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From: ajdenner@athena.mit.edu (Alexander J Denner)
Newsgroups: comp.arch,alt.next
Subject: Re: The NeXT Problem
Message-ID: <7501@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>
Date: 17 Oct 88 00:20:15 GMT
References: <26435@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <452@oracle.UUCP>
Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU
Reply-To: ajdenner@athena.mit.edu (Alexander J Denner)
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lines: 26

In article <452@oracle.UUCP> csimmons@oracle.UUCP (Charles Simmons) writes:
>Oops...  Note that IBM has licensed NeXT Step and plans to port it to
>run on top of AIX.  Potentially, OSF will go with AIX as its
>operating system, and this would suggest that NeXT Step would be
>likely to appear in any OSF offering.  In any event, with IBM backing
>the NeXT software, NeXT doesn't have to worry about this little item.
>
>As I mentioned above, IBM has already made NeXT proprietary software
>into a standard.
>
>Also, since NeXT runs a Unix-based operating system, it' going to be
>real easy for companies to port their product from their current
>Unix based machines to the NeXT machine.

	IBM may use NeXT Step, but I would not count on it.  IBM has a history
of licensing and/or buying any technology or software they may someday
think about using.  For OSF, IBM has licensed or considered using:  Next,
Presentation Manager (what!), X Windows, HP (whatever they call their new
windowing system), and others.  To my knowledge, none of them have been 
given any special attention.  In fact, chances are IBM may not even accept
any of the systems above and write or contract a new one.

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Alexander J. Denner                    		ajdenner@athena.mit.edu
234 Baker House, 342 Memorial Drive		mit-eddie!mit-athena!ajdenner
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