Alpha Microsystems announces immediate beta availability of Alpha StockVue; 32-bit, ActiveX software application provides automated retrieval of stock market information.SANTA ANA Santa Ana, city, El Salvador Santa Ana (sän'tä ä`nä), city (1993 pop. 129,873), W El Salvador. It is the second largest city in the country and the commercial and processing center for a sugarcane, coffee, and cattle region. , Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 28, 1996--Alpha Microsystems (NASDAQ NASDAQ in full National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations U.S. market for over-the-counter securities. Established in 1971 by the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), NASDAQ is an automated quotation system that reports on NM:ALMI ALMI Application Level Multicast Infrastructure ALMI Automated Listing and Mapping Instrument (US Census Bureau) ) on Wednesday announced the immediate beta availability of Alpha StockVue, its new 32-bit ready-to-run, Microsoft ActiveX-based Internet application designed for individuals who invest in or follow the stock market. Alpha StockVue, an "off the shelf" end-user application, facilitates easy retrieval of stock and mutual fund quotes, SEC filings, news items and other stock market data, and includes such features as stock-price and trading-volume limit alerts, portfolio valuations and animated ticker tape Ticker Tape A computerized device that relays financial information to investors around the world, including the stock symbol, the latest price, and volume on securities as they are traded. display. It also provides the ability to export the retrieved information to Intuit's Quicken 5, Microsoft Word A full-featured word processing program for Windows and the Macintosh from Microsoft. Included in the Microsoft application suite, it is a sophisticated program with rudimentary desktop publishing capabilities that has become the most widely used word processing application on the market. , Microsoft Excel (tool) Microsoft Excel - A spreadsheet program from Microsoft, part of their Microsoft Office suite of productivity tools for Microsoft Windows and Macintosh. Excel is probably the most widely used spreadsheet in the world. Latest version: Excel 97, as of 1997-01-14. , Notepad The text editor that comes with Windows. It is a very elementary utility, but gets the job done most of the time. See text editor and WordPad. (text, tool) Notepad - The very basic text editor supplied with Microsoft Windows. , and Web pages. Alpha StockVue is well-differentiated in that it is free of monthly charges and is an application-specific Internet product capable of automatically retrieving a broad spectrum of public company information from multiple sources and delivering it to popular Windows applications and Web pages. A free beta version A pre-shipping release of hardware or software that has gone through alpha test. A beta version of software is supposed to be very close to the final product, but, in practice, it is more a way of getting users to test the software in the first place under real conditions. of Alpha StockVue can be downloaded from the company's AlphaCONNECT Web site at: http://www.alphaconnect.com. According to Alpha Microsystems president and chief executive officer Douglas J. Tullio, the product debuted July 31 at the Mecklermedia Web Interactive '96 trade show in New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of and has attracted significant interest from a variety of individual investors, retail stock brokerages and media outlets. The full production release of the product will be available in late September, and will retail for U.S. $39.95. Alpha StockVue operates under Windows 95 and Windows NT 3.51 or higher and was developed using Microsoft's new ActiveX technology for 32-bit operating environments. The AlphaCONNECT family of products is designed for automated retrieval, conversion, and delivery of Web, intranet, legacy and LAN (Local Area Network) A communications network that serves users within a confined geographical area. The "clients" are the user's workstations typically running Windows, although Mac and Linux clients are also used. data. Alpha StockVue is currently compatible with Internet access services such as the Microsoft Network, EarthLink and other providers whose software is 32-bit compliant. Dial-up Internet access See dial-up. providers such as America Online and others, who have not yet released 32-bit compliant interface software, will not be able to take advantage of Alpha StockVue until the access providers' 32-bit compliant software is available. According to CompuServe, it currently provides a "work around" to provide 32-bit access and its planned CompuServe 3.0 release due out in the near future will be 32-bit compliant. America Online is also expected to release a 32-bit compliant software in the near future. In addition to obtaining the 32-bit compliant work around files from CompuServe, related information can also be found at the AlphaCONNECT Web site. Tullio commented, "Alpha StockVue eliminates users' need to surf the Web for stock quotes and related corporate information. Many recent research studies have concluded that among users' primary concerns with using the Internet is the ease of finding and organizing information; our product alleviates these concerns by providing an easy-to-use, yet cost-effective alternative for information management. "We're encouraged by the positive response to its recent introduction," he added. "It is the first application-specific product within our AlphaCONNECT line of software products for the Internet and corporate intranets and we have several others currently under development. "We are in early discussions with a variety of software companies, brokerage firms, OEMs and other potential outlets concerning the distribution of Alpha StockVue. In addition to targeting individual investors directly, we believe that Alpha StockVue presents a particularly compelling opportunity for broker/dealers to secure new customers by providing easy access to the wealth of public company information available on the Web." Tullio added that following its successful debut at the Web Interactive '96 trade show in New York, the beta version of Alpha StockVue along with other AlphaCONNECT products will be demonstrated at Web Developer Canada in Vancouver, September 16-18. In addition to providing visitors to its booth a beta copy of Alpha StockVue, the company will be giving away its AlphaCONNECT Power Package CD-ROM CD-ROM: see compact disc. CD-ROM in full compact disc read-only memory Type of computer storage medium that is read optically (e.g., by a laser). , which contains the AlphaCONNECT Pro 30-day trial version, AlphaCONNECT Lite and AlphaCONNECT Messenger for e-mail distribution. AlphaCONNECT Pro technology is the core of Alpha StockVue and other related products that have been and will be developed. AlphaCONNECT Pro is a powerful software and communications tool that can selectively harvest information from applications running on corporate intranets, legacy systems, LANs and Internet sites using the Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) or File Transfer Protocol A communications protocol used to transmit files without loss of data. A file transfer protocol can handle all types of files including binary files and ASCII text files. See Kermit, Zmodem and FTP. (FTP FTP in full file transfer protocol Internet protocol that allows a computer to send files to or receive files from another computer. Like many Internet resources, FTP works by means of a client-server architecture; the user runs client software to connect to ) standards. Retrieved data is then converted, delivering it for use by selected applications running under Microsoft Windows, Windows 95 and Windows NT, or data can be converted into HTML HTML in full HyperText Markup Language Markup language derived from SGML that is used to prepare hypertext documents. Relatively easy for nonprogrammers to master, HTML is the language used for documents on the World Wide Web. documents and posted to a Web server. The AlphaCONNECT Pro software retails for U.S. $140 per copy and is available for purchase on-line at http://www.alphaconnect.com or by calling 888/226-6398. Alpha Microsystems serves the Internet and intranet markets through its software, services and technologies. The company also provides products and services such as consulting, maintenance, software, hardware and networking, both directly and through value-added resellers and distributors. Alpha Microsystems has been in business for over 18 years and today has over 40 locations, as well as third party distribution channels worldwide. For more information, contact the company's Web site at: http://www.alphamicro.com. CONTACT: Alpha Microsystems, Santa Ana Denny Michael, 714/641-6373 E-mail: dmichael@alphamicro.com or McQUERTERGROUP David C. Krane (trade media), 619/450-0030 david@mcqtr.com or Allen & Caron Inc/South Coast Communications Erik Randerson (investors) or Owen Daley (business & financial media) 714/252-8440 Internet: 76641.635@compuserve.com |
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