Apple Computer Inc is counting on its QuickTime multi-media technology to take it into the software big time and plans to make it available for other brands of computers. It said last week that it was developing a version of QuickTime for Microsoft Corp’s Windows. Microsoft also announced support for QuickTime, to be implemented as add-ins to Excel and Word, saying that the move will give users access to tools not currently available in word processors or spreadsheets. Support for QuickTime is featured as an add-in to Microsoft Excel 3.0, enabling users to take a sequence of Excel charts and render them into the QuickTime movie format to do things like looking at and analysing time-varying data such as sales over 12 consecutive quarters. Apple meanwhile plans two multi-media computers this year, one for non-technical consumers, the other at more traditional computer users.
