Date: Thu, 04 SEP 1997 10:32:35 +0100 (BST) From: Dave Walker Subject: Acorn Developer News 04/09/97: Acorn World, Foreign file formats, Preview... To: isvquery@acorn.com Hi folks... Acorn Developer News 04/09/97: Acorn World: This is Rumour Control... -------------------------------------- I suspect a number of you will have heard assorted rumours which have been "doing the rounds" regarding Acorn World. Here's a statement from Marketing which should help to set the record straight... > Following a legal dispute between EPS & Wembley, Acorn has now taken full > responsibility of the organising of the forthcoming Acorn World show. > Formal agreements are currently being signed with tickets sales to resume > in the next day or two. > With all exhibitor contracts, payments and recently purchased ticket sales > being honoured by Acorn, the show will allow Acorn's recently extended > marketing department to flex it's muscles to attract an even larger > audience than has attended in previous years. > With major releases from Acorn due to be on display for the first time, the > exhibition, is certain to be a magnet for Acorn users of all ages. In > addition, last years show saw over £2 million being spent by visitors over > the three days, in what many described as the best Acorn World yet. Now > that Acorn has taken over the driving seat for the whole promotion of the > show, creative plans are a afoot to bolster the whole industry. > A marketing plan will be announced to exhibitors when finalised in the next > week, to allow the show's awareness to gain momentum. In addition, letters > and further information will be issued over the next couple of days to all > exhibitors who have already committed to space. > For further details regarding Acorn World please do not hesitate to contact > myself at kdavies@acorn.com In short, Acorn World '97 is going ahead, and people who have already booked stands have no cause for alarm. To add some more useful bits of info to the above... An Exhibitor's Guide will be issued at some point in the next couple of weeks (ie once it is complete and printed) to all exhibitors who have booked to date and to any exhibitors who book subsequently. This will include details of how to book telecommunications provision for network links, etc; I appreciate that some of you have been getting a little jumpy as the 60-day countdown commences, but all appears to be in hand. We're in the process of finalising the new mechanism by which potential exhibitors who have yet to book their stands will be able to do so; details of this process will be issued shortly in a mini-missive. Foreign File Formats -------------------- Thanks to Stuart Halliday at Quantum Software for this bit. For those of you who produce software capable of importing or exporting non-Acorn file formats, a good source of data on a large number of file formats can be found at Paul Oliver's site, http://www.wotsit.demon.co.uk/ In particular, for those of you who wish to assist in undermining the few remaining reasons to use software from That Company in Redmond WA by enabling your software to load, render and save files generated by their applications, here's how to obtain copies of their current file formats... > How to Obtain Microsoft Office File Formats > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > The MS Office file formats (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Office Binder and > Office Drawing) are all freely available from the MS web site provided you > are a member of the MS Developer Network (MSDN). Joining MSDN is free! > Simply go to the following address: > http://www.microsoft.com/msdn/subscribe > If you are not a member of the MS Developer Network you will need to join > the online service - it's free. > Once you have subscribed to the MSDN, you can obtain online copies of the > file formats. To do this, follow these steps: > 1.On the MSDN World Wide Web site, click MSDN Library Online. > 2.Under Member Area, click the Library Online tab. > 3.Double-click Microsoft Office Development. > 4.Double-click Office. > 5.Double-click Microsoft Office 97 Binary File Formats. > 6.Select the format you are interested in (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc.) Conference Attendees -------------------- Finally, we now have a list online of those companies who attended the Developer Conference; you can find it at http://www.art.acorn.co.uk/SALES/DEVELOPERS/resource/docs/misc/conf97attendees.txt ; those developers who didn't get round to completing and returning a conference questionnaire can find an archived copy in Impression Style format as http://www.art.acorn.co.uk/SALES/DEVELOPERS/resource/docs/misc/qa.arc Acorn World Preview ------------------- Following the Conference, I'd hope that most of you would now have reasonable expectations of what will appear on our stand at Acorn World; Phoebe will be there in prototype form (what code it will be running is a matter of software engineering between now and the show), there's a good chance that either no portable or a similar prototype to that displayed at Wakefield will be there, and much of the rest is likely to be wall-to-wall NC, A7000+ and Risc PC. Business as usual :-) A couple of weeks before the main event we intend to brief our dealers about items which will be presented / talked about / whatever at the show, and this strikes us as a good opportunity for you to enlighten them (and us!) about what products you'll be releasing there. If you'd like to take advantage of this, please send us 200 copies (to go in the dealers' folders) of the promotional literature for your products to reach us by 30 September at the absolute latest; these literature packages should be addressed to Jon Cashen rather than me, and clearly labelled "Dealer literature" on the outside. Cheers, -- Dave Walker, Engineering Support Manager Acorn Computers Ltd Tel: +44 (0) 1223 725233 Acorn House, 645 Newmarket Road Fax: +44 (0) 1223 725333 Cambridge, CB5 8PB, United Kingdom WWW: http://www.acorn.co.uk/