5N 3E7 Tek (800) 668-4499 Fax: (905)

http: //www.citoh.corn

74

Cablecor Ltd.

100 Steelcase Rd. E., Suite 102, Markham, Ont. L3R 1EB Tel: (905) 475-0395 Fax: (905) 475-0395

Cabletek Electronics Ltd. 114.1 585 Broadway Port Coquitlam, B.C. V3C 2M7 Tel: (604) 942-1001 Fax: (604) 942-1010 Cail 665 Hood Rd., Markham, Ont. L3R 4E1 Tel: (905) 940-9000 Fax:(905) 940-9009

234 Church St., Markham, Ont. L3P 2M7 Tel: (905) 472-0411 Fax: (905) 472-0783 http: //web.onramp.ca/cobalt

Cognos Inc.

3755 Riverside Dr., P,O. Box 9707, Ottawa, Ont. K1G 4K9 Tel: (613) 738-1440 Fax: (613) 738-9203 http: //w ww.cognos.corn

Commercial Laser Technologies Inc.

955 Wilson Ave., Unit 13, Toronto, Ont. M3K 2AB Tel: (416) 633-6566 Fax: (416) 633-6617

Compact Data Inc. 630-3rd Ave. SW, Suite 500, Calgary, Alta. T2P 4L4 Tel: (403) 571-1 720 Fax; (403) 571-1 724 http: //ww.magellan. net/compact data

Compubooks Canada Inc. 3595 St. Claire, Suite 2, Scarborough, Ont. Tek (416) 266-3358 Fax: (416) 266-3614

Compulys Data Inc. 1800 McGill College, Suite 2102, Montreal, Que. H3A 3J6 Tek (514) 987-7466 Fax: (514) 987-9611

Computer Accessories Plus

Canon Canada Inc.

Bold Point Software Ltd.

Cobalt Technologies Inc.

45 Vogell Rd., Richmond Hill, Ont. L48 3P6 Tel: (416) 229-8936 Fax: (416) 229-8877

125 Traders Blvd. E, Unit 5 Mississauga, Ont. L4Z 2H3 Tek (905) 712-4178 Fax: (905) 712-41 79, 1-800-467-0554

Canrep Power Systems Inc.

Toll-Free: (800) 200-5379 BBS: (905) 829-2283 Tek (905) 829-5147 Fax: (905) 829-5074

Compaq Canada Inc.

Canatronic International Inc.

577 Burnamthorpe, P.O. Box 336, Etobicoke A Etobicoke, Ont. M9C 'I JO Tek (416) 695-2999 Fax: (416) 695-1991

D IR E C T O R Y

4975 Dundas St. W., P.O. Box 66, Toronto, Ont. M9A 4X1 Tel: (416) 762-1039 Fax: (416) 762-1716 250 West Beaver Creek Rd., Unit 10 Richmond Hill, Ont. L48 1C7 Tek (905) 889-7959 Fax: (905) 889-0307 Canveon Systems 16 Greenfield Ave., Willowdale, Ont. M2N 3CB Tel: (416) 226-2181 Fax: (416) 226-4341

11000 Masse, Montreal North, PQ H1G 4G3 Tel: (514) 323-1000 Fax: (514) 323-2222

Computer AssociatesCanada Ltd. 5935 Airport Rd., Mississauga, Ont. L4V 1W5 Tel: (905) 676-6700 Fax; (905) 676-6715

Computer Br Electronic

4554 Dawson Street, Burnaby B.C. V5C 4C1 Tek (604) 299-5674 Fax: (604) 299-5930 Toll-Free Order Fax: 1-800-831-4016

Computer Module Exchange (International) Inc.

319 Denison St., Markham, Ont. L3R 187 Tel: (905) 415-9500 Fax: (905) 415-8363

Computer Plug Accessories

Unit 10, 73 Railside Rd., North York, Ont. M3A 182 Tek (416) 444-3100 Fax; (416) 444-4144 Toll-free: 1-800-265-2870

Casio Canada Ltd 2100 Ellesmere Rd., Suite 240

Scarborough, Ont. M1H 387 Tel: (416) 431-3747 Fax: (416) 431-3664 http: //www.casio-usa.corn CBM Metal (Canadian Business Machines Ltd.) 1832 Bonhill Rd., Mississauga, Ont. L5T 1C4 Tek (905) 670-7471 Fax: (905) 670-3213

ChronoFAX

1751 Richardson, Suite 2529, Montreal, Que. H3K 1G6 Tel: (514) 932-9090 Fax: (514) 932-9010 http: //www.chronofax.corn

CHY Electronics (Canada) Inc. 1234 Reid St., Unit 5, Richmond Hill, Ont. L48 1C1 Tek (905) 882-9300 Fax: l905) 882-2300

CiMSYS Canada Inc. 81 RamonaBlvd.,Mar kham, Ont. L3P 2K5 Tel: (905) 472-6904

Cipher Systems Ltd. ¹110, 259 Midpark way SE, Calgary, Alberta T2X 1M2 Tel: (403) 256-8877 Fax: (403) 256-8878 Cisco Systems Canada Ltd. 150 King St. West, Suite 1707, Toronto, Ont. M5H 1J9

Tek (416) 217-8000 Fax; (416) 217-8099 http: //222.cisco.corn City Computer

Computer Square Inc.

4361 Highway 7 East, Unit e2, Unionville, Ont. L3R 1M1 Tel: (905) 415-0229 Fax: (905) 415-0164 Email: CSQUAREOIDIRECT.COM Computron Systems Inc. 401 Alden Rd. Unit 13 Markham, ON L3R 4N4 Tel: (905) 477-1177 Fax: (905) 477-8281 Toll-free: 1-800-927-4777

Comtex Micro Systems Inc.

13751 Mayfield Place, Suite 100 Richmond B.C. V6V 2G9 Tek (604) 273-8088 Fax: (604) 278-2818 Web Site: http;//www.comtexmicro.corn Branch offices Calgary, AB. Tel: (403) 250-3386 Fax: (403) 250-8092

Comtronic Computer Centre 90 Riviera Dr., Markham, Ont. L3R 5M1 Tel; (905) 479-8336 Fax; (905) 479-8658 Toll-Free: 1-800-297-5505

Branch offices:

Dartmouth, N.S. Tek (902) 468-8777 Fax: (902) 4684927 Hamilton, Ont. Tek (905) 574-3744 Fax: (905) 5748466 Montreal, Que. Tel: (514) 731-1223 Fax: (514) 731-1667 Ottawa, Ont. T el: (613) 736-7513 Fax; (613) 736-7510 Richmond, B.C. Tel: (604) 273-7280 Fax: (604) 273-7082

150-12860 Clarke Place, Richmond B.C. V6V 2H1 Tel: (604) 270-3747 Fax: (604) 270-3757

Concord Idea Corp.

Claris Canada, Inc.

Tek (905) 513-7686 Fax: (905) 513-9572 Connect Tech Inc. 727 SpeedvaleAve.W. ,Guelph,Ont.N1K 1E6 Tel: (519) 836-1 291 Fax: (519) 836-4878 http: //www.connecttech.corn

3 Church St., Ste. 402, Toronto, Ont. M5E 1M2 Tel: (416) 941-9611 Fax: (416) 941-9532 Toll Free; (800) 361-6075 Clarisys Inc. 1250 Rue Guy, Suite 803, Montreal, Que. H3H 2TH

Tek (514) 931-0810 Fax: (514) 931-1161 http: //www.clarisys.ca Classic Software Systems Inc. ¹20, 2861 Sharwood Heights Drive Oakville, Ont. L6J 7K1

3075 14th Ave., Unit 9, Markham, Ont. L3R OG9

Conner Peripherals 50 Burnhamthorpe Rd., Suite 401 Miss(ssauga, Ont. L58 3C2 Tel: (905) 272-3216 Fax: (905) 272-3264

Cooper System Development Corporation 59 Mill St. N. Newcastle, Ont. L18 1HB

hrrp//www.ccwmag.corn December 1996 W H O LESALER 5 3

S OU RC IN G

D IR E C T O R Y

Tek (905) 987-2234 Fax: (905) 987-2253 http;//oix.corn/grasp

Tek (905) 886-6371 Fax: (905) 764-7944

Tek (416) 214-2690 Fax: (416) 214-2695

Corel Corp.

Daytek Electronics Corp.

3830 JacombsRoad, Unit 105, Richmond, BC V6V 1Y6 Tel: (604) 270-3003 Fax: (604) 270-3022 Deltec 235 York)and Blvd., Suite 300, North York, Ont. M2J 4YB Tek (416) 493-0196 Fax: (416) 493-7930

Elco Systems

1600 Carling Ave. Ottawa, Ont. K1 Z BR7 Tek (613) 728-8200 Fax: (613) 728-9790

Corporate Computer Systems Inc. 22 Riyiera Driye, Markham, Ont. L3R 5M1 Tek (905) 479-2223 Fax: (905) 479-8558 Toll-Free: (800) 387-9751

CPU Systems

142 Willowdale Ave., Toronto, Ont. M2N 4Y4 Tek (416) 733-2100 Fax; (416) 733-2275

Creative Labs

5025 Orbiter Dr., Bldg. 6, Suite 301 Mississauga, Ont. L4W 4Y5 Tek (905) 238-8456 Fax: (905) 238-8541 Custom Service (800) 998-1 000 Technical Support (405) 742-6655

CSS Laboratories Canada Inc. 9225 Leslie St., Suite 1, Richmond Hill, Ont. L4B 3H6 Tek (905) 882-0260 Fax; (905) 881-0461

http: //www.csslabs.corn Cybersoft Enterprises Inc. 200 Cochrane Dr., Unit 7, Markham, Ont. L3R BEB Tek (905) 940-0966 Fax:(905) 940-0977

Cybertec Industries Inc.

