The Stepchild Comes of Age

By Philip Elmer-DeWitt

Hard sell in New Orleans at the first national software trade fair

The Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans has seen S.R.O. crowds for two Super Bowls, several professional fights, an N.C.A.A. basketball championship and a couple of Rolling Stones concerts, among other events. For three days last week 20,000 people tramped through the 13-acre stadium for a different type of spectacle. They were looking at 12,000 software programs put on display by more than 600 manufacturers at a gathering called Softcon: it was the first nationwide trade show devoted exclusively to software, the programs that tell computers what to do.

There were products to help people manage a herd of cattle, plan a diet, plot an airline route, schedule a tooth extraction. A California firm called Psycomp even offered packages that promise relief from stress, depression, rocky relationships and sexual inadequacy. There were naturally lots of games like Mr. Robot and His Robot Factory.

The New Orleans show marked a coming of age for software, once the neglected stepchild of the computer business. In four years, personal-computer software sales have grown from $ 175 million to $2.1 billion. Exhibitors last week ranged from two-person companies with products packed in Ziploc bags to such corporate giants as IBM and A T & T. Houghton Mifflin, the book publisher, introduced several new computer programs, including one that checks spelling. Said President Richard Young: "We assume the software business will grow at twice the rate of our other business."

Some of the most interesting products on display last week were offshoots of research being done on artificial intelligence, a branch of computer science that teaches machines to simulate human thought. The first visible results of this work are programs that allow users to put questions to a computer in everyday language rather than in convoluted codes or obscure commands. Instead of typing commas, colons, numbers and letters, an operator can enter requests as straightforward as "Give me the top five salesmen in Pennsylvania." Two innovative firms, Microrim, from Bellevue, Wash., and Artificial Intelligence, from Waltham, Mass., demonstrated programs that allow people to search for information in large mainframe computer data banks by posing questions in ordinary English. A new firm called Menlo, based in the Silicon Valley, unveiled In-Search, which allows callers to tap into Lockheed's huge Dialog bibliographic data base without the usual two-day training seminar.

Other companies found different ways to make computers simpler for novices to use. Software Publishing, which sells the popular PFS series of list-keeping programs, unveiled Access, a product that enables computer owners to bypass the complicated log-on procedures needed to use information-retrieval services like those run by Dow Jones, CompuServe and The Source. Lotus Development, maker of the business package 1-2-3, last year's bestselling program, showed off its latest product, Symphony, which permits the easy transfer of information among five diverse computer programs.

Softcon also attracted firms with new schemes for distributing software. An industry that transmits information electronically in microseconds has always found it strange that its products are delivered to stores like books or records. Softyme Express, a San Francisco firm, last week announced an agreement with computer distributor Micro D to place machines in retail outlets that will let customers receive programs on blank discs over telephone lines. Two other firms, Romox, of Campbell, Calif., and Xante, of Tulsa, are testing or marketing similar systems. Nolan Bushnell, the multimillionaire founder of Atari, is even talking about selling software from vending machines.

And if all those programs were too bewildering, there were exhibitors at Soft-con promising to help customers separate the software wheat from the fast-growing pile of programmed chaff. ITM, of Walnut Creek, Calif, demonstrated a new computerized method for obtaining instant critical reviews of 4,000 products. Stewart Brand, publisher of the Whole Earth Catalogs, announced the first issue of the Whole Earth Software Review, a quarterly magazine that will pick and pan products. Another publisher, Software Digest, unveiled a $14.95 Ratings Book, which compares 30 word-processing programs written for the IBM Personal Computer. Says Spokesman Harold Poliskin: "We want to be the Consumer Reports of the software industry."

Although the New Orleans fair was supposed to be a show for software, the machine manufacturers could not be overlooked. The exhibition's main floor at the Superdome was dominated by the stands of the largest computer companies. Hewlett-Packard, Digital Equipment, NCR and IBM erected booths that dwarfed those of all but the biggest software firms. Apple's stand featured a 12-ft. scale model of its new Macintosh machine, and Chairman Steven Jobs delivered a keynote speech that tried to cast the event as a shootout between Apple and IBM.

The goal of the hardware makers was to encourage software developers to write programs designed specifically for their machines. Bragged Frank Sinton, president of Think Technologies of Danvers, Mass.: "The hardware companies realize they aren't go ing to sell any machines without software."

Despite all the blandishments, some prominent software firms chose to ignore the show, while others complained that it failed to attract enough computer dealers. But even before last week's exhibits were packed up, Jonathan Rotenberg, 20, the founder of the Boston Computer Society and co-organizer of the show, was already working up plans for next year. He hopes to have another software extravaganza in New Orleans plus one in Los Angeles. His confident prediction: "We will be mobbed." --By Philip Elmer-DeWitt. Reported by Michael Moritz/New Orleans

With reporting by Michael Moritz