It may be a mite surprising, but IBM’s new operating system partner Micrografx Inc already has a relationship with Microsoft Corp, which beat a path to its Richardson, Texas stronghold in January last year: Bill Gates signed to use the concepts developed by Micrografx for its Mirror OS/2 dynamic link libraries in future OS/2 products and toolkits, and in return, licensed MicroGrafx to use some Microsoft technology; that agreement was was followed by an acknowledgement in December that Micrografx had contributed to Microsft’s object linking and embedding technology, which enbles developers to make extensions to graphical applications running under OS/2 Presentation Manager, Windows 3.0 as well as Apple Mac System 7.0. As to its deal with IBM, Micrografx will offer OS/2 Presentation Manager versions of its Micrografx Designer, Charisma and Picture Publisher – they should be ready late this year or early next, and Micrografx will ship several OS/2 device drivers with them, including the Micrografx PostScript, HP PaintJet, and Matrix Film Recorder Drivers. Micrografx and IBM will also team to rewrite the OS/2 Presentation Manager Graphics Engine to improve its performance and the performance of converted Windows applications. This will involve rewriting Assembler code in C, adding 32-bit addressing where necessary, and improving some of the algorithms. Micrografx will give IBM advanced conversion technology for Windows applications and device drivers, an OS/2 device driver toolkit and some OS/2 device drivers, and a data-driven business graphics Desktop Accessory for IBM to ship with OS/2. This will include basic worksheet capabilities, drawing primitives and chart types, the ability to import data from popular spreadsheets, and graphics import and export. Micrografx Mirrors will be enhanced to take Windows 3.0 applications.
