------------------------------------------------------------ UniNews The Biweekly Newsletter For UniForum Members ------------------------------------------------------------ Issue Date: June 08, 1994 Volume VIII, Number 9 ------------------------------------------------------------ UniNews is written and published by UniForum's publications department. For information on articles in this issue or to contribute news to future issues, contact Don Dugdale at don@uniforum.org or (408) 986-8840, ext. 29, or (800) 255-5620 ext. 29. Copyright 1994 by UniForum. All rights reserved. UNIX is a registered trademark, licensed exclusively by X/Open Co., Ltd. UniForum is a trademark of UniForum. Printed in USA. UniNews (ISSN 1069-0395) is published biweekly for $12 per year (membership dues) by UniForum, 2901 Tasman Dr., Suite 205, Santa Clara, CA 95054. Except for individual use by member subscribers, no portion of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior permission of UniForum. UniNews is presented in ASCII format. It is also available in PostScript by accessing the UniForum World Wide Web Server. Point your WWW client to http://www.uniforum.org. ------------------------------------------------------------ Table of Contents: o Is OSF Helping Users? Members' Opinions Run the Gamut o Conference Planning Begins for UniForum '95 o UniForum Newsgroup Proposed; Voting Required o Mike Fields: Open Visionary o UNIXWare Gets a Support Group o AFFILIATE ROUNDUP o UniNews Recruitment and Positions Wanted o UniForum '94 Conference Session Videotapes on Sale o Publications, Conferences, Discounts and More ------------------------------------------------------------ Is OSF Helping Users? Members' Opinions Run the Gamut ------------------------------------------------------ Some say organizational moves won't help-others cheer it on [Editor's Note: As part of UniForum's ongoing program to make member comment and opinion an integral part of UniForum publications, UniNews recently asked a cross-section of members, via the Internet, to comment on the reorganization of the Open Software Foundation (OSF)-which was announced at UniForum '94 in March-and related matters. This issue of the newsletter summarizes the overall response and gives voice to a variety of opinions on the change itself. A future issue will feature OSF's response to the members' questions and comments and give the members' opinions on where the UNIX unification effort should go from here.] The latest Open Software Foundation/ Common Open Software Environment unification move has left UniForum members evenly split. Although many believe the move either will or could help end users, an equal number say that either no one or only vendors will benefit. In addition to those views, members: o said that, for the most part, they doubt the new OSF structure will be more open to user input, as claimed by the organizers; o want to know more about the new pre-structured technology development model OSF has instituted; and o felt that cross-platform standardization will be accelerated. [For a related article, see "OSF User Members Chart New Course" in the June issue of UniForum Monthly.] Helps End Users The benefits to users were clear to Gary Michael Clark, of San Antonio, TX, who said, "It will help with the addition of new technology into UNIX" now that organizations affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley, have decided to stop issuing updates to UNIX. To A.F. Gualtieri, of Long Grove, IL, "Any process that consolidates the number of groups and gets more vendors lined up under one group will benefit users. The fact that they have decided to then turn the specifications and testing over to X/Open will also be helpful." Nobuaki Hashizume, of Mountain View, CA, commented, "I think end users will receive many benefits by simple implementation of GUI and applications APIs." Don Mason, of Eagan, MN, warned that "Vendor agreement does not guarantee the best specification for users." But Mason added, "I think that to the extent the vendors agree on common specifications, end users will see more competitively priced implementations and broader availability of value added features." And ever hopeful was Rudy White, of Moffett Field, CA, who said, "If it will make it easier by setting a standard across all platforms, it would make it better for the users." Equally upbeat was Glenn Kapetansky, of Naperville, IL, who stated, "The OSF move is one more chance that UNIX will compete successfully against [Microsoft's] Windows NT. That is very much a concern to me as an end user. I want to know what to buy and use." Mike McFaden, of Fremont, CA, wanted to keep an open mind: "If the UNIX and X marketplace becomes better unified via common APIs and interoperability, and the cost of technology is driven down, then it helps." Richard H. Gadsden Jr., of Charleston, SC, clarified