Stardock Systems
	Object Desktop Professional
		The Next Generation Business Environment


* List Price: $179.95
* Upgrade from Object Desktop 1.0: $119
* Upgrade from Object Desktop 1.5: $69 (until Fall)
* Runs on: OS/2 2.11, OS/2 Warp 3.0, or OS/2 Warp 4.0 ("Merlin")
* Target Market: Corporate Desktops and Professionals ("Power Users")


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What is Object Desktop?
   Object Desktop is an advanced desktop environment that is only available on
   OS/2 Warp. It uses IBM's System Object Model (SOM) and the Workplace Shell
   (WPS) to add features, power, ease of use, and performance to the base
   operating system. Object Desktop is targeted at all users of OS/2, but
   particularly those on small networks and in the home. It has been the
   top selling OS/2 product world-wide since its inception. In fact, in
   some retail channels, its sales rival OS/2 itself.

   The reason for Object Desktop's tremendous success has a lot to do what
   Object Desktop accomplishes: in essence, Object Desktop provides the
   features that end users, corporate users, and reviewers have been asking
   for in OS/2 for a very long time. As one reviewer put it, "Object Desktop
   is like a third-party upgrade to OS/2."

   Because Stardock uses IBM's SOM and Workplace Shell object classes,
   Object Desktop is not version dependent. When new versions of OS/2 are
   introduced to the market, Object Desktop will automatically inherit those
   new features and extend them as well.

   While Object Desktop has been a tremendous success in the end user OS/2
   market, corporate users have asked for features whose benefit are readily
   apparent. Features such as the ability to secure the desktop, read virtually
   any type of file format, robust backup, training cost reductions, and so on.
   To this end, Stardock began the project code-named "Milamber" (which many
   net users have heard discussed) which would address these needs. Object
   Desktop Professional is the result of this effort.


What is in Object Desktop Professional that isn't in Object Desktop 1.5?

    Stardock recognized that corporate users demand features  beyond what
    is provided by Object Desktop. While a myriad of productivity  tools
    are available that address computing productivity issues, a single
    solution that provides the absolute best in quality, reliability, and
    integration  is usually preferred. Moreover, Object Desktop Professional
    offers features  that are simply not found in any product on any platform.
    In essence, if  your corporation uses OS/2, then your corporate desktops
    should be using  Object Desktop Professional.

Object Desktop Professionl contains all the features of Object Desktop
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PLUS:

Object Viewing

   Object Desktop Professional integrates document viewing into the base
   operating system. Hundreds of file formats are now recognized
   automatically when you double click an object on the desktop. Using
   Object Desktop Professional, computer users will no longer have to
   worry whether they have Word Perfect 5.1 on their system when someone
   gives them a disk full of documents. Presenters will no longer have to
   worry whether the presentation they give is in PowerPoint or Freelance.
   Object Desktop Professional doesn't just support a few of the most
   common file types, it supports hundreds of file types from databases,
   word processors, spread sheets, internet, graphics, presentation packages,
   and more. The basic rule of thumb is, if the format has ever had an
   installed base of more than 50,000 users, it's probably supported.


Object Security

   Both IS managers and end users often find it necessary to secure
   and protect their desktops. Object Security offers an impressive
   array of features that allow administrators to prevent custom desktop
   environments from tampering. Object Security can keep icons from being
   moved, deleted, changed, etc. IS managers in particular will like the
   ability to "keep their users from messing up their system." Any end
   user that shares his or her system with others will also appreciate
   the ability of securing and protecting their desktop.



Desktop Backup Advisor

   One of the more anticipated features of Object Desktop Professional is the
   Desktop Backup Advisor which can perform two important functions.

   First, It allows users to quickly and easily manage, backup, and restore
   packaged desktops. Having a wizard-like user interface, the desktop
   backup advisor is very easy to work with. Users and/or IS managers can
   easily package and distribute desktops across the enterprise using the
   Desktop Backup Advisor which uses Stardock s advanced Object Packaging
   technology. Corporations looking to deploy a standard desktop will find
   the Desktop Backup Advisor an essential tool to this end.

   One test site has used the Desktop Backup Advisor to deploy a standardized
   desktop with three variations -- one for technical users, one for their end
   users, and one for managers. When a new machine goes on the network, they
   open the Desktop Backup Advisor, choose the desktop they want and it
   unpackages it.

   Secondly, it completely repairs OS/2 INI files. The most common cause of
   system instability and performance loss are damaged INI files (os2.ini,
   os2sys.ini). Over time, OS/2 INI files collect a great deal of unused
   'junk' that can slow OS/2 down and make odd behavior creep in. While
   INI repair programs go far to help the situation, there is no replacement
   to being able to totally cleanse the INI files without losing user
   customizations. The desktop backup advisor, simply by restoring a desktop,
   completely cleanses the INI file and ignores all the damaged and unused
   data. The net result is that a system that has used the desktop backup
   advisor behaves like a freshly installed OS/2 system without losing any
   of their class registrations, customizations, or their desktop.

