WINDOWS 95 MANIA : Opening Day : Microsoft’s Windows 95 Off to a Bright, if Not Blinding, Start
Zero hour arrived Thursday for software giant Microsoft Corp. and countless computer stores around Southern California and the world, with nocturnal parties, big crowds and special promotions galore ushering in the Windows 95 personal computer program.
But even though fun seemed to be had by all at the retailers’ midnight sales events--and at the VIP gala on the Microsoft campus outside Seattle--some signs were emerging that Windows 95 might not live up to the prodigious hype.
As the clock struck midnight Wednesday, Windows 95 began flying off the shelves at scores of Southern California computer stores.
At CompUSA in Fountain Valley, a crowd of 300 was on hand for the event, with the searchlights in the parking lot giving the feel of a Hollywood movie premiere--but with fuel-efficient Japanese cars instead of limousines lined up at the curb.
Inside, a radio disc jockey kept customers updated on the evening’s sales promotions. When the clock struck midnight, the crowd tossed streamers and tooted horns as employees flung open the doors to the warehouse, where boxes of software were stacked six feet high on wooden pallets.
Bobby Neishi, 37, a Huntington Beach resident who designs snowboards, was among the first to grab a copy. Neishi said he and his friends were holding an informal contest to see who could get a copy of the program first. “I’m going to go home and load this thing up and get on the [Internet] and talk about it,” he said.
At Egghead Software in Pasadena, sales associates had synchronized their watches so they could begin ringing up purchases at the stroke of midnight. They knew the moment had arrived when store manager Don Tordilla played a selection of dramatic classical music to hail the beginning of a new computing era.
Robert Todd was the customer first in line. For this privilege, he arrived at 11:30 p.m., about an hour after a crowd started forming at the store. The advantage of being first in line, he said, was that he could go straight home and be done installing Windows 95 by 3 a.m.
“This is the Woodstock of the ‘90s,” Todd, a 47-year-old general contractor from South Pasadena, said without a hint of irony.
Kevin Anderson, 38, also a general contractor from Pasadena, stayed up three hours past his usual bedtime in order to purchase Windows 95 at the first opportunity. Giddy with excitement (or perhaps fatigue), he said he had been awaiting the Windows 95 debut so that “I can write file names with 255 characters!”
Mazier Maniei and his wife gave a dinner party to celebrate the release. Then he and his guests headed over to Egghead at midnight.
“I’ve been looking forward to this for 2 1/2 years,” said Maniei, 35, a computer consultant in Pasadena. “This is the best thing since they came out with the floppy disk drive in 1977.”
By the time he got to the front of the checkout line, friends had loaded him up with $600 worth of software--more than twice the amount he had planned to spend. “By the time I’m finished paying for all of this it will be time for Windows 99,” he joked.
At Egghead Software in Chatsworth, Mitchell Marcus gushed, “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” When it was pointed out that he would have been able to purchase the same software at just about any time in the future, he replied: “This is the premiere. The opening. You’ve got to be here.”
But if there was plenty of excitement at midnight, that was not universally the case during normal business hours Thursday morning.
The big retail chains declined to discuss sales figures, but a disappointing turnout at a handful of stores in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area suggested the Windows 95 launch may not be an unqualified success.
Maria Rubio, manager of the Software Etc. store in the Century City Shopping Center, opened up two hours early and had nearly doubled her staff to accommodate the heavy influx of customers she was expecting. Although the first Windows 95 sale was made by 8:15 a.m., customers came in at a trickle throughout the morning.
“I was surprised that we weren’t as busy as we might have been,” Rubio said. Even the mob she expected during the lunch hour failed to materialize.
The Computer City store in Los Angeles opened its doors at 8 a.m. but failed to draw large crowds all morning.
“I thought it would be jam-packed and that I would be waiting in line,” said Brian Shuster, a 37-year-old film company executive from Beverly Hills as he breezed through the store with two packages of the operating system.
Marcos Genetiano, a clerk at CompUSA in San Bruno in the Bay Area, said business had slowed drastically from the initial rush. “It’s not really that busy right now,” he said Thursday afternoon. “It was better today than usual, but not what we expected.”
Still, many retailers were delighted--and anticipating a big weekend. “Last night we did a normal day’s business in two hours,” said Bob Stone, manager of a Computer City store in Santa Ana. At midday Thursday, business was still 40% above normal for a weekday. But the real rush is expected for the weekend, he said. “We’ve actually hired about 20 more employees over the last couple of weeks to be staffed for this,” Stone said.
At Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Wash., certainly, there was nary a negative word to be heard. The main athletic field on the lush 250-acre campus had been converted into a carnival, complete with tents and a Ferris wheel. By 9 a.m., buses began depositing visitors--the media and computer- industry types who would eventually number about 5,000.
Many arrived bleary-eyed, casualties of the festivities of the night before. At a welcome reception hosted by Microsoft, guests who packed into a ballroom at the Stouffer hotel in downtown Seattle were greeted by a giant ice sculpture in the shape of the Windows logo. Later, Microsoft developers held a “Geekfest” in a spare auditorium on the edge of town, a hip gathering with funky ‘70s music and a pizza-eating contest, pizza being the food of choice for computer programmers.
About 11 a.m., talk-show host Jay Leno took the stage in the main tent, but it was Bill Gates, whom Leno introduced as “the man who’s so successful he has Ross Perot as his chauffeur,” who was the real star of the show.
Visitors spent the afternoon nibbling on “Compaq kebabs” and playing carnival games in which computer gear constituted the prizes.
Even Seattle’s notoriously fickle weather cooperated. The sky was an azure blue dotted by fluffy white clouds--just like the opening screen for Windows 95.
The only sour note in the day was a statement from U.S. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno saying the Justice Department’s antitrust investigation of Microsoft would continue, as expected. Her comments caused a flutter in Microsoft’s stock price, which dipped $1.75 to close at $96.125.
Helm reported from Seattle, Kaplan from Los Angeles and Pitta from San Francisco. Times staff writers Greg Miller in Orange County and Nicholas Riccardi in Los Angeles also contributed to this report.
* READ ALL ABOUT IT: Microsoft sponsored the London Times’ entire press run. D5
* HO-HUM REACTION: Macintosh and OS / 2 users wondered what the fuss was about. D5
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
Hype or Help?
THE GOOD
* 32-bit architecture: Takes advantage of advanced microchips, potentially performing twice as fast as earlier Windows with 16-bit design.
* Start button: An icon in the lower left corner of the screen provides a common place to open a file, launch a program or get help.
* Task bar: A strip at the bottom of the screen shows what programs are running and allows the user to switch back and forth.
* Multitasking: Can run several programs at once.
* File names: Current Windows programs are limited to eight characters; new ones allow 255.
THE BAD
* Power demands: To run well, Windows 95 requires a PC with at least a 486 microprocessor, 16 megabytes of RAM and a 500-megabyte hard-disk drive, about twice the power of most PCs. That translates to $800 to $1,200 in hardware improvements for a user whose computer is more than a year old, according to Paul Gillen, editor of Computerworld.
* Multitasking: Doesn’t work well with older programs and can lock up the computer.
* Learning curve: Those who are already comfortable with Windows and DOS will have to relearn their computers.
* Mac envy: Still not as easy to use as a Macintosh.
THE UGLY
* Too much hype: A $1-billion sales pitch? Give us a break.
* Too much Gates: Is Microsoft selling a man or a program?
Sources: Bloomberg Business News, Associated Press
