Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wasatch!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!att!homxb!houxs!daw
From: daw@houxs.ATT.COM (David Wolverton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Wingz demo: looks good, real good!
Keywords: Spreadsheet
Message-ID: <1277@houxs.ATT.COM>
Date: 30 Mar 89 23:10:42 GMT
References: <161@cs.columbia.edu>
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel, NJ
Lines: 22

In article <161@cs.columbia.edu>, dr@cs.columbia.edu (David Robinowitz) writes:
> at my first meeting, two people from Informix presented WINGZ (TM).
> ...
> My prediction is that Excel will be dead soon.

I played with the Wingz demo for an hour last weekend, on a
2Meg Mac512E w/ hard disk.  I found the speed (e.g. scrolling,
screen redraws) to be MUCH slower than Excel 1.5.  I didn't check
recalculation speed.  I was also not
particularly impressed with the user interface, but that was just a
first impression.  Yes, the 3-D (and 2-D) graphics beat the pants off
of Excel 1.5, but then I bet Microsoft won't just sit around and let
some other company steal a market segment that MS has wrapped up now.
Especially considering how long Stubz, er... Wingz has been vaporware.

For MacII owners w/ color displays, I imagine Wingz will be the spreadsheet
of choice until the next release of Excel.  For Mac 512, Plus, and SE
owners, there's alot less to be excited about.  Perhaps the Wingz/Excel
challenge will do for spreadsheets what the Illustrator 88/Freehand 
matchup did for illustration programs.

Dave Wolverton