 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Impressions of APCUG Major Keary |
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For seven literally full days in November over 370 delegates from 139 user groups registered to meet in various forums and locations during COMDEX/Fall '92. A third of the participants were group presidents and fifty-three were editors. The organisation was remarkable, a logistical triumph. The volunteers who made it all happen are to be congratulated. Industry sponsors financed most aspects of the APCUG events. Without their support it would have been impossible to bring such a wide representation of user groups together.
APCUG is, of course, an acronym for Association of PC User Groups, which is made up of groups like Melb PC from all around the world. Most of those attending came from America and Canada, but notable overseas representation included Melbourne, Brisbane, and Moscow.
Events are of three kinds. Workshops, round-table discussions, and industry presentations.
The workshops are conducted in a laboratory environment, by presenters from industry. For example, IBM, which supplied the necessary hardware for the workshops, provided a session on OS/2. It, like all the workshops, was an education in itself of how a training session should be organised and run. The main presenter was assisted by a second, who moved about the participants rescuing those who had strayed into difficulties or fallen behind.
Each workshop is designed to provide a hands-on opportunity to learn something directly relevant to the operation of a user group.
Round-table events are less structured with discussion of a particular topic being led by a moderator. Most were subject-specific - such as software review policy - and, I am sure, productive for most participants. The discussions were recorded and will be transcribed for general circulation.
Industry presentations were not simply passive affairs with an audience being told how good a particular manufacturer or software house is. Where a Chief Executive Officer was the speaker, he fielded questions as they came from the participants.
Some of the presentations involved a high degree of interaction; Intuit (publisher of Quicken) had at least thirty of their people present to assist in what they call brain storming. The object is to take the user group representatives as a sample of the total end-user base and draw out responses to issues - which may be specific and already determined by the presenters, or which arise on-the-spot from the participants.
Using the Quicken example, it is quite dear how such a package maintains its market position. Its creators actively seek and respond to the opinions, and expressed needs of the user-base.
That kind of interaction is not appropriate for all manufacturers, but in genera) APCUG delegates were given good access both by way of having our say and the opportunity to hear at first hand about future directions and developments.
On a more specific issue, and as an example of the value of attending APCUG's summit, we were able to discuss in a one-on-one situation the problems of Ventura, the software Melb PC uses to produce PC Update. Ventura representatives gave Peter, Ash, and myself a full morning in private conference and provided copies of the latest version.
Publishers of other software (whose Australian distributors are notoriously tardy) were pleased for the opportunity to have contact. Indeed, that is the way in which we receive much of the software reviewed in PC Update and associated technical information. There is no substitute for personal, face-to-face contact and Melb PC is developing a sound and ongoing base from which we can tap industry resources.
Participation was worthwhile in the short term and invaluable in the long term. Melb PC has a high profile (and so its should as 4th largest user group world-wide) and representation at such events is in the interest of Australian end-users at large.
There are two ways of looking at our position as a user group: from the perspective of what's-in-it-for-us, parochial, and inward-looking; or as part of a global movement in which education and the benefit of all users is the goal.
From the personal encouragement I have received it is evident that most members of Melb PC are pleased for us to be represented. It was a great experience and one I hope to share. While it is possible to describe in these columns some of the things seen and discussed, that is just a part of the whole. Much of the benefit will be gradual over the next several months.
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DOS: Still Going Strong During Comdex Microsoft hosted a reception for APCUG participants and Bill Gates spoke about future directions in general. He then took questions from the floor and it is a particular exchange that I want to mention here. A user group member made reference to DOS 6 and let it slip that he was a beta tester. That led to an unequivocal statement by Bill Gates that version 6 of MS-DOS will be released early in 1993. Further, an even newer version is presently being written. There is no indication of when it is likely to be released to beta testers. The impression gained was that some new name is likely to be given to the successor of DOS 6. Microsoft will be supporting MS-DOS for some time yet, which acknowledges a user-base committed either to hardware that will not handle new generation operating systems, or incompatible software (or both). At an IBM presentation, largely about OS/2, it was made dear that they, also, would continue in areas of DOS development such as multitasking on 2 MB 386 hardware, pen support, shell-like interface, scaleable operating systems, enhanced memory management, and improved networking. |
Reprinted from the Jan / Feb 1993 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
