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Sharp Mobilon HC-4500, MS Outlook 98 shine at Fall Comdex 97

Loving Las Vegas

By Richard Morochove

First published November 27, 1997

LAS VEGAS - How do I love my PC? Let me count the ways, said Bill Gates.

Last week's Comdex computer show saw no blockbuster product announcements, but Microsoft did unveil a kinder, gentler Bill Gates. He kicked off the show with a keynote speech that focussed on the top ten reasons why he loves his PC.

Over 7,000 attendees packed the Aladdin Theatre to lap up Gates' low-key humour, spiced with a guest appearance by former basketball star and new Webmaster Kareem Abdul Jabar, along with Martha Stewart and Richard Simmons on videotape.

A bit of the old Gates slipped through, in a gentle dig at the U.S. Department of Justice and its continuing investigation of Microsoft's business practices. It's clear that Gates is concerned about this action. The image-polishing was designed to assure computer industry mavens that they have nothing to fear from Gates.

Not everyone fell for the soft soap, but it's clear that Gates' personal popularity remains undiminished. When he arrived at a media reception after his speech, he was immediately surrounded by a swarm of reporters and photographers.

Gates didn't focus on products because Microsoft is in a lull between releases of its major programs. We're months away from the launch of Windows 98 and the next version of MS Office is even further off. So some of the lesser lights in the Microsoft constellation have the opportunity to shine.

I liked the features in the original release of Outlook, the E-mail and organizer program introduced in MS Office 97. However, Outlook 97 operates slowly once you have more than a couple of hundred messages in a folder, which isn't much good for an E-mail junkie like me who receives about 120 messages a day. In addition, the features are aimed at corporate types who receive E-mail on a LAN.

Outlook 98 is faster than the old version and can now handle HTML-formatted E-mail. You can set it up to poll several dial-up Internet E-mail accounts, one after the other.

The new version supports S/Mime security that lets you digitally sign your E-mail and optionally encrypt your message. You can also attach a vCard, an electronic business card that can be imported into several personal organizer applications.

Outlook 98 is a major upgrade and a beta test version is now available for free downloading from Microsoft's Web site.

Some 220,000 jammed Comdex aisles. The hottest new products included new handheld PCs based on Windows CE 2.0, such as units from Hewlett-Packard and LG Electronics. However, it was the Mobilon HC-4500 from Sharp that took my breath away.

The knockout Mobilon has everything I can imagine in a palmtop computer and more. The beautiful 6.5-inch 640x240 colour display is the centrepiece of this 16 MB unit. There's also a voice recorder that allows you to record and playback voice memos. It comes with a built-in 33.6/9.6 Kbps data/fax modem.

The icing on the cake is the optional digital camera that slips into the PC Card slot. The camera records 16.7 million colours at 640x480 resolution and comes with a 4X zoom (2X optical and 2X digital).

The handheld PC also has all of the organizer and other applications that come in Windows CE 2.0, which now includes Pocket PowerPoint for presentations. The Sharp Mobilon HC-4500 will be available in Canada in January, priced at $1,599 with the camera and $1,299 without.

There's no doubt digital photography has arrived. You could look in just about any direction on the main show floor at the Las Vegas Convention Center and see vendors introducing new digital camera models. Leaders include both companies with a PC background, such as Hewlett-Packard and Epson and also those associated with traditional photography such as Kodak, Olympus and Vivitar.

Flat screen LCD monitors were ubiquitous and featured by Philips and IBM. AST, recently fully acquired by Samsung, displayed a stunning 30-inch LCD panel, fresh from the lab. However, the big hit of the AST/Samsung booth was a model of the Mars Pathfinder lander and Sojourner rover.

The slimline LCD monitors look great, use just one-quarter the desk space of conventional CRT monitors and less than half the power. But the price tag is still high, about $4,000 and up. Some manufacturers predict the price will be cut in half a year from now.

There seemed to be more cars inside the convention center than at the taxicab stand outside. Intel's booth promoted its Pentium II processor, complete with a spaceship-like automobile designed by the same folks who developed the Batmobile.

IBM featured an experimental Internet car in its booth. The car uses a satellite dish to link up to the net and has video screens in front of each passenger seat for surfing the Web. The driver gets to view instruments on a heads-up display projected on the windshield. IBM expects that many of these technologies could be integrated into automobiles within 3 or 4 years. CW

Richard Morochove, FCA, is a Toronto-based computer consultant.

Copyright ©1998 by Morochove & Associates Inc. All rights reserved. This work may not be copied or distributed by any means without our prior written permission.

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