Type of Article: MacMinute Web Site

Interactive Week‘s Matthew Rothenberg is the latest columnist to offer commentary on Apple’s upcoming Macworld Expo San Francisco announces. Rothenberg discusses the current rumors, although he maintains that faster Power Mac G4 systems—and not the much-discussed G5—will be announced next month.

An interesting Washington Post article, as noted by MacNN, offers a general overview of Apple’s position in the marketplace today, citing the company’s financial position, unique product strategy, retail store endeavor, and more.

Roxio, creators of Toast, today announced it will acquire MGI Software—creators of the popular PhotoSuite and VideoWave products—for about US$32.8 million in stock. “The combination of Roxio and MGI is key to Roxio’s long-term strategy of providing a world-class suite of digital media products and is expected to result in the industry’s most comprehensive product line-up for consumers to enjoy digital media,” reads a part of the press release.

ThinkFree Corporation has released ThinkFree Office 2.0, a new version of its server-based office productivity suite. The Java-based ThinkFree Office features word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation applications that are all compatible with Microsoft Office. New in version 2.0 is a public folder feature that allows multiple users to share and collaborate on documents, support for webDAV drive access (such as iDisk), support for animation in its presentation application, support for PowerPoint template files, and more.

4D has released WebSTAR 5.0.1, an update to its server software for Mac OS X that includes “a number of enhancements including improved 4D WebSTAR plug-in capabilities, Admin and Web server performance, and increased connectivity to 4D RDBMS.” A free demo of WebSTAR 5 is available; the software sells for US$399.