   The beauty of the Desktop Backup Advisor is that it itself is a tool used
   to backup and restore your desktops but the very fact that when you use
   the tool it cleans your INI files almost sounds too good to be true but
   it s not.. I have seen 486 systems that were crawling and would have
   weird errors pop up on a daily basis get a big performance boost and
   become rock solid simply by using the desktop backup advisor. It s a
   lot easier than reinstalling OS/2 from scratch and a lot cheaper than
   buying a new machine.

Object Schedule

   A user may want to do a backup, a virus scan, an defragmentation of the
   hard disk, and begin compiling in the background. Another user may want
   to run a script that resorts the database and charges batches. Another
   user may want to run a program that downloads email automatically. What
   do all these have in common? They are tasks in which human intervention
   is not necessary. Yet, users end up having to have these tasks running
   in the background during the day. Luckily, OS/2 is a great operating
   system for multitasking but even OS/2 will slow down if you have tasks
   running in the background.

   Enter Object Schedule. With Object Schedule, a special OS/2 folder that
   has much in common with the Startup folder, users simply drag and drop
   their programs into the Object Schedule folder and assign a date and
   time for the program or job to run. In the above examples, the virus
   scan, backup, database update could be scheduled to run at 3:00am when
   no one is using the PC. When the user returns in the morning, the job
   is completed. Object Schedule is easy to use and helps automate your
   office as well as your desktop.

Object Advisor

   The Object Advisor is possibly the most innovative feature of Object
   Desktop Professional. This advanced technology is intended to address
   the huge costs associated with training and re-training end users in
   corporations that have any amount of turnover. The Object Advisor
   feature allows corporations to develop custom computer based
   training materials that display when a user doesn't understand
   how to perform desktop operations. The on-line help technology
   provided with Object Advisor is authored with industry standard
   Hypertext Markup Language(HTML), which allows for leveraging next
   generation internet/intranet technologies in a corporate environment,
   including new internet features such as JAVA. It truly demonstrates
   the benefits of the web/internet in a way that anyone can appreciate.

Here are some typical usage scenarios for Object Advisor:


*       An end user is unfamiliar with new procedures in a  particular
        workgroup, or is a new employee in the corporation. Object
        Advisor  is opened in its "trainer" mode. When the user clicks
        on an object,  a small window appears displaying information
        on that object using rich  text, graphics and multimedia. After
        reading information stored on internal  networks about the jobs
        the worker is attempting to perform, the end user  easily able
        to begin work or find more information on how to proceed.

	     After a while, the end user is stuck once again, and determines
        that their host connection to the corporate mainframe isn't
        working. The user reads information provided in the "3270
        Connection" object, and after realizing there are still too
        many questions to begin work, submits a problem report over
        the corporation's internal intranet by filling out a "web"
        form that is linked to every help object on the desktop.
        Immediately, a corporate help desk is notified of the problem
        and can resolve the problem with a simple phone call.
	

*       An IS manager creates advisors for all the network  resources
        (eg. printers, modems, etc.). If a user has a problem printing,
        the training view is opened, and custom help is available for
        the desktop  printer objects. When no paper arrives at the
        network printers, the end  user can fill out a HTML form linked
        to the printer objects on the desktop  that notifies the network
        manager that there is a problem with the printer.  When
        implemented properly, the Object Advisor feature can greatly
        reduce  the funds needed to staff network help desks.


*       Your company's new software product arrives with an  Object
        Advisor. Now, when your users have questions on how to use
        the new  product, the trainer is invoked, and up-to-date
        information is displayed  for the application which links
        to external resources that provide Frequently  Asked Questions
        (FAQs) and answer resources, the latest fixes and patches
        for the application, internet technical support, problem
        submission, and  help databases.


*       Your company's custom software products interact with a highly
        tailored desktop which provide end users with a complete work
        environment, including workflow, fax, and other office automation
        capabilities.  End users are presented with a custom Workplace
        Shell training capability  that grows as new features are added
        to the desktop, and whose administration  is centrally administered.



   A large company with significant turnover can spend millions of dollars over
   time retraining users on how to use their desktop. Object Advisor can make
   retraining exceptionally easy by providing a global method of obtaining help
   that is dynamically updatable and interactive through centrally stored
   advisor data located on any network file server.

   In the future, as JAVA becomes more successful, JAVA applets can be embedded
   in an object advisor to create truly interactive training materials through
   live application interaction.