¹105 — 326 E. Kent Ave. South, Vancouver, BC V5X 4N6 Tek (604) 321-2860 Fax: (604) 321-2826

Cyqcom Integrated Technologies Inc. 40 MacPhearsonRd.,Mar kham, Ont L3R 3V6 Tek (905) 771-1491 Fax: (905) 771-7657

http: //cygcom.corn D-Link Canada 2180 Dunwin Dr., M(saip'auga, Oat. L5L 5MB Tek (905) 828-0260 . ..t9051$W-5669 '

Toll-Free: (800) 354- .

DacEasy CanadaLttf) ..

3075-14th Ave., Suite 201, Markham, Ont. L3R OS9 Tel: (905) 940-3314 Fax: (905) 940-0308 Daewoo Electronics Canada Ltd. 170 A(den Rd., Markham, Ont. L3R 4C1 Tek (905) 41 5-7290 Fax: (905) 415-7287

Daisytek Canada Inc.

35 Valleywood Dr., Unit 1, Markham, Ont. L3R 5L9 Tek (905) 940-1121 Fax: (905) 940-1220

DAIWA DSS Distribution Inc 361 AldenRoad, Markham, Ont.L3R 3L4 Tek (416) 499-2889 Fax: (416) 492-6501 Branch Offices; Richmond, B.C.: Tel: (604) 244-9912 Fax: (604) 244-9986 Mississauga: Tel: (905) 238-8701 Fax: (905) 238-1586

Dasher Technology

70 Gibson Drive, Unit 11, Markham, Ont. L3R 4C2 Tek (905) 41 5-0436 Fax: (905) 41 5-0968

Dentec Computer Corporation 465 Milner Ave., Suite 3, Scarborough, Ont. M1B 2K4 Tek (416) 292-4003 Fax: (416) 292-2487

Develcon Electronics Ltd.

215 Shields Ct., Unit 3, Markham, Ont. L3R BV2 Tel: (905) 470-7301 Fax: (905) 470-7304 Branch offices: Vancouver, BC Tel: (604) 303-0206 Fax: (604)303-0207 Ottawa, ON Tek (613) 746-8227 Fax: (613)746-8679 Montreal, Que Tek (514) 333-6538 Fax: (514)333-6549

Electro Systems Group Ltd. 1120 Samford St., Winnipeg, Man. R3E 2Z9 Tek (204)772-9411 Fax: (204)772-9414

Elitegroup Computer Systems

856-51stSt.East,Saskatoon, Sask.S7K 5C7 Tel: (800) 667-9333 Fax: (306) 931-1370 http: //www.develcon.corn

44 East Beaver Creek Rd., Suite 14 Richmond Hill, Ont. L4B 1GB Tek (905) 771-1602 Fax: (905) 771-1605 http: //www.ecsusa.corn

Devita Associates 30 West Beaver Creek Rd., Suite 11 Richmnd Hill, Ont. L4B 3K1 Tel: (905) 771-8373 Fax: (905) 771-8375

EM| Data Systems Ltd.

PO Box 1012, Guelph, Ont N1H 6N1 Tek (519) 837-2444 Fax: (519) 836-1914 Branch offices: Richmond B.C. Tek (604) 270-9324 Fax: (604) 270-7834 Calgary, Alta. Tek (403) 250-5343 Fax: (403) 250-5373 Bedford, B.S. Tek (902) 835-1621 Fax: (902) 835-9127 St. Laurent, QueTek (514) 745-4500 Fax: (514) 745-2886

Dictaphone Canada 630 TheEast Mall,Etobicoke,On. M9B 4B2 Tel: (416) 621-7600 Fax: (416) 621-1551 http: //www.dictaphone.corn

Digidyne Inc.

Winnipeg, Man. Tek (204) 949-0055 Fax: (204) 949-0063

2100 Matheson Blvd. E., Suite 101 Mississauga, Ont. L4W 5E1 Tel: (905) 624-0404 Fax: (905) 624-1 919 http: //www.digidyne.ca

EMPAC Com uter Corp 168 Konard Crescent, Markham, Ont. L3R 9T9 Tek (905) 940-3600 Fax: (905) 940-3604

DigitalEquipment of Canada Ltd. 675 Cochrane Dr., Markham, Ont. L3R OY7

Branch Office;

Tek (905) 948-3000 Fax: (905) 948-3070

Digital Frontiers

601 Braid St., Penticton British Columbia V2A 4Y6 1-604-490-9885

Discis Knowledqe Research Inc. 90 Sheppard Ave. E., 7th Floor, Toronto, Ont. M2N 3A1 Tek (416) 250-6537 Fax: (416) 250-6540 http: //222.goodmedia.corn/discis

Montreal, QuebecTek (51 4)345-9000 Fax: (514) 345-8551 Vancouver, B.C. Tek (604) 821-0177 Fax: (604) 821-0277 EPROM Computer Systems 705 Middlefield Road, Unit 101 Scarborough, Ont. M1V 5H5 Tek (416) 321-1336 Fax: (416) 321-1831

EPSON Canada Ltd. 550 McNichol Ave., Willowdale, Ont M2H 2E1 Tek (41 6) 498-9955 Fax: (416) 498-4574

Discount Computer Club

2/F, 145-4471 No. 6 Road, Richmond, B.C. V6V 1PB Tel: (604) 821-1108 Fax: (604) 821-0813 Fax-on-demand: (604) 525-1 089

ER Group Inc.

DiscoverWare Inc.

Essapac Products Ltd.

926-5th Ave. SW, 5th Floor, Calgary, Alta. T2P ON7 Tek (403) 237-0426 Fax: (403) 237-0457

http: //www.discoverware.corn

27 Ricardo Court, Hamilton, Ont. LBW 2S1 Tek (800) 671-7121 Fax: (905) 575-7874 755 The Queensway E., Suite 16 Mississauga, Ont. L4Y 4C5

Tek (905) 275-6309 Fax: (905) 275-0556 http: //www.essapac.corn

Dominion Multimedia Inc.

130 Don Park Rd., Suite 3, Markham, Ont. L3R 1C3 Tek (905) 470-9896 Fax: (905) 470-9909

Dynacom Technologies Inc.

ETC, Everythinq to Connect, Inc.

150 Consumers Rd, Suite 102, North York, Ont. M2J 1P9 Tek (416) 449-1382 Fax: (416) 499-3372

1955 Cote de Liesse, Suite 202 Montreal, Que, H4N 3AB Tek (514) 745-6655 Fax: (514) 745-0054 http: //www.dynacom.ca

Ever Corp. (Canada) Ltd.

Dynamic ChannelsCanada Inc

342 Eglinton Ave. E., Toronto, Ont. M4P 1LB Tek (416) 487-4663 Fax: (416) 486-9718

Evergreen Peripherals Inc.

Data Accessories Corporation

22 Riviera Dr., Suite 3, Markham, Ont. L3R 5M1 Tek (905) 770-0275 Fax:(905) 770-0256

385 Admiral Blvd., Suite 11, Mississauga, Ont. LST 2MB Tek (905) 564-7336 Fax: (905) 5Q-7340

Data General(Canada) Company 350-7070Mississauga Rd.,M ississauga, Ont.L5N 7JB

Dynatek Automation Systems Inc. 260 Bluewater Rd. Bedford, NS B48 1G9 Tek (902) 832-3000 Fax:(902) 832-3010 Branch offices:

¹248-13986,Cambie Rd.,Richmond B.C.V6V 2K3 Tek (604) 273-8008 Fax. (604) 273-8820

172 Trowers Rd., Woodbridge, Ont. L4L BA7 Tek (905) 850-8484 Fax: (905) 850-8490 Tel: (905) 819-5300 Fax: (905) 819-5418 http: //www.dg.corn Datacom 26 Barlow Rd., Markham, On. L3R BA2 Tek (905) 415-8655 Fax: (905) 415-8660 http: //inforamp.net/-datacom

DATAHOME Infosystems 263-13986 Cambie Road, Richmond, B.C. V6V 2K3 Tel: (604) 278-3584 Fax: (604) 278-0532 Toll Free: 1-800-361-DISK

DATALINK (urtec) 129 Telson Road, Markham, Ont. L3R 1E4 Tek (905) 415-0145 Fax: (905) 475-9840 Datamex Technologies Inc. 115 Norfinch Dr., Downsview, Ont. M3N 1WB Tek (416) 665-1808 Fax; (416) 665-0682 DataneticsLtd. 1580 Beau(ac, Montreal, Que. H4R 1WB Tel: (514) 331-9930 Fax: (514) 331-1498 Data-tel Cabling Systems 145 Langstaff Rd East, Scarborough, ON L3t 3M6 54

Evetek Computer

The companymanufactures personalcomputersand

Toronto, Ont.: Tek (416) 636-3000 Fax: (416) 636-3011 Vancouver, B.C. Tek (604) 681-0111 Fax: (604) 681-0141

Dysan/Memorex Canada

Exabyte Corp.

