GEAR Aims to Make Tracks in Competitive CD-R Software Market - includes related article on lawsuit by Apple

Emedia Professional, Feb, 1999 by Lauren Wiley

GEAR Software Inc. kicked off 1999 with a new brand name, Makin' Tracks, under which the company will market updated versions of its professional multimedia software for UNIX and Windows users, and a new consumer program that offers more advanced features than past products aimed at home-PC users.

Andy Ruppanner, GEAR vice president of sales and marketing, says the company had to develop a new image to stay competitive in the CD-R market, in which snazzy names like Adaptec's Toast and Jam have been effective in attracting attention. The software's former monikers, GEAR Multimedia for Windows and GEAR UNIX, were often mistaken for operating systems, he says.

In addition to the surface-level changes, there have been internal redesigns in the software itself, says Gustav Karlsson, GEAR manager of special projects. The biggest difference between the old versions and UNIX Multimedia 3.51 and Windows Multimedia 4.4 is that the new products offer not just track-at-once but also disc-at-once recording, which allows users to specify the type and length of delays between tracks.

"A lot of the other changes are not going to be visible to the end user," Karlsson says. Those alterations will make high read and write speeds more reliable, and make the professional software packages easier to use, he says.

GEAR product manager Fred Hartman says users of the professional versions of Makin' Tracks tend to be network administrators, and computer and recording professionals--"anyone who does intense data storage or any type of recording."

Because the professional Makin' Tracks software combines all video and audio functions in one program, it operates more like a mastering studio, Karlsson says. "The production difference is dramatically different" from consumer versions, he says, and the UNIX software is a step above the Windows program.

The UNIX Multimedia 3.51 Makin' Tracks Pro package includes disc-at-once writing support for Hewlett-Packard, Philips, and Sony CD-R drives, reading speeds greater than 16X to support many of the new drives, and "copy track" operations to read audio tracks as WAV files. UNIX users can write IS09660, IS09660 with RockRidge extensions (allowing long file names), and audio and video CDs.

GEAR, a wholly owned subsidiary of Command Software Systems, only competes against a few other companies in the UNIX multimedia software market. Best known among these competitors is Creative Digital Research, whose HyCD software has figured prominently in the UNIX market for several years. Karlsson says competing software is cheaper than GEAR's $1,499 package, but offers fewer features.

He says professionals use UNIX for processing mass amounts of data. Consumers include government agencies using the system for data storage, or hospitals running medical imaging systems.

The market for Windows multimedia programs is 100 times larger than that of UNIX, Hartman says, and the cost of Makin' Tracks for Windows is substantially lower at $399. Windows Multimedia 4.4 incorporates the latest CD-R technology for imaging, archiving, CAD/CAM and graphics storage, title development, pre-master testing, and the recording of multiple CDs.

"Windows users are used to lower prices," Hartman says, so GEAR's Makin' Tracks for Windows has fewer functions than the UNIX version, but also has additional plug-in features, such as those enabling software downloading and the copying of multiple CDs.

Hartman says both Windows and UNIX products offer a batch-file feature, which allow users to store all of their data at the end of the workday, a function that the competition doesn't offer. He also says GEAR Software is the only company that produces CD-R technology that can record to 80-minute CD-R discs in addition to the more common 74-minute media. He acknowledges that most current users don't need the 80-minute capacity, and estimates that about one sales call in 20 asks about the extended-recording feature.

The Makin' Tracks Suite bundles GEAR Audio, Replicator, and WebGrabber products with a new archival system, GEAR Data. All GEAR products also are bundled with a trial version of Command Anti-Virus (formerly F-PROT Professional), and the CD-R labeling program, NEATO MediaFace.

The program will retail for $89.99, making it competitive with Adaptec's multimedia package. "That's the company to beat," Hartman says of Adaptec.

Adaptec's David Ulmer suggests that GEAR is simply repackaging its old software and releasing it under the Makin' Tracks name. There might be a few new features, he says, but "the engine itself is the same, and we've been three generations ahead of them for a while."

Ulmer says Adaptec's software is better and has a much larger market share, especially among consumers. "We blow them away," he says. "1 feel really confident with our software. I'd take them on head-to-head any time."

Command Software Systems, 1061 East Indiantown Road, Suite 500, Jupiter, FL 33477; 800/423-9147 or 561/575-3200; Fax 561/575-3026; http://www.commandcom.com. Adaptec Inc., 691 South Milpitas Boulevard, MS: 110, Milpitas, CA 95035; 800/934-2766, 408/945-8600; Fax 408/262-2533; http://www.adaptec.com)