A New Era of Cooperation
Chronicling the Emerging Convergence

by Denise Caruso, Editor

Media Letter, June 1990, Vol.1, No.1


Welcome to the premier issue of Media Letter. This newsletter found its way 
into your mailbox because I think you're the type of person who wants or 
needs to explore the enormous potential of interactive media and 
multimedia technologies. You belong to a select group I believe is especially 
likely to reap financial and professional rewards from multimedia as it 
develops into a powerful communications tool for both corporate life and in 
education and the home.

Included in your ranks are:

€ Information providers such as film studios, television networks, news 
services, traditional publishing houses, photo and music archives

€ Corporate managers of information systems

€ Companies and individuals already in the business of creating and selling 
multimedia products and presentations

€ Entertainment software and consumer electronics companies

€ Computer hardware, semiconductor and peripheral manufacturers

€ Software tools and application vendors

€ Videotex and video teleconferencing vendors

€ Telecom and networking companies

A nascent, elastic concept like multimedia can bring together such a diverse 
group of professionals because more than anything else, multimedia is about 
the business of collaboration.

Advances in technology now make it feasible for information providers to 
"re-purpose" their vast archives of graphics, sound and video by making 
them available in digital format, representing what's becoming a rarity in 
these days of glutted markets: a brand-new business opportunity.

To do so, they have to work closely with the companies who know about 
digital data: hardware and software manufacturers who, having long since 
conquered the triumvirate of spreadsheets, databases and word processors, 
want to use the speed and power of new computing platforms to create new 
applications for their customer base.

These vendors are finding that customers want compatibility not only with 
competing platforms, but with peripheral devices like CD-ROM and videodisc 
drives, and local and global networks. Such companies, in turn, are becoming 
painfully aware of their limited stake in the new world of interactive media 
as they try to shove sophisticated graphics, sound or video data through 
ancient copper telephone wire or a cramped data bus.

As these divergent interests scramble for a foothold, what's striking is how 
closely the technical challenges of interactive media mirror the professional 
challenges. Simply put, just as the technical components of multimedia must 
work together, an industry that's now fragmented must also gravitate toward 
cooperation if multimedia is to flourish.

After many years of watching proprietary systems hold back the growth of the 
computer industry, I believe the demand for interactive media proves that a 
new expansiveness, a new willingness to cooperate, is gaining momentum.

Media Letter will chronicle this expansiveness -- in all its permutations and 
perversions -- with insight, humor and an unblinking eye.

I hope you'll join me, and my growing team of the industry's best writers and 
analysts, as we record our impressions of the next great leap in computing 
technology.