980 DenisonSt.,M arkham, Ont. L3R 3K5 Tek (905) 475-8870 Fax: (905) 475-9992

E-LOG Business Systems

240 Riviera Drive, Unit 3, Markham, ~L f ~ Tek (905) 946-9649 Fax; (905) 94

5M ' 1

E-Tech Canada Limited 7725 Birchmount Road, Unit ¹4 Markham, Ont. L3R 9X3 Tel; (905) 479-9696 Fax: (905) 479-9582

Easypay 1733 Heritage Way, Oakville, Ont. L6M 3A2 Tek (905) 825-8020 Fax: (905) 825-9660

Edge Wholesaler

Unit¹2, 3375 14th Ave., Markham, Ont. L3R 2L6 Tek (905) 948-0000 Fax: (905) 948-0505

Eicon Technology Corp.

150 York St. West, Suite 804, Toronto, Ont. MSH 3S5

WH OL E SALER D e c ember 1996 /i t rpl/ wwccwmag.corn

distributes PC peripherals.

Branch office: Calgary: Tek (403) 250-3633 Fax: (403) 250-1 360 3800 Steeles Ave. West, Suite 121 W oodbridge, ont.L4L 4G9 Tek (416) 744-6006 Fax: (416) 740-8119

Excel Business Centre

86 Sheppard Ave. West, North York, Ont. M2N 1M2 Tek (416) 225-4121 Fax: (416) 225-6349

Exide Electronics Canada Inc.

380 Carlingview DR., Ont. M9W 5X9 Tek (416) 798-0112 Fax: (416) 798-0062 Toll Free: 1-800-461-91 66

Faronics Technologies Inc.

57A-53 Clipper Street, Coquitlam, „Q V3KGX2 Tek (604) 540-8199 Fax: (604) 5 E-maik fali@axoinet,corn

Fastech Computer Ltd.

160-13751 Mayfield Place, Richmond B.C. V6V 2G9 Tek (604) 279-9686 Fax: (604) 279-9787

S O U R C IN G E-maikfastech@compucon.corn Branch office: Alberta Tek (403) 291-3351 Fax: (403) 291-3519 E-maikfastech ab@compucon.corn Focus Electronics (CANADA) Inc. ¹145 - 4471 No. 6 Road, Richmond, B.C. V6V 1PB Tek (604) 273-8086 Fax: (604) 273-3488 Fujitsu Canada Inc. 2800 MathesonBlvd. East,M ssissauga,Ont.L4W 4X5 Tek (905) 602-5454 Fax: (905) 602-5457

Gainbery, Cojnftu +W Products, Inc.

165 SteeFca¹e Aol(TEttat,' Markham. Ont. L3R 1G1 Tel: 1-80~sTBtft,@tert-905-41 5-9970 GATESir + ~ ~ ting 1093 Meyersi& (7ffve," Iv'Iiasissauga, Ont. L5T 1M4 GB Micro Electronics Inc. 5575 Ch. St. Francis,St-Laurent, QC H4S 1W6

Tek (514) 333-7373 Fax: (514) 334-7707 Toll Free: (800) 361-2568 Branch Office: Toronto, Ont Tek (905) 672-6767 Fax: (905) 672-6788 Toll Free: 1-800-461-6357 Vancouver, BC Tel: (604) 733-9443 Fax: (604) 730-9806 Toll Free: (800) 303-5222

General Datacomm Ltd.

Mackie Enterprises Ltd. ¹180-12868 Clarke Place, RichptgnrL B,C V V,2H1

Tek (800) (BM-4YOU

Impulse Computer Corptsratlo +p

2700 Argenti a Road,Mississaug'a,6' nt.LBN 5V4 Tek (905) 858-3000 Fax: (906) 86+ggji Toll Free: 800-668-1 111

Inqram Micro Inc. (Canade-

23GBarmac Drive, Weston, Ont. M9L 223 Tek (905) 740-9404 Fax; (905) 740-6100 Branch offices: Montreal, QC. Tek (514) 334-9785 Fax: (514) 334-2174 Ottawa, Ont. Tek (613) 228-3386 Fax: (613) 228-3387 Calgary, AB, Tel (403) 285-6321 Fax: (403) 285-6178 Richmond, B.C. Tek (604) 276-8357 Fax: (604) 276-8359 lnterWorld Electronics Et Computer Industries Ltd. 1641 Welch St. North Vancouver, BC Tek (604) 984-4171 Fax: (604) 984-8357 E-mail:interwor)d-vcrttmindlink.bc.ca

IPC Personal Computers (3D Microcomputers) 350 SteelcaseRd. W, Markham, Ont.L3R 1B3 Tek (905) 479-8822 Fax; (905) 479-7688

¹W308,2255 Sheppard Ave East Willowdale, Ont. M2J 4Y1 Tek (416) 498-5100 Fax: (416) 499-0248

jaba Sjasteht~4tstt

Genicom Canada Inc.

Kao Inf( aiyitems ' C anada Inc.

100 Commerce Valley Drive East Thornhill Ont., L3T 7R1 Tek (905) 882-2500 Fax: (905) 882-7588

+ ~ S:

Im a Technolog Inc 5986 East Boulevard, Vancouver, B.C. V6M 3V4 Tel: (604) 261-1800 Fax; (604) 263-9201 Toll-Free: 1-800-663-9272

80 sI)ig.C~ ~

D IR E C T O R Y

bs m , ont. L3R 9T5

Tek (905) 4Xf-08X~Fa)r: (905) 477-6891

Tek (604) 270-3386 Fax: (6 Macom Canada Inc.

500Alden Road Unit 7 Mar)tittrrtt ~ +R~ Tek (905) 479-0220 Fax: (90g @9-gQ E-Maik macom@ipoline.corn" Markham Computer Corp.

201 Whitehall Drive, Markham, Ont. L3R BY3 Tek (905) 475-5100 Fax: (905) 475-8955 Branch office: Richmond, B.C. Tel (604) 273-9114 Fax: (604) 273-9142

Matrox Graphics Inc.

1025 St. Regis Blvd., Dorval, Que. H9P 2T4 Tek (514) 685-2630 Fax: (514) 685-2853

Matsushita Electric of Canada (Panasonic)

5770 Ambler Dr., Mississauga, Ont. L4W 2T3 Tel: (905) 238-2320 Fax; (905) 238-2417 Branches offices: Calgary, Alta.: Tek (403) 295-3112 Fax: (403) 2955493 Richmond, B.Cz Tek (604) 278<211 Fax: (604) 278-5116 Montreal, Que.: Tek (514) 633-3503 Fax: (514) 633-1086

Maxell Canada

111 Staffern Dr., Concord, Ont. L4K 2R2 Tel: (905) 669-8107 Fax: (669-8108 Branch offices: Montreal, Que. Tek (514) 443-8371 Fax: (514) 421-3950 Vancouver, B.C, Tek (604) 439-7798 Fax: (604) 439-7017

McKinnon Micro Distributing

¹170-12815 Clarke Place, Richmond, BC VBV 2H9 Tel: (604) 279-9917 Fax: (604) 279-9918

Gentek Marketing Inc.

10 Didak" Igt: P(tr. Box 41, Arnprior, Ont. K7S 3H2 Tek (613) 623-7901 Fax: (613) 623-2886 Branch offices:

20 Barners Court, Bldg G, Concord, Ont. L4K 4L4 Tek (905) 738-9300 Fax: (905) 738-5563 Branch Office: Richmond, BC Tek (604) 273-5066 Fax: (604) 273-5003

M ississauga, Ont.: Tek (41 6) 890-8590 Fg III46) ~ 9 5 Vancouver, B.C.: Tek (604) 431-9599 Fax: (604)4314630 KMI Electronics Inc. 7170 Warden Ave., Unit 5, Markham,' ~%8848f +

¹225-10711 Cambie Road, Richmond, B.C. V6X 3G5 Tek (604) 821-1178 Fax: (604) 821-1107 E-mail:mhittskybus.corn

GHM Computer Accessories

Tel: (905) 946-9533 Fax: (905) 946-9535

8557 MainStreet,Vancouver B.C.V5X 3M3 Tel; (604) 321-8533

63 Silverstar Blvd., Unit C-11 Scarborough Ont. M1V 5E5 Tek (416) 299-3369 Fax: (416) 299-3685

Globelle Corporation

5101, Orbitor Drive Mississauga, Ont. L4W 4V1 Toll Free: 1-800-465-1 616 Fax: (905) 629-4331 Branch Offices: Richmond, BC Tek (604) 273-1155 Fax: (604) 273-0629 Dorval, QC Tek (514) 631-1686 Fax: (514) 631-7198 Winnipeg, MB Tek (204) 989-8750 Fax: (204) 254-7832

GMS Datalink International Cor ¹102 342 East Kent Ave., Vancouver B.C. V5X 4N6 Tek (604) 327-4335 Fax: (604) 327-2600 Toll-free 1-800-750-4848 Branch offices Richmond Hil),Ont. Tek (905) 771-1188 Fax: (905) 771-1131 Toll Free 1-800-361-3234

Kodak Canada Inc.

