Lunar Landing to Touch Down Later This Year
Astronaut Jim “Houston, we have a problem” Lovell presumably took little pleasure in his troubled Apollo 13 mission to the moon. But an Orange County software company is betting that computer users would love to pilot a lunar space mission, provided the stakes aren’t quite so high.
Wiz Technology Inc., a San Juan Capistrano-based software distributor, plans to release a CD-ROM game called Lunar Landing later this year.
Hoping to make the virtual game seem realistic, the company is even trekking to the Johnson Space Center in Houston this week to film Mission Control and astronaut training scenes.
“I’m a NASA geek from way back,” said Allan Kuskowski, 39, head of Burbank-based AIM Software Ltd., a Wiz subsidiary producing Lunar Landing. Kuskowski set out to create one last Apollo mission, a virtual trip to the moon to recover crucial equipment supposedly left on the lunar surface by Apollo 17.
To succeed, cyber-astronauts must know how to manage battery life and fuel supplies, be able to communicate with Mission Control through a headset that comes with the game and be expert at guiding the lunar module into soft landings.
Expected to sell for between $40 and $50, the game should be on shelves by Christmas, he added.
Digital Video Battle
The consumer electronics industry avoided a potentially ruinous battle last year when Hollywood studios pressured Sony and Toshiba, champions of two opposing camps, to agree on a single standard for a new generation of digital video discs for playing movies and recording computer data.
Now another battle is threatening a successful launch of DVD players this summer.
This time, the dispute is between Hollywood studios, which want government legislation to ensure that DVD players use encrypting technology to make it difficult to copy movies, and computer manufacturers, who question the need for such legislation and worry that the overly strict requirements could hobble DVD’s potential as a core component in future multimedia computers.
Caught in the middle are DVD manufacturers who have invested huge sums in developing the machines and are eager to see the technology find the widest market possible both in the computer and entertainment sectors.
Although the first-generation DVD players that appear on the market in August will not be able to record, machines available next year are expected to have that capability.
Studios such as MCA and Disney have reportedly postponed converting movies to the DVD format until the dispute is settled. That means there could be fewer movies available for the DVD player than originally expected, stretching the time it takes for the machine to gain broad acceptance in the market.
A Chip Off the Block
Hoping to follow the lead of America Online--the upstart, fast-growing service that has seen its stock price more than triple since June--CompuServe Inc. offered 16 million shares to the public on Friday, officially spinning off from former parent H&R; Block. Initially priced at $30, the stock rose to $33 by the end of its first day on the Nasdaq stock exchange.
Columbus, Ohio-based CompuServe is the oldest of the Big Four commercial online services, and it has a reputation as the most sophisticated and business-oriented service among the group. But America Online is bigger--analysts estimate AOL membership at about 5.4 million, compared with CompuServe’s 4.7 million--and it’s growing faster too.
The public offering of 17% of the company raised $528 million. David Ludlum, director of business multimedia services at IDC/Link, a New York market research and consulting firm, said CompuServe should use the money to “market themselves more effectively.”
Indeed, Vienna, Va.-based America Online has pummeled CompuServe in the marketing arena. Mark Mooradian, an online analyst with Jupiter Communications in New York, says CompuServe is spending just $20 million to market its new consumer-friendly WOW! service while AOL’s marketing budget was between $200 million and $300 million last year.
“CompuServe has done everything to be more like AOL,” Mooradian said. “AOL has been wildly successful--it’s amazing what they’ve accomplished in so short a time--and CompuServe isn’t dumb. They’re starting to adopt some of the same strategies.”
Prodigy Sale Rumored
Stiffer competition is just what laggard Prodigy Services Co. doesn’t need. The beleaguered third-place online company, which claims more than 2 million members, announced earlier this month that it will lay off 115 of its 709 employees.
The industry buzz is that managers of White Plains, N.Y.-based Prodigy want to buy the company from parents Sears, Roebuck & Co. and International Business Machines Corp. and that they ordered the layoffs to attract outside investors to help them. Rumor has it that starting bids are in the $250-million range--about half what Sears was asking for its share of the company as recently as February.
The layoffs have also been attributed to Prodigy’s strategy of moving onto the World Wide Web, where it will focus on entertainment content. (Edward Bennett, Prodigy’s chief executive since last April, previously ran the cable music channel VH1.)
Analysts are doubtful that move will revive the company, especially since the kinds of services that set online companies apart, such as chat rooms, are difficult to administer in a Web environment.
*
About that turnaround . . . One day after announcing dismal earnings, Apple Computer announced it has joined forces with Paramount Pictures on a large-scale promotional campaign focusing on Paramount’s upcoming thriller “Mission Impossible.”
* Times staff writers Greg Miller in Orange County (greg.miller@latimes.com), Leslie Helm in Seattle (leslie.helm @latimes.com) and Karen Kaplan in Los Angeles (karen.kaplan@latimes.com) contributed to this report.
