Re: Development Activities

[kfrank@xxxxxxxx]

In response to some of your questions, first let me say this version will be for
both Win 3.X and Windows95. The interface is Windows95-like. We are not
planning an OS/2 version, and unfortunately one cannot produce an OS/2 version
very easily.

As to VB, we selected it for several reasons. The primary reason is that at
least for the present, in the Windows world it is the most ubiquitous of the
development environments, and its use as an internal programming language in
Microsoft, Lotus, CA and many other products makes it very familiar to many
users. Second, it enables us to do rapid interface development, while still
affording developers the capabilities to customize the product for their own
purposes-- a long-held tradition of XyWrite and an important component for this
new release as well. We expect to see our product used extensively for
development of intelligent vertical market applications, and familiarity to
potential developers is important.

In a recent development, somewhat fortuitous to be sure, Microsoft has announced
its intention to utilize a variant of Visual Basic-- VB Script, as an
alternative to Java applets. While Microsoft is hedging their bets by also
licensing Java, the initial response to Java in the real world has been somewhat
lukewarm. I don't think the story is yet told, and I would bet VB Script will
be a viable alternative. Remains to be seen, but our use of VB internally would
not preclude use of other Web authoring languages as well.

Hope this helps.

K.