3500 Eglinton Ave. West, Toronto, Ont. M6M 1V3 Tek (416) 766-8233 Fax: (416) 761-4409

L'ante &00 ~r 250 hialds Court, Suite ¹19, Markham, Ont. L3R 9W7 Tel: fI)'477-6868 Fax: (905) 477-2226 '4' -' ' puter Exhibitions, Inc. 14 Ffo(¹s crescent, Holland Landing, ont. L9N 1E7 Tek (800) 265-7081 Fax back: (905) 853-3210

Memory House Inc.

Mentek Systems Corp.

Merisel Canada 200 RonsonDrive,Erobicoke,Ont. M9W 5T9 Tel: (416) 240-7012 Fax: (416l 240-2605 Branch offices: St. Laurent, QC. Tek (514) 745-1695 Fax: (514) 745-1736 Richmond, B.C. Tek (604) 273-2445 Fax: (604) 273-1113

Micrografx

3242 Hazelwood Ave., Burlington, Ont. L7M 2T4 Tek (905) 332-6641 Fax; (905) 332-8123

Mindf light Technology Inc.

Lapro Marketin 120-3771 Jacombs Road, Richmond B.C. V6V 2M5 Tek (604) 231-1628 Fax: (604) 231-1626

1995 Boundary Road, 2nd Floor, Vancouver, B.C. V5M 3Y7 Tek (604) 294-6465 Fax: (604) 294-1301

Minitronics Office Automation

LCF Advanced Technology Ltd.

Golden Draqon Systems 3330 McNicoll Avenue, Scarborough, Ont. M1V 2L2

Unit ¹333-1 3988 Cambie Road, Richmond, B.C. V6V 2K4 Tel: (604) 303-9628 Fax: (604) 303-9638

110-3320 Jacombs Road, Richmond, B.C. Tel: (604) 278-0783 Fax: (604) 278-0769

Tek (41 6) 297-1 202 Fax; (416) 754-2240 Branch Offices; Ottawa, Ont. Tek (613) 739-0775 Fax: (613) 739-8298 Richmond, B.C. Tek (604) 278-1181 Fax: (604) 278-1137

LCH Resources Inc. ¹9 - 13511 Crestwood Place, Richmond, B.C. Tek (604) 278-0708 Fax: (604) 278-0305

40 Shields Court 1-2, Markham, Ont. L3R OM5 Tek (905) 946-0908 Fax: (905) 946-8749 Toll Free: 1-800-796-5225 Web site: http: //www.microiack.corn

Lexmark Canada Inc.

Mitsubishi Electric Sales Canada Inc.

Group 1 Software

710 Dorval Drive, Suite 518, Oakville, Ont. L6K 3V7 Tet (905) 844-7273

Hall-Mark Computer POoducts 151 Superior Boulevard, Misslssfruga. QC.: 5T 2L1 Tek (800) 668-798 Fax: (90@7~ ~, Hewitt Rand Corp.

160 Admiral Blvd., Mississauga, Gnt. LB'f 2I4 Tek (905) 795-9600 Fax: (905) 795-1900 Branch office: Richmond, B.C. Tek (604) 276-8271 Fax: (604) 270-0187

Hewlett-PackardCanada Ltd. 5150 Spectrum Way, Mississauga, Ont. L4W 5G1

MIT Com uter Su lies Co. Ltd

160 Royal Crest Ct., Markham, Ont. L3R OA2 Tek (905) 477-2311 Fax: (905) 477-3933 Toll Free: 1-800-663-7662

Information Technologies Group 4299 14thAve. Markham, Ont. L3R 0J2 Tet (905) 475-7728

LG Electronics Canada, Inc. 7391 Pacific Circle, Mississauga, Ont. L5T 2A4

Motion Works Corp.

Tek (905) 670-0650 Fax: (905) 670-2379

Lin Haw International Co., Ltd.

Motorola Information Systems Group

8445 Main St., Vancouver B.C. V5X 3M3 Tek (604) 325-8880 Fax: (604) 663-2284

400 MathesonBlvd.West, Mississauga, Ont. L5R 3M1

1-800-663-2284

Tel: (905) 507-7200 Fax: (905) 507-7231

Logic Controls Canada Inc.

Hitachi (Canadian) Ltd.

13980 Bridgeport Rd. Richmond, BC V6V 1V3 Tek (604) 267-2360 Fax: (604) 267-2398 Branch Office Scarborough ON Tek (41 6)391-0864 Fax: (41 6) 391-8269

6740 Campobell o Rd.,M ississauga,Ont.L5N 2LB Tek (905) 826-4100 Fax: (905) 826-8818

Logitech Canada, Inc.

Hyuen Canadian Enterprises Ltd. 240-11181 Bridgeport Road, Richmond, B.C. V6X 1T2

Mississauga, Ont. L4W 4Y5

Tek (905) 206-4725 Fax: (905) 206-4739 Toll-Free: (800) 387-3867

Tel: (604) 279-8818 Fax: (604) 278-3089 IBM Canada Ltd. 3600 Steeles Ave. E,M arkham, Ont. L3R 9Z7

MultiMedia Effects Inc. 40 Wynford Drive, Suite 106, North York, Ont. M3C 1J5 Tek (416) 444-2324 Fax: (416) 444-0465 Toll-Free: 1-800-367-3054

Multimedia S)tffbtfbn¹btli'..N Lower 1401,~ i +,W,, a r y, Alberta, T2R OW7

5025 Orbitor Dr., Bldg. 6, Ste200

Tel: (905) 629-2006 Lonson Group

1020 Mainland St., Suite 130, Vancouver, B.C. V6B 2T4 Tek (604) 685-9975 Fax: (604) 685-6105

@ '~~;

¹3-3511 Viking Way, Richmond B.C. V6V 1W1 Tek (604) 273-4668 Fax; (604) 273-7989

'233-7757 Tel: (403) 233 National Co~'uter pro units

16636 - 117th Avenue, Edmcrnton, AB T5M 3W2 Tek (403) 454-7400 Fax: (403) 455-5439

frrrp://www.ccwmag.corn December 1996 W H O L ESALER 5 5

S O U R C IN G

D IR E C T O R Y

Toll Free Sales: 1-800-661-6959 Branch offices; Mississauga, Ont. Tek(905) 62541 25 Fax: (905) 6254885 Vancouver, B.C. Tek (604) 253-3400 Fax: (604) 2534249 Calgary, AB. T e k (403) 262-7270 Fax: (403) 455-5439

Ottawa, Ont. Tek (613) 745-1888

Tel: (403) 486-4953 Fax: (403) 484-8767 Toll-free Tek (800) 665-SCAN Fax: (800) 663-SCAN

Perle Systems Ltd. 60 Renfrew Drive, Markham, Ont. L3R OE1 Tek (905) 475-8885 Fax: (905) 475-8646

Philips Electronics Ltd.

NEBS Business Forms Ltd. 330 Cranston Cr., Midland, Ont. L4R 4V9 Tek (705) 526-4233 Fax: (705) 526-0570

601 Milner Ave., Scarborough, Ont. M1B 1MB Tel: (41 6) 754-6245 Fax: (416) 754-6235

NEC Technologies Canada

Pinnacle Micro, Inc.

6225 KenwayDnve,Mississauga, Ont. L5T 2L3 Tek (905) 795-3600 Fax; (905) 795-3583

19 Technology, Irvine, CA 92718, USA Tel: (714) 789-3000

Nextech

Pioneer Electronic of Canada Inc. 300 Allstate Parkway, Markham, Ont. L3R OP2

1450 Lodestar Road, Unit 1, Downsview, Ont. M3J 3C1 Tek (416) 638-8060 Email: nextech@interlog.corn

NMB Precision inc.

370 Britannia Rd. E., Unit¹5, Mississauga, Ont. L4Z 1X9 Tek (905) 890-0570 Fax: (905) 890-9279 Branch offices: Vancouver Tek (604) 990-0889 Fax: (604) 990-0899 Montreal Tek (514) 368-9903 Fax: (514) 368-9906

Novell Canada Ltd. 3100 Steeles Ave. E,M arkham, Ont. L3R BT3 Tel: (905) 940-2670 Fax: (905) 940-2688

Okidata 2 735 Matheson Blvd E., Miss(s'sly," ~ T ek (905) 238-4250 Fax: (905$~ 2 1

V(/ 4 MB

Toll free: 1-800-654-3282

Ongoing Results Ltd. ¹8-117 Ringwood Dr., Stouffville, O'nt' E'4AvBC'I' Tek (905) 642-3500 Fax: (905) 642-3545 Oracle Corp. Canada Inc. 100-110 Matheson Boulevard W M issisauga, Ont. LSR 3P4 Tel: (905) 890-8100 Fax: (905) 890-1207

Orchestra MultiSystems Canada Inc. 4444 Eastgate Parkway, Unit 4 Mississauga, Ont. L4W 4T6

Tek (905) 625-7783 Fax: (905) 624-3834

Pacific ForWi@¹t'& +. Corp. (Precision)

¹168-1398 Tek (604) 2

/(a~ d r Richmond B.C. V6V 2K2 '~ ( 5 34) 270-4488

Pacifi«Rarfl ' stribution Corp.

