The Software Publishers Association Europe, best known for its crusade against software piracy, descended on Cannes earlier this month for its annual conference. Key-note speakers included Steve Jobs, founder of Apple Computer Inc and president of NeXT Inc, as well as Jim Manzi, president of Lotus Development Corp. Jobs turned the opening speech into an unabashed sales pitch for the NeXT workstations that have still to make their mark on the European market, although he acknowledges that current distribution channels are a mess. But Jobs is nothing if not bullish about future prospects and clearly believes that the potential client base is much wider than universities and wayward software development teams. By 1992, says Jobs, the distribution channels will be up and running and the market for NeXT machines will be 120,000 units, double the figure expected for this year. Next on the podium was Guerrino de Luca, marketing director for Apple Europe. He talked of the role of software in the fight back against Japan, and more interestingly, of leveraging Apple’s software strength with partners. De Luca is in no position to be familiar with top-level corporate thinking, but he went as far as he can go in warning of the likelihood of an Apple-IBM Corp cross-licensing pact. However, to ask him if Apple will go to bed with IBM is futile. De Luca, along with every other Apple employee, is probably still asking himself the same question. Jim Manzi provided food for thought with the message that companies have failed to integrate the technology of the past 10 years, and productivity among white-collar workers has decreased with the advent of office automation. Depressing news from the 1-2-3 man. Nonetheless, Manzi says that the next big step is to eliminate product boundaries and create a common appearance with common behaviour. That is, applications should be 100% compatible from one graphical user interface. Which, funnily enough, sounds like a prescription for Lotus Notes communications software. So how will Lotus implement the office without frontiers? Manzi dried up at that point, preferring to pontificate about the industry as a whole rather than make predictions about his own company. – Mark John
