Apple to share spotlight at upcoming conference

Though the big news at Macworld Expo is expected to come from Apple Computer, plenty of other companies plan to make announcements at the show.

Companies including graphics chipmaker ATI say they plan to make announcements at the conference, which starts tomorrow in New York. ATI supplies graphics chips to Apple computers and will unveil a new Radeon graphics board.

Others are planning new software and hardware to sit next to iMacs, PowerBooks and PowerMacs. ATI rival 3dfx, for instance, said it will show its Voodoo 4 and 5 graphics cards.

But one big name in the Mac world, Adobe, said it has nothing big on tap for the show. Look for the company to announce new products in August at the Seybold trade show in San Francisco.

A cavalcade of other new hardware and software announcements should come out during the week and be displayed to the masses on the show floor.

Connectix plans to introduce a new piece of utility software but is keeping mum on the details. Meanwhile, PowerOn Software plans to launch another utility, called Rewind, that records all changes to disks and files, allowing recovery when other backups fail, according to the company's promotional materials.

Digital audio also should be a hot area at the show, with new Mac-compatible MP3 players and the first Mac version of MusicMatch Jukebox.