Powernode Computer Inc.

500 A)den Road, Unit 19, Markham, Ont. L3R 5H5 Tek (905) 474-1040 Fax: (905) 474-1049

Powersoft Systems Ltd.

103-14888 104th Ave., Surrey, B.C. V3R 1M4 Tek (604) 582-7488 Fax: (604) 582-7399

Progress Marketing In«.

140-6755Graybar Road, Richmond B.C.V6W 1HB Tel: (604) 821-0066 Fax: (604) 821-0110 Toll Free: 1-800-818-6944

Pro-data Unit 6, 854 Marion St. Winnipeg, MA, R2J OK4 Toll Free: 1-800-567-3274 Tek (203) 231-0590

Promar Enterprises Company Ltd.

2595 E. 8th Avenue, Vancouver, B.C. V5M 1W3 Tet(604) 251-5768 Fax:(604) 251-6588

Protec Microsystems 297 Labrosse, Pointe-C)aire, Ekiiebec, H9R 1A3

Tek (514) 630-5832 Fax: (514) 630-2987 Provincial Products 3035 WhartonWay, Mississauga, Ont. L4X 2B4 Toll Free:1-800-267-4686 (905) 629-3737 Fax: 1-800-665-1 982, (905) 629-1 982

Pucka Computer Corp.

50 Don ParkRd.,Unit5,6 M akham, Ont.L3R 1J3 Tek (905) 940-9839 Fax: (905) 940-6977

QDI Computer (Canada),

Pacific Royal Enterprises Ltd.

Tek (604) 278-6789 Fax: (604) 2~T:8 QMS Canada Inc.

383-13988Cambie Road.,Richmond B.C. Tek (604) 279-873 Fax: (604) 279-8739 Toll-Free: 1-800-538-8212

Packard Bell Electronics

1025 Tristar Dr., Mississauga, Ont. L5T 1W5 Tek (905) 564-1122 Fax: (905) 564-1148

Pal-Tec Marketing 1182 Sanford St., Winnipeg Man. R3E 2Z9 Tek (204) 774-6051 Fax: (204) 774-6045 Toll-Free: 1-800-665-3095.

Paltech Solutions Bay 4, 417, 53 Aveue S.E., Calgary, Alberta T2H 2E7 Tek (403) 255-5646 Fax: (403) 255-5759

PC Craft Inc.

75 Konrad Cres., Unit A, Markham, Ont. L3R BTB Tek (905) 475-5177 Fax: (905) 475-2893 PC DOCS Group International Inc. 85 Scarsdale Road, Suite 200, Toronto, Ont. M3B 2R2 Tel: (416) 445-4823 Fax: (416) 445-6228

PC One Two Three Computer Corp.

1100 Begin, Suite 100, St. Laurent, Que. H4R 1X1 Tek (514) 334-9340 Fax: (514) 334-7671

Branch office: Quebec City, Que.: Tel: (418) 872-3492 Fax: (418) 872-1968

PC Source Systems (Canada) Inc.

1271 Denison Street, Unit 52, Markham, Ont. L3R 4B5 Tek (905) 513-1811 Fax: (905) 513-0039 Peri heral Ex ress Inc. 3115 14th Ave., Suite 7, Markham, Ont. L3R OH1 Tel: (905) 513-5777 Fax: 905) 513-5770 Branch offices: Richmond, B.C. Tel: (604) 273-8281 Fax: (604) 273-8207 Calgary, AB Tel: (403) 250-8281 Fax: (403) 250-8325 Markham, Ont. Tel (905) 513-5777 Fax: (905) 513-5770 St. Laurent, QC. Tel (514) 956-1234 Fax: (514) 956-1099

56

Sceptre Technologies Inc 16800 E. Gale Ave., City of Industry CA, USA 91 745 Tel: (818) 369-3698 Fax; (818) 369-3488

SCO Canada Inc.

Tel: (905) 946-7427 Fax: (905) 946-741 7 Toll Free: 1-800-850-1 703

Suite 135-1%38: Clarke'Place, Richmond B.C. V6V 2H6 Tek (604) 279-0753 Fax: (604) 279-0748

Scene 2 Interactive Distributors 136 Winges Road, Suite 8, Woodbridge, Ont. L4L 6C3 Tek (905) 856-3456 Fax; (905) 851-0844

75 Shields Court, Unit 4, Mark@~ Tel: (905) 940-3827 Fax: (905N~ 7 9 9 "'~ ~=:

4 $~¹'-„ '

2600 SkymarkAve.Ste.5,M ississauga,Ont.L4W 5B2 Tek (905) 206-0848 Fax: (905) 206-0903

QNETIX Distribution

130 Bloor St. West, 10th Floor, Toronto, Ont. M5S 1N5 Tek (416) 922-1937 Fax: (416) 922-8397

SDMS Ltci ¹1 -3531 Jacombs Road, Richmond, B.C. V6V 1ZB Tel: (604) 270-6787 Fax; (604) 270-4556 Toll Free: 1-800-677-SDMS Branch Offices: Mississauga, Ont Tel: (905) 564-4897 Fax: (905) 564-5920 Montreal, Que. Tel: (514) 343-9998 Fax: (514) 3434421

Seanix Technology Inc.

¹140- 6631 Elmbrldge Way, Richmond B.C. V7C 4N1 Tek (604) 273-3692 Fax: (604) 276-8179 Branch Offices: Galgary, AB. Tel: (403) 291-9141 Fax: (403) 291-3916 Concord, Ont. Tek (905) 660-8829 Fax: (905) 660-8840

Serviceworks Distribution Inc. 13880 Mayfield Place Richmond, BC V6V 2N7

Tel: (604) 273-4453 Fax: (604) 270-71 50 Branch Office: Mississauga ON Tel: (905) 712-2000 Fax: (905) 71 2-0041 St. Laurent QC Tel: (514) 3444044 Fax: (514) 3444008

Shar Electronics of Canada 335 Britannia Rd. East, Mississauga, Ont. L4Z 1W9 Tel: (905) 890-2100 Fax: (905) 568-7109 Shikatronics Inc Ste 204,30 Taschereau Blvd.West, LaPrairie, Quebec J5R 5H7 Tek (514) 444-4200 Fax: (514) 444-9696 Toll-Free: 1-800-637-6477

SidusSystems inc.

66 Leek Crescnt, Richmond Hill, Toronto, Ont. L4B 1J7 Tek (905) 882-1 600 Fax: (905) 882-2429 Wab Site: http: //www.sidus.ca Branch office: Vancouver: Tek (604) 322-1711 Fax: (604) 322-1722 Edmonton: Tek (403) 424-2987 Fax: (403) 424-8634 Winnipeg: Tek (204) 287-8993 Fax: (204) 287-8767 Ottawa; Tek (613) 749-1777 Fax: (613) 749-3850 Montreal: Tek (514) 731-9050 Fax: (514) 731-1069 Halifax: T e l: (902) 420-9460 Fax: (902) 420-2762 Austin, TX; Tel; (512) 349-7345 Fax: (512) 349-7346

1155 Rene-Levesque West, Suite 816, Montreal, Que. Tek (514) 875-2643 Fax: (514) 875-9996 Toll Free:1-800-860-6389 Web Site:http;//www.qnetix.ca

W50B Caldari Road,Concord,Ont .L4K 4NB Tek (905) 738-7122 Fax: (905) 738-7120 Toll-Free: 1-800-565-7157

Quest Components Inc.

Skyway Computer Centre Inc.

795 WardenAve.,Scarborough, Ont. M1L 4C4 Tek (416) 751-8888 Fax: (416) 751-5637

Radius Inc,„Cftrt¹td@i,„ 250 The Esp~e-,'1b@hWo,Ont. M5A 1J2 Tek (416) 7P®0+~ ( 4 16) 777-9911 RC Electrp~Q R ~ ;~ 90 Nolan Coign(t W Markham, Ontario L3R 4L9 Tel: (905) 415-8600 Fax: (905) 415-8603

Ready Computer International ¹110-12860 Clarke Place, Richmond B.C. V6V 2H1 Tel; (604) 270-7618 Fax: (604) 270-7658

Samsung Electronics Canada Inc. 7037 Financial Dr. Mssissauga, Ont. L5N 6R3 Tek (905) 542-3535 Fax: (905) 542-3835,—: Samtack Computer,Inc.

