The members were a little late in showing up, so Merle Nicholson, our president didn’t start the meeting until 6:30 p.m. Merle welcomed everyone and introduced the officers. He asked that we limit the use of the computers on the desks while the vendors are giving their presentations. Sign up sheets for the Communications, Genealogy and a possible Windows SIG were circulated. Charles Howe made available copies of a DOS browser for anyone interested in trying it out. There was a discussion about a program called "Opera". It’s a small Internet browser that will run on a 386 machine with Windows 3.1. A question was asked about the Internet phone and William LaMartin explained how NetMeeting was working well for him. Our members will soon be able to link from our web site to their own web sites. If you’re interested submit the needed information to William LaMartin.

The presenter was Mike Austin with Waldec/IKON Office Solutions. Waldec/IKON is an authorized Microsoft reseller. They provide software and networking installations to businesses. He first gave a nice summary on his growing company and what it does. Mike then gave an interesting presentation on the future direction of Microsoft operating systems. The presentation was originally created to help make business decisions for future purchases of software, but he adapted well to our mixed audience. He presented some slides that listed a matrix that classified types of software and suitable operating systems and the direction that Microsoft is going. He stated again what we’ve been hearing for some time: Windows NT is targeted to be in everyone’s future by the year 2001 when it and Windows 95 will converge. One thing that NT does not do well - and never will - is run just any old DOS software, and a lot of Windows 3.1 software, too. NT version 5 will be bringing us plug and play support so the hardware issues will be improved for us. But the bottom line is, for compatibility, Windows 95/98 is best, and for crash-proof, secure systems NT is the way to go for now.

Mike also gave us a sample of some other business considerations - servers, networking and TCO - Total cost of ownership; thin clients, fat clients and Net PC’s. It was interesting to know where the industry is headed. Thanks to Mike for an interesting and informative presentation.

Mike presented Warren Fuss and William LaMartin with very nice laptop bags for answering his questions.