Existing products

INTERACT.

INTERACT could be supported by MSP on the IBM personal computer, or possibly on the Tandy or Apple 68000 machines to be announced shortly. INTERACT is written in SPL and an SPL-port would be implied in any conversion to a new machine. Since the trend in machines is to better graphics and faster processors, each movement along this trend makes INTERACT a more attractive product.

The major drawback is that INTERACT needs either a hard disc or at the minimum DS/DD 8 inch floppies to run. This lets out most of the current desktop mass market machines unless somehow INTERACT's dynamic drawing file can be compressed. The major advantage is that INTERACT is a superb product in a virgin market.

QBASIC.

By making QBASIC CB80 compatible and porting it to the 8086 and 68000, we can establish a beachhead in the 16 bit system software market. We are basically counting on outrunning Gordon Eubanks and sneaking in below Digital Research's advertising blitz. Probably the best strategy is to continue to pursue OEM buy-outs through Lifeboat, as they have a large incentive in reducing their royalty payments to D.R. And of course, QBASIC is now extremely easy to port and each new processor is a new product. Also, we can use QBASIC for our own applications work.

C.

Dan Gochnauer's full C for the Z8000 is written in itself and can be ported to other machines. I don't know if this is of any real value except as a low-cost entry in an already congested market. Maybe we should slap the sucker on the IBM and promote it like we just invented C. This won't make us rich, but it may make us some money.

SORT.

Hal Royaltey's SORT package should be reviewed in the light of competitive products under CP/M. If it shows potential, we can enter the SORT derby under CP/M with it. Maybe we can think of some sexy gewgaw to make it stand out from the pack. Ideas?

WINDOW.

  Probably no market. Damn shame.

SPELL.

Probably no market except at $25 a pop.

LENS.

We might be able to clean this up and put it in CBASIC (it has no assembly language in it) and sell it through Sky & Telescope to CP/M'ers. Probably some ``feechers'' should be added first, though.

DIFF.

The current QBASIC version can be enhanced to do CP/M directories, put under CB80 and peddled to CP/M'ers.

SELECTOR.

We might be able to negotiate a distributorship for SELECTOR V on the IBM in return for putting it up in QBASIC. This might prove to be very lucrative even if our cut was very small.