385 Bentley St., Markham, Ont. L3R SKAG~~+

+~

Tel: (905) 940-1880 Fax: (905) 940-0' Sanyo Canada Inc.

50 Beth Nealson Drive Toronto, ON M4H1M6 Tek (416) 421-8344 Fax: (416) 421-8827 Branch Offic; Vancouver BC Tek (604) 278-4466 Fax: (604) 278-2599 Montreal QC Tek (514) 342-0290 Fax: (514) 342-8494

ScanSource Canada Ltd. ¹200, 10310-1 76 Street NW, Edmonton, AB T5S 1L3

WH O L E SALER D ecember 1996 ht tp: //www.ccwmag.corn

SimpleTechnology Inc.

41 Bentley St. Markham, Ont. L3R 3L1 Tel: (905) 513-9300 Fax: (905) 513-9059

Sola Canada

1600 Aimco Blvd., Unit 9, Mississauga, Ont. L4W1V1 Tek (905) 206-0203 Fax: (905) 206-0075

SonLab Pro-Sonic Electronic Su lies Inc. 110 Ferrier St. Markham, Ont. L3R 2Z5 Tek (905) 41 5-8988 Fax: (905) 41 5-8989

Sony of Canada Ltd. Computer and Personal Information Products 405 Gordon Baker Rd„Willowdale, Ont. M2H 2S6 Tek (416) 499-1414 Fax; (416) 497-1774 SPEC Research Inc. 19433 San Jose City of Industry, CA, USA 91748 Tel: (909) 595-1 258 Fax: (909) 595-5176 Branch Office: North West Tek (510) 440-81 90 Fax: (51 0) 440-81 91

Spectrum Signal Processing Inc.

8525 Baxter Pl., 100 Production Court, Burnaby B.C. V5A 4V7 Tek (604) 421-5422 Fax: (604) 421-1764

StarTechComputer Products 175 Stronach Crescent, London, Ont. N5V 3G5 Tek (519) 455-9675 Fax: (519) 455-9425 Internet: startech.computer@onlinesys.corn

S OUR C I N G D I R E C T O R Y STD Systems Inc.

861 Consortium Court, London, Ont. N6E 2SB Tek (519) 680-3333 Fax: (519) 680-2939 Web site: http: //www.std.ca Edmonton, AB. Tek (403) 466-6800 Fax: (403) 465-5355 Richmond, BC: Tel: (604) 278-2893 Fax: (604) 278-2861 Dartmouth, NS: Tek (902) 468-3221 Fax: (902) 468-1017 Toronto, Ont.: Tek (905) 477-0388 Fax: (905) 477-0117 Calgary, AB. Tel: (403) 250-9575 Fax: (403) 250-9544 Montreal, Que: Tel: (514) 334-9340 Fax; (51 4)334-7671 Ottawa, Ont.: Tel: (613) 736-7282 Fax; (613) 736-7289

Stealth Computer Corp.

1791 Albion Rd., Toronto, Ont. M9W 5S7 Tek (416) 674-3800 Fax: (416) 674-1225

Toll Free: 1-800-667-6769

Trimex Marketing Inc.

4611 Viking Way, Suite 120, Richmond, B.C. V6V 2K9 Tek (604) 278-6700 Fax: (604) 278-8619 Toll Free: 1-800-663-8883 Branch office: Markham Ont. Tek (905) 474-0111 Fax: (905l 474-1 952

Truger Technologies Inc. 7305 Rapistan Court, Mississauga, Ont, L5N 5Z4

Tek (905l 542-8454 Fax; (905) 542-9223 Branch offices: Montreal, Que.: Tek (514) 339-1885 Fax: (514) 339-1882 Vancouver, B.C.: Tek (604) 482-8649 Fax: (604) 482-4285

Trumpet Distributors Ltd.

Sun Microsystems of Canada Inc.

100 Renfrew Dr. Markham, Ont. L3R 9R6

Unit 2138-20800 Westminster Hwy., Richmond, BC V6V 2W3 Toll Free: 1-888-881-2288 Fax: (604) 279-9972

Sunnet Image Ltd.

TTX Canada Inc.

6851 Antrim Avenue, Burnaby, B.C. V5J 4M5 Tek (604) 437-3388 Fax: (604) 437-3308

Supercom 911 Denison St., Markham, Ont. L3R 3K4 Tek (905) 415-1166 Fax: (905) 415-1177 Branch office: Richmond, B.C.: Tek (604) 276-2677 Fax: (604) 276-0807

Symantec Canada 895 Don Mills Rd., 500-2 Park Centre, Toronto,Ont. M3C 1W3

Tek (416) 446-8495 Fax: (416) 443-4318

Target Electronics 21 Dundas Square, Toron@„Dnt. M5B 1BB Tek (416) 862-9400 Fax.'„ '$624)518 Toll Free: 1-800-268,78, Tatung Canada ,„

13980 Bridgeport Road, Richmond, B.C. V6V 1V3 Tek (604) 303-9199

Tech Data Canada Inc. 6895 Columbus Road, Mississauga, Ont. L5T 2G9

Tek (905) 670-8899 Fax: (905) 795-2355 Toll Free: 1-800-668-5588 Branch offices: Richmond, B.C.: Tel: 1-800-663-0968

Tektronix Canada Inc.

785 Arrow Road, Weston, Ont. M9M 2L4 Tek (416) 747-5000 Fax: (416) 747-9799 Toll Free: 1-800-661-5625 Web Site: http: //www.tek.corn

Tenex Data Corp.

45 Commander Blvd. Scarborough, Ont. M1S 3Y3 Tek (416) 291-7151 Fax: (416) 291-6416 Texas Instruments Canada Ltd.

Personal Productivity Products

41 Shelley Rd., Richmond Hill, ON L4C 5G4 Tek (905) 884-9181 Fax: (905) 884-2819

The Source Code Escrow Company Ltd.

Suite 708, 330 Bay Street, Toronto, Ont. M5H 2SB Tel: (416) 603-2075 Fax:(416)603-2075

TKP Electronic (Canada) Ltd.

Western Carbon Et Ribbon (1993) Inc.

1445 Powell Street, Vancouver, B.C. V5L 1GB Tek (604) 251-3115 Fax: (604) 251-1277 Toll Free: 1-800-665-4393

Western Digital Canada Corp.

50 Burnhamthorpe Rd. W, Ste 710, M ississauga, On. L58 3C2 Tek (905) 566-4702 Fax: (905) 566-4711

Western Pro Imaqing Labs

1325 Boundary Rd., Vancouver, BC V5K 4T9 Tek (604) 299-1439 Fax: (604) 299-9517

Wizbot Inc.

2400 Wyecroft Rd., Unit 11, Oakville, Ont. L6L 6MB Tek (905) 847-6696 Fax: (905) 847-6170 Email: wizbot905-847-6696ookup.net

14-1200 Aerowood Drive, Mississaga, Ont. L4W 2S7 Tek (905) 238-6610 Fax: (905) 238-5409 Branch offices; Vancouver: Tel: (604) 270-3755 Fax: (604) 270-3705 Calgary: Tek (905) 250-6877 Fax: (905) 474-1 952 Winnipeg: T e l: (204) 633-7180 Fax: (204) 633-7181 TVM Video 5t Monitor Canada Inc. 13980 Bridgeport Road, Richmond, B.C. V6V 1V3 Tek (604) 276-0096 Fax: (604) 276-2669

White Knight Distributing

Ultinet CotrlyIIR¹'CSIN@ The Ultinet Big~ (and Ave.

Wollongong Croup Canada

@:~

105-3760 Jacombs Rd., Richmond, B.C. V6V 1Y6 Tel: (604) 279-9908 Fax: (604) 279-9902 Toll-Free: 1-800-668-6188 Branch Office: Richmond Hil(,Ont. Tel: (905) 886-3862 Fax: (905) 886-3090 Toll Free: 1-800-852-5039 Calgary, AB. Tek (403) 291-1688 Fax: (403) 291-0889 Toll Free: 1-800-668-3381 Halifax: Tek ( 902) 468-9898 Fax: (902) 468-5988 the 220 Frobisher Dr., Suite 200, Waterloo, Ont. N2V 2C7 Tek (519) 747-9900 Fax; (519) 747-9902 http: //www.twg.on.ca

Toronto, Ont. Tek (416) 256-2000 Pex:(416) 256-1449

UNIVELL Micro~ms Inc.

¹107 — 3830 Jacombs Road, Richmond, B.C. V6V 1X6 Tek (604) 276-9986 Fax: (604) 276-9983 Urtec Datalink 129 Telson Rd. Markham, Ont. L3R 1E4 Tel; (905) 415-0145 Fax: (905) 475-9840

U.S. Robotics, MCC 5420 North Service Road, Burlington, Ont. L7L 6C7 Tek (800) 891-MEGA Fax: (905) 336-7380

Vastek Remarketing Inc.

Wong's Industrial Toronto Ltd. 145 Royal Crest Ct., Suite 39, Markham, Ont, L4C 9S5 Tek (905) 513-1980 Fax: (905) 513-1982

Wyse Technology

44 East Beaver Creek Rd., Unit 16 Richmond Hill, Ont. L4B 1GB Tek (905) 886-9973 Fax: (905) 886-0415 http: //www.wyse.corn

Xerox Canada Ltd.