   Object Desktop Professional provides advisors for most of the default OS/2
   objects. Stardock Systems indends that third parties will create advisors
   for their program objects when they are installed on the desktop. To this
   end, Stardock is committed to making Object Advisors available on multiple
   platforms such as Windows NT, Unix, Windows95, as time goes on in order to
   standardize this revolutionary technology.



Object Backup

   While backup solutions exist in many forms on OS/2, the powerful easy to
   use Object Backup feature integrates itself with the OS/2 desktop and
   even supports the new ATAPI/IDE standard. Users can now backup their
   system to floppy, tape, and/or network drives. Object Backup is not a
   "lite" backup package--feel free to compare the included Object Backup
   features head-to-head against any backup package on any platform. Stardock
   does not plan to support all tape devices, however. For example, we don't
   (and do not plan) to support the older floppy-controller tape drives
   (usually QIC80) for reliability reasons.



Object Navigator Professional

   Object Navigator Professional not only is a powerful and
   intuitive file manager that can see long file names on FAT,
   works with OS/2's associations (and is the only commercial
   OS/2 file manager available that does that), makes working
   with multiple drives easy, but now, in Object Desktop Professional,
   users can quickly and easily view virtually any type of file.
   Object Navigator Professional allows users to open of a "View Pane"
   that is part of Object Navigator Professional. When the user double
   clicks on a file (any file) it will read it, interpret it and display
   it. Whether it's an Excel95 spreadsheet, an TIFF graphics files, a
   Power Point for Macintosh presentation, or even a Windows 3.1 DLL.
   Object Navigator will read and display it in a flash. The view pane's
   performance is quite impressive. Within a second, users can jump from
   file to file and it displays that file with all the appropriate
   formatting, embedded graphics, etc.

   Object Navigator Professional works very well with compressed files such
   as PKZIP (.ZIP) files. It can view a ZIP file even faster than Object
   Desktop's own Object Archives by trading off the folder metaphor for
   raw speed. Users who have a large library of documents, graphics, etc.
   in ZIP files can now quickly browse them and view the files they want
   saving many megabytes of disk storage.


Object Inspector

   Anyone trying to manage an OS/2 desktop knows the difficulty of
   working with Workplace Shell objects. Finding out an object's
   "low level" settings can be frustrating and time consuming.
   Network managers spend countless hours setting up workstations
   so that they are easily used but standardized to a corporate
   reference point. Object Inspector provides the tool to make
   these chores easy.

   To discover any object's "under-the-cover" properties, simply
   load the Object Inspector and Workplace Shell objects are
   instantly displayed and presented in an easily manageable
   form. Users can even create REXX or RC scripts to regenerate
   objects across an enterprise.


Who is our customer?

    Object Desktop is Stardock's offering as the "next  generation"
    desktop environment for OS/2. We have been successful  in bringing
    powerful new ease-of-use features to the OS/2 market, as well  as
    enabling new ways of using the OS/2 desktop environment. Object
    Desktop  is intended for OS/2 users who work in small offices, or
    home offices,  or for mobile computing users who want the best in
    desktop power.

   However, Object Desktop Professional is intended for a different
   type of user. Stardock Systems created Object Desktop Professional
   to address the concerns of corporate users who are connected to
   large information resources and who exchange information with a
   workgroup or an entire corporation. Object Desktop Professional
   is a must for corporations who standardize their desktops and
   want to reduce their desktop management costs. These same
   corporations can leverage intranet technology for reducing their
   training costs through our powerful computer-based-training
   features.

   Object Desktop Professional is also targeted at the professional
   OS/2 user or "Power User". Professionals using OS/2 for consulting
   or to improve their own productivity realize that the benefits of
   Object Desktop Professional are well worth the cost of entry and
   will find it a "must have" product for their needs.


Conclusions

    Object Desktop Professional is a significant step forward
    in creating a corporate environment that is more productive,
    more reliable,  easier to work with, and secure. It provides
    the features and function  that corporate users desire, while
    reducing desktop management and training  costs. See Stardock's
    website (http://www.stardock.com) for more information  on the
    Object Desktop family of products. For more information, please
    feel free to contact our Vice President of marketing, Alexander
    Antoniades,  at either at (313) 453-0328 or sander@stardock.com.
    For site license opportunities, contact Stardock's Worldwide
    Executive Sales Manager: Maurice Saylor: 703-404-4274.

    The value of Object Desktop Professional is tremendous. Even if
    only a few of the features of Object Desktop Professional are
    used, it still provides a lot of "bang for the buck."
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Object Desktop Professional
List: $179
Stardock Systems, Inc.
313-453-0328
313-453-1480 fax
1-800-672-2338 orders
http://www.stardock.com
GO STARDOCK compuserve

Availability:
   Most OS/2 resellers and PC Wares (for IBM employees)
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