New mergers and alliances in the PC world?

By Zatni Arbi

JAKARTA (JP): John Naisbitt's latest book, Global Paradox, has certainly drawn a lot of attention all over the world. He sees entities merging to create new, larger and stronger ones. At the same time, he also watches other entities breaking apart and new, smaller ones being created.

In the world of personal computers, the same trends are emerging. Just look at how Motorola, Apple and IBM have joined forces in their attempt to remain world leaders.

Only two years ago, when people were still debating whether they should be buying a PC or a Mac, the idea of seeing IBM in a joint venture with Apple would have sounded as esoteric as living without floods in Jakarta. But it has happened, and the fruit has been borne, namely, the PowerPC!

As in any other industry, strategic alliances and mergers are no longer uncommon in the PC industry. In some cases, such as the merger between Novell and WordPerfect, such an alliance is badly needed. WPCorp seems to have been in deep financial trouble, and Novell came to the rescue.

Perhaps to counter the merger of these two giants -- one in networking products and the other in word processor products, Lotus Development and AT&T have also struck a deal. Lotus Notes will be used in AT&T on-line communications network. This will allow Notes users to publish and exchange information.

Of course, I won't get worried as long as these mergers still leave a couple of big players in the field. As long as competition still runs, the end users will always be benefited. However, when the two largest competing players decide to join hands, we could find ourselves in trouble.

Remember the time Borland International bought dBase IV from the troubled Ashton-Tate Corp.? Borland had promised dBase users to keep up development of dBase IV along with its own Paradox -- which was then dBase IV's fiercest competitor.

Years have passed, and after two major releases of Paradox for Windows we have yet to see dBase for Windows hit the market. Indeed, it's really hard to think of one good reason for a software company to develop two competing products at the same time.

FoxPro

It was a blessing in disguise for us, the end users, that Microsoft bought FoxPro from Fox Software and continued its development. Release 2.5 of FoxPro for Windows must have caused the folks at Borland a run for their money, and as the results we saw a much revamped Paradox for Windows 4.5.

Unfortunately, the merging of competitors has happened again. Aldus Corp. and Adobe System Inc. have just announced their union, too.

On the one hand, both have mutually complementary products. Aldus has a world-class page layout program, namely, PageMaker. Adobe has the most popular printing language in the professional printing world, Postscript. Both Aldus PageMaker and Adobe Postscript form a combination that's more like the combination of a fat bank account and perfect health.

On the other hand, however, both have competing products that are considered leaders in their own field. Aldus has FreeHand, Adobe has Illustrator, and both are very good graphics illustration packages.

Furthermore, Aldus has PhotoStyler, Adobe has PhotoShop. Again, both belong to the top ranks of image manipulation programs. Now that they have become the products of the same company, will we see the same innovative energy used to be reflected in their new releases?

As if not enough disheartening mergers have taken place, Symantec Corp. and Central Point Software Inc. have also announced their decision to merge. Symantec, with its Peter Norton Group, is the owner of first class Norton Desktop for Windows. Central Point is the proud owner of PCTools for Windows.

Choosing between the two Windows Program Manager replacements is never an easy task. Such was the nature of the competition between them that their latest upgrades appeared within months of each other.

So I'm asking myself, where will be the inspiring competition come from now that they have become the products of one and the same company?

Let's hope that I'm wrong. Let's hope that these mergers will not diminish competition -- a situation that always spurs the urge to innovate and to become more creative. Let's hope that neither PhotoStyler nor PhotoShop, FreeHand nor Illustrator, NDW nor PCTools for Windows will follow the fate of dBase IV.