5650 Yonge St., North Yor(f,-, Tek (416) 229-3769

111 Granton Drive ¹401, Richmo~ Tek (905) 882-0090 Fax: (905) 88%

ViewSonic Canada 328 Consumers Road, North York, Ont. MZJ&6

Tek (416) 491-7088 Fax: (416) 491-6314

VTech Computer Systems Inc. 480 HoodRoad, Unit 1,M arham, Ont. L3R 923 Tek (905) 477-2818 Fax: (905) 940-2818 Branch offices: Richmond Tek (604) 276-0588 Fax: (604) 276-2059 Calgary Tek (403) 652-5227 Fax; (403) 652-5228 Winnipeg T e k (204) 284-2818 Fax: (204) 284-2819 Montreal T e k (514) 333-2818 Fax: (514) 333-1482 Quebec City Tek (418) 681-2818 Fax: (418) 681-4370 Halifax Tek ( 902) 468-1088 Fax; (902) 468-6522

Vutec Inc..

1200 Aerowood Dr., Suite 25, Mississauga, Ont. L4W 2S7 Tek 1-800-486-7856 Fax; (905) 629-9832

Xylan Canada

2 Robert Speck Parkway, Ste 150, Mississauga, Ont. L4Z 1HB Tek (905) 507-2600 Fax: (905) 507-2828

X-CEL 4lnc.

6765 Cote de Liesse, Suite 213,

St. Laurent, Que. H4T 1E5 Tek (514) 737-7433 Fax: (514) 3344661 X-CEL Computer Hardware Et Software 5315 Tomken Rd., Unit 10 Mississauga, Ont. L4W 1P5 Tek (905) 238-3588 Fax: (905) 238-3349

' fndustrial Ltd. YHC Ca 75 Sains~' '; Searborough, Ont. M1V 3K1 Tek (416) 324 'l79 Fax: (416) 321-8451 ZenithDe~stems Canada Ltd. 675 CochranH5Wve, Suite 101, Markham, Ont. I 3R OBB

¹118-13982 Cambie Road, Richmond, B,C, V6V 2K2 Tek (604) 279-0320 Fax: (604) 279-0321

Wall . Data (Canada), Ltd.

1595 hAva„S ' 3(XI, Richmond Hill, Ont. L4B 3N9 Tek (9; -,t ', . j(5()5J 771-6829

T oll Free: 1-800-749-0813 Fax: (416) 7~117 ~ Zentronics

Top Link Distribution

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5600 Keaton Crescent, Mississauga, Tek (905) 803-1105 Fax: (905) 803-11

Unit 9, 4751 Shell Road, Richmond, B.C. V6X 3H4 Tek (604) 279-2580 Fax: (604) 279-2581

Tomauri Inc. Company Profile

30 West Beaver Creek Rd., Unit 13 Richmond Hill, Ont. L4B 3K1 Tek (905) 886-8122 Fax: (905) 886-6452 1-800-268-4049

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450 Phillip St., Waterloo, Ont. N2L 5J2 Tek (519) 747-2373 Fax: (519) 747-5284 http: //www.maplesoft.corn

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Zercom Technologies Inc.

Waveform Technoloqies Inc. Unit ¹4, 7218 Progress l/ay, Delta, B.C. V4G 1H2 Tek (604) 946-WAVE (9283) Fax: (604) 946-9269

1594 Beau(ac, St. Laurent, Que. H4R 1WB Tel: (514) 956-9337 Fax: (514) 956-8329 http: //www.zercom.net

Zida TechnologiesCanada Ltd.

Toll Free: 1-800-664-WAVE (9283)

60 Amber St., Unit 9, Markham, Ont. L3R 2Z9 Tek (905) 474-9832 Fax: (905) 474-0911

191 McNabb St., Markham, Ont. L3R BH2 Tek (905) 470-3478 Fax: (905) 470-3479 Toll Free: 1-800-663-0378 Branch office: Richmond: Tek (604) 303-2500 Calgary: Tek (403) 248-3883 Fax: (403) 248-3926 Edmonton: Tek (403) 455-4544 Fax: (403) 455-0733 Ottawa: Tek (613) 782-2360 Fax: (613) 782-2219 Victoria: Tek ( 604) 595-7111 Fax: (604) 595-7111 Quebec City: Tel: (418) 626-2080 Fax: (418) 626-5044

Web Xpress

Zorin Systems Corp.

Trice International Co. 789 West Pender St., Suite 668 Vancouver Tek (604) 608-0288 Fax: (604) 608-0286

Westcon Canada Systems Inc.

Toshiba of Canada Ltd.

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4490 Chesswood Dr., Unit 3, North York, Ont. M3J 2B9 Tek (416) 638-8028 Fax: (416) 638-4477 http;//www.webxpres.corn

Wes-Micro Electronics Inc. 13988Cambie Road,Suite 373,Richmond, B.C. V6V 2K4 Tel: (604) 279-1866 Fax: (604) 279-1867

2740-3 MathesonBlvd.,Mississauga, Ont. L4W 4X3 Tek (905) 625-4100 Fax: (905) 625-2166

ZyXEL 4920 E. La Palma Ave. Anaheim, CA 92807, USA Tel: (714) 693-0808

Branch office; Richmond Hill: Tek (905) 886-0390 Fax: (905) 886-2650 6830 Cote de Liesse, St. Laurent, Que. H4T 2A1 Tek (514) 344-5151 Fax: (514) 344-0855

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It's probably safe to say there aren't too many computer resellers out there who haven't benefited from the surge of interest in the Internet overthe last few years.

Indeed, the 'Net is widely attributed as the major force that drove the home computer boom during this period (a plethora of firstclass entertainment titles and plummeting prices on CPUs, hard drives and RAM didn' t hurt, either). Even those consumers that don' t yet own amodem probably have a basic idea of the wealth of resources "out there" and are aware that the 'Net can provide a wide array of business, education or entertainment benefits.

But what about Internet shopping? Most analysts agree that the average consumer is not ready â&#x20AC;&#x201D; nor likely to be anytime soonto trust his or her credit card info to the uncertainty of the 'Net. So, is commerce on the 'Net a nonissue? I don't think so. Although Joe and Josephine Consumer may not be ready to buy hi-tech products via the Internet, there is a distinct and powerful New Consumer trend toward researchingpurchases in this way.

The basic principle works for technical troubleshooting, as well: search Usenet for the product model and see what others are saying about it, and looking for solutions to common problems.

Indeed,a growing number of people are surfing the net to find out the caveats and gotchas of their intended purchase before dropping their bucks on the table.

Leverage the Internet Here's how you can participate in this strong and potentially profitable trend.

I. Get your technicians to use a search engine to search Usenet (and/or the Web) for answers for your clients â&#x20AC;&#x201D; preferably while they are on another phone line. There's nothing that will bond your clients to you like saving their bacon with little or no delay with the good news that the new printer driver (etc.) that w i l l s o l v e t h e i r p r o b lem i s at http: //www.whatever.corn and that you' re downloading it right now.

2. Reinforce your company's on-line presence with the kind of information that helps 58

your cli ents make-mformed purchases.What is the difference between m HX and a VX motherboard? Why should they pay extra for SDRAM, and so on? If you can show them this info on your company's Web site (or even a local hard drive copy), you not only demonstrate that you have the answers and the technical expertise to fulfill their needs, but you are, in effect, training them to become more self-sufficient in solving their own problems.

Afterall,every hour your technicians spend in after-sale-support hurts the bottom line.

3. A decent search engine can put sales-oriented information at your fingertips, too.

Recommended configurations, technical specs and ballpark prices can be called up while you' re talking to the customer on another line.

4. Another key piece of your on-line presence is the E-mail angle. Encouraging your customers to interact with you via E-mail has several potential benefits: most notably, the dialogue carries its ow n t r acking and response mechanism. The information is easilycarried to or from databases, fax-backs, and other data types. Having the ability to fax information directly from your PC only adds to the advantage.

Understandthe Intranet There aremany other ways to leverage the Internet experience.

Chances are,you, like many dealers, find that your best customers have a considerable network infrastructure in place, too.

These organizations have users who, just like you, have gone through the growing pains of DOS-based networks and are now experiencing the advantages of more mature Windows clients and administration tools.

As well, if we are to believe the statistics, it is clear that many businesses are experimenting w it h i n - house 'intranet' servers and related technologies. The fact that a growing number of companies are starting to discover why they need routers, hubs, proxy serversand other trappings of modern networksis a good reason for your staffto be looking into these areas.

Even if the majority of your customers aren't far into 'the deep end' yet, it is clearly

W H O L ESALER December 1996 ht tp//wwwccwmag.corn

waver.

to your ~ f i t t o take a leadership role and get acquainted with the tools and techniques that are required to put up an Intranet server.

Fortunately, this is remarkably easy these days. With tools Microsoft's freely distributed Personal Web Server or the tools in FrontPage or NT's I nternet Information Server, the tools are almost trivially easy to set up and maintain, at least at a basic level.

