This book contains 18 chapters, written by different authors, on preparing for the future of multimedia computing (MMC). It is organized into four sections which focus on the following areas respectively: technology, applications and benefits, applications and development, and end users. The first section concerns the relationship between MMC technology and the place of multimedia in emerging, decentralized enterprises; and advances in interactive digital multimedia systems, multimedia distributed computing, and a video applications server are discussed. The second section provides guidance for justifying the expense of converting a PC environment into one that uses multimedia, and an overview of MMC and guidelines for CD-ROM and multimedia publishing and CD-recordable applications. The third section contains chapters that provide insight into the challenges of designing and developing MMC applications; total quality management, issues in multimedia user interface design for computer-based instruction, cognitive issues in the development of multimedia learning systems, script-coding, production, intellectual property law, and entrepreneurship in hypermedia computing are discussed. The fourth section focuses on the end user and covers the strategic use of hypermedia and multimedia, systematic evaluation procedures for interactive multimedia, implementing multimedia-based learning, using multimedia to help students learn knowledge acquisition, and the potential for multimedia in education. A glossary, index, and author biographies are provided. (AEF)