The next version of Windows and a high-speed network took top honors as BYTE editors at spring Comdex recognized innovative products that will impact the industry. This was the first Comdex at which Windows 95 was in full display on the show floor, and many vendors demonstrated preliminary versions of Windows 95 hardware and software. For this reason, BYTE's editors awarded
Windows 95
Best Operating System
and
Best of Show
.
MCI
(Washington, DC) and the
National Science Foundation
(Washington, DC) won
Best Technology
for their high-speed
vBNS
(Backbone Network Service). The vBNS will serve as an experimental platform for developing new national networking applicat
ions and will link supercomputing sites. The vBNS will initially operate at 155 Mbps. Operations over 600 Mbps are planned for 1996.
AnchorPage for Windows
($895), from
Iconovex
(Bloomington, MN, (800) 943-0292) won
Best Development Software
. AnchorPage inserts hypertext tags into information on WWW (World Wide Web) document databases and also creates conceptual analyses and abstracts of text documents.
Matrox
(Dorval, Quebec, (800) 361-1408 or (514) 969-6320; fax, (514) 969-6363) won
Best Peripheral
for its 64-bit
Millenium
, a 3-D accelerator and video playback card.
Best Multimedia Software
went to
AudioActive
from the
Blue Ribbon SoundWorks
(Atlanta, GA, (404) 315-0212; fax, (404) 315-0213). AudioActive is an intelligent music engine and Windows API for multimedia developers. The developer tells the software what kind of theme or atmospher
Best Multimedia Hardware
went to
Sigma Designs
(Fremont, CA, (800) 845-8086 or (510) 770-0100; fax, (510) 770-2640), which combines video capture, compression, and editing in its
RealMagic Producer
board ($3995).
Kyocera
(Somerset, NJ, (800) 232-6797 or (908) 560-3400; fax, (908) 560-8380) won
Best Printer
for the
FS-3600A printer
(about $3500), the newest ceramic-drum Ecosys laser printer, which has true resolution of 600 dpi.
Multi-Tech Systems
(Mounds View, MN, (800) 328-9717 or (612) 785-3500; fax, (612) 785-9874) won
Best Connectivity Hardware
honors for its
MMV-Series MultiMux
($1499 each) that extends PBX capabilities to a remote site. It concentrates voice, data, and fax traffic onto a single phone line.
Best Connectivity Software
went to
CompuServe
(Columbus, OH, (800) 848-8199 or (614) 457-8600; fax, (614) 457-0348) for its
NetLauncher for Windows
program that gives users access to WWW sites and other Internet services.
Best Portable
went to
AT&T Global Information Solutions
(Dayton, OH, (800) 447-1124 or (512) 445-5000) for its
75-MHz Pentium-based 250P
.
The
UniFlex 5/300 RISC PC
from
Deskstation
(Lenexa, KS, (800) 793-3375 or (913) 599-1900; fax, (913) 599-4024) won
Best System
. The system BYTE saw houses a 300-MHz 21164 Alpha microprocessor.
Symantec's
(Cupertino, CA, (800) 441-7234 or (503) 334-6054)
Norton Utilities for Windows 95
took the
Best Application
award. The package continuously monitors system resources, diagnoses and fixes file system problems, optimizes your drive, and provides system recovery tools for Windows 95 users.
Network and Windows 95 Take Top BYTE Awards