Naturally, there are plenty of solutions that don't involve these Windows-based t ools, too. I f y o u r b u s iness focus i s Macintosh, or databases, or any one of a thousand other niches, there are products you probably already know about that will both prove and complement your expertise.

Is it a waste of time if you are not planning to sell intranet systems or services? Not at all. Your customers want to upgrade and what new upgrade doesn't include a few Internet-related features? If the customer' s got a question, who are they going to call?

Everyone's doing it As well, the 'Net has probably become more commercial than it was in the worst nightmares of the Internet old-timers.

There are very few companies who don'tfancy seeing their products or services listed somewhere on the Web â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and it is fair to say that relatively few of those that do post their pages on the Web do so in a way that is truly effective. Nevertheless, businesses want to be there, and with all that free software to help them build their own pages, they probably havea home page started already.

Now that rival standards for 56K6ps modems are in the news, ADSL is just around the corner and ISDN is reaching the home at affordable prices, it will be interesting to see what will happen to the modem market. Drop me an E-mail and tell me what you thmk! HK9 Graeme Bennett holds the position of managing editor at The Computer Paper, and is a former computer reseller Based in Vancouver, he can be reached atgraeme@tcp. ca.

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January 21-23,1997 • Vancouver Trade 8 Convention Centre • Vancouver, British Columbia Product names may betrademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. ©1996 SOFTBANKCOMDEXInc. 300 First Avenue, Needham, MA 02194-2722 USA PR357810/96

OMTEX UPER ERVER CCW S AWARD DF TECHNICALEXCELLENCE Here's whatCanadian Computer Wholesaler Magazine had to say about the Comtex Super Server If you' re looking for server power t hi s d ua l p r o cessing Pentium Pro 200 is a definite atten-

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OCT/96 Dream Machme Survey Comics Super Server

board, you' ve got yourself the makings of areal performer. The zippy video card certainly helped t his system score high o n o u r benchmark tests.

Comtex is well known for submitting solid machines into our Lab tests, and this time around was no exception. (The Winpac95DNE system is fast, complete, and affordable. T h e system is com-

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P EO P L E development with Starfish Software, a company he co-founded in 19 9 4 t o p r o vide Internet/intranet solutions for information management, collaboration, and productivity."

A representative o f S t a rfish said: "Philippe does not want to talk about the past and what happened at Borland." +

ServiceWorks regains Greg Smith Richmond, B.C.'s ServiceWorks Distribution Inc. has named Greg Smith director of sales — western region.

According to the company, Smith has more than a decadeof experience in computer hardware distribution.

Originally an account representative with ServiceWorks from 1986 to 1991, he returnsto the company afterfour yearsas an account manager with Globelle.

His chief responsibilities at ServiceWorks will be to continue to build partnerships with the reseller community and to oversee the company's marketing efforts. +

Former Microsoft Canada GM resigns from corporation

(NB) — In Microsoft's second major realignment in the last few months, the company created two new worldwide product groups and established the new position of chief technology officer. At t h e s ame t ime, Microsoft announced the resignation of its highest ranking women executive, Patty S tonesifer, senior vice-president of t h e Interactive Media Division.

Under the realignment, two new product groups are created: Platforms and Applications which will be headed by group vice-president, Paul Maritz, and Interactive Media which will be headed by group vice-president, Pete Higgins. Group v ice-president, Nathan M yhrvold, was also announced as taking the Kahn cuts link to Borland new position of chief technology officer.

(NB) — Philippe Kahn has severed his last Maritz had headed the Platforms Group, but official tie to Borland International with his now has responsibilities to include productiviresignation from the company's board of ty software. Higgins and Myhrvold had codirectors. Before he stepped down from his managed Microsoft's Applications and chief executive officer position in 1995, he Content Group. spent 12 years taking Borland from a garage The resignation of Patty Stonesifer came operation to a multi-million dollar company. as asurprise,especially as itw as announced During that time, he experienced the along with this realignment. She was just highs and lows typical of high-tech compa- appointed head of the Interactive Media nies. He was the darling of the media at times Division this year, and with the realignment and, at others, the guy responsible for heavy would have been under Higgins. Stonesifer Borland losses. He introduced developer said she has chosen to leave after eight years tools,a contact manager, a word processor,a at Microsoft to pursue personal interests and spreadsheetproduct, database products,and a new career as a management consultant. others. He built record revenues, at times in She plans to remain with Microsoft through triple digit growth, for the company, and he the end of the year. sufferedthrough huge losses.

Stonesifer joined Microsoft in 1988 and After he stepped down as the head of the began assenior manager of Microsoft Press company, he remained a part of Borland by and laterserved as general manager for holding a seat on the board. As a good-bye Microsoft Canada. She was named vice-prespresent, he received the rights to Sidekick, a ident of product support services (PSS). In p ersonal i n f ormation m a nager, a n d 1993, shebecame head of the Consumer Dashboard, a Windows interface and applicaDivision of Microsoft which became the tions manager/organizer.

Interactive Media Division in 1996.

With Sidekick as a centerpiece, Kahn "Patty has built the top consumer softestablished a new start-up software company ware business in the world," said Microsoft called Starfish Software in 1995. His latest CEO Bill Gates. "She began talking about efforts focus on products, including Sidekick, moving on and focusing on personal interwhich incorporate Internet and Java features. ests and new professional opportunities a Today's announcement came from Starfish, year ago but agreed to stay on and step up which in a short release, stated, "Philippe Kahn her involvementbecause of the unique chaltoday resigned as a member of the board of lenges we faced with interactive media and directors of Borland International Inc. Kahn has to ensure a great transition. She made lessened his involvement with Borland since he incredible contributions in a variety of roles, started aggressively pursuing Java software and we will miss her." ~

Dec. 4-6 Hand-Held G PDA Expo Forum San Francisco Contact: Doug Nelson, PDA Inc. Call: (415) 252-8008 Fax: (415) 252-8055 E-mail:infoowmsltd.corn Dec. 6-8

Dec. 8-12

Dec. 13-15

Jan. 14

Jan. 21-23

PC Expo'66 Montreal Contact: Claude Thibault, Groupe Expocor Inc. Call; (514) 844-0502.

SGML $5 Sheraton Centre Toronto Call: (703) 519-8160 Fax: (703) 548-2867 Great Canadian Computer Show And Sale Metro East Trade Centre, Pickering, Ont. Call: 1-800-265-7081 Email: Ice©idirect.corn ITAC Board otGovernors Toronto Contact: Bill Munson Call: (905) 602-8510 Comdex/PacRlm'97 Vancouver

April 15-17

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INall 1-2

ITAC Boardof Governors Washington Contact: Bill Munson Call: (905) 602-8510

http//wwwccwmag.corn December 1996 W H O LESALER 6 1

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NT is growing force on Canada's Intel servers NT Server sales are taking off in the Intel server world,according to a recent study called "Unix and NT Server Markets in Canada," by E vans Research Corp., of Willowdale, Ont. According to the study, corporations are standardizing on NT Server because it appears to be "a good long-term buying decision."

It appears customers aren't buying NT Server on Intel for client/server, but rather to

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support file-and-print applications.

Saysthereport:"NT Server is thus making tremendous inroads in Novell's market.

The network integrators that we have talked to in the last quarter have all described similar scenarios. Last year, Novell outsold NT Server 10 to one. This year, the ratio is expected to decline to two or three to one.

Several predicted that next year NT Server sales would rival Novell sales."

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North American software sales are up up over last year's figures, says the SPA Accordingto figuresreleased by the Software Publishers Association (SPA), based in Washington,D.C.,salesofpersonalcomputer application software in N o rth A merica reached US$4.51 billion — an overall 7.8 per cent increase over the first half of 1995. Sales forthe second quarter of 1996 were US$2.18 billion, a 5.7 per cent increase of the second quarter of 1995.

The SPA says desktop publishing and utilities software sales exhibited the highest growth rates during the first half of 1996, recording US$158.4 million in sales, an increase of 60.2 per cent over last year's figure of US$98.8 million. Unlities sales in the first half of 1996

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(US$$347.1 million) were up 59.4 per cent.

Also making strong showings in the first halfof the year were: databases (up 32.5 per cent); graphics (up 48 per cent); and languages and tools (up 37.9 per cent).

Sales of combined 16-bit and 32-bit Windows applications increased 14 per cent in Q2, overthe same period lastyear.Bu t DOS applications were down 51 per cent over the quarter a year ago, and Macintosh applications were down 21 per cent. (However, Macintosh home creativity and databases showed increases of 76.9 per cent and 80.4 per cent respectively over Q2 1995.)

North American PCSoftware Sales (First Half 1996)

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Now you don't have to take our word for it. SyncMaster has been internationally recognized by some of the world's leading computer publications. With features such as Plug'n Play, Real Colour Control and Invar Shadow Mask, the SyncMaster line earns top marks And with years of experience building monitors for some of the best names in the business, Samsung has earned a reputation for quality and reliability. Get the complete story from your Samsung reseller today.

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