his bottom line: "It will benefit end users only if it makes it much easier for software developers to port their applications between the many different flavors of UNIX. This is the Achilles heel of UNIX in its current form." Finally, David McCall, of Rohnert Park, CA, had a what if question: "What if some new startup creates the perfect operating system that will run on any platform? Won't that take away some of the meat (or bread and butter) of our system of competition in these areas?" Helps Vendors David A. Trevino Rodriguez, of Monterrey, Mexico, was typical of those who said only vendors are helped. "I think OSF is only concerned with vendors," he said. "But it will be interesting to find out more about this new strategy." According to Chris Maltby, of Strawberry Hills, New South Wales, Australia, "As it relates to COSE, it's primarily a vendor matter. OSF probably has better structures for user input than the original COSE group, but I believe that won't make much difference to the proceedings of the new COSE. And Jay Krone, of Marlboro, MA, said, "It primarily concerns hardware and software vendors, as they each try to maximize the number of software products they support or platforms on which they run." Helps Both Some felt the OSF move will benefit both users and vendors. "It will benefit end users because it will move UNIX farther down the path to true plug and play standardization," said Brad Bright, of Irvine, CA. "For the vendors, it will be a benefit because more software companies and end users will look into UNIX as a viable market to enter, and as this happens, more will come at an even faster rate. The snowball effect will begin." For Mark Di Pasquale, of Cupertino, CA, the importance of continuing the work of COSE is paramount. "Having an organization in which standards can be created and shaped primarily benefits developers and end users," he said. "For example, with COSE, developers should be able to use standard APIs when porting their applications to a vendor's hardware. Since the APIs would be standard, the application should require little, if any, work to successfully run on any COSE-compliant vendor's platform." Won't Help Anyone One of the most commonly voiced opinions on the OSF reorganization was put succinctly by Bill Rieken, of Los Gatos, CA, who said, "OSF is no benefit to anyone except OSF. It is a bureaucracy beholden to itself." Even more critical was Kim L. Shiveley, of Richardson, TX, who said, "I think it would have been of more benefit to the end users if OSF had just folded up shop. I think the COSE effort is being diluted to the point that it is meaningless. Spec 1170 (the common application programming interface initiative) is too broad and should go back to being rooted in the POSIX standards. I also think the certification process for CDE is weighted too heavily in favor of vendors as opposed to the IEEE process, where individual end users have a voice." The benefits were also obscure to Barry E. Hedquist, of Santa Clara, CA, who said, "It is not clear that the OSF move, per se, will benefit anyone, even OSF. But it is clear that as more support is given to standard interfaces, both vendors and end users will benefit." To others, the entire process now seems to be mired in goo. "It's not clear how this will benefit me," said L.A. Lundquist, of Austin, TX. "It appears to add an additional layer and there is no clear requirements process from the end user perspective. COSE was to be a giant leap, yet it is so bogged down, it can't get even the first entity (CDE) out in rapid fashion." Also frustrated is Mark Kapczynski, of Los Angeles, CA, who declared, "It seems like another great idea that users will never see the end result of." And Hugh Brownstone, of Plymouth Meeting, PA, and a UniForum director, said, "The announcement means nothing. At the point at which Hewlett-Packard disks can be plugged directly into Sun servers, or IBM's TCP/IP does something other than chew up mainframe cycles so that IBM users are discouraged from going open, or different ports of Oracle all do exactly the same thing, then we'll have something to really talk about. Until then, the UNIX/open world has lost tremendous credibility." These opinions are destined to keep the UNIX/open systems unification pot boiling for some time. OSF's comments and further member voices will be heard in a future issue of UniNews. End Article ------------------------------------------------------------ Conference Planning Begins for UniForum '95 -------------------------------------------- Conference track planning for UniForum '95 began at a steering committee retreat facilitated by Ron Lachman, a member of the UniForum Board of Directors, and Executive Director Richard Jaross. The planning follows in the momentum of the most successful UniForum conference in its 11-year history, which saw a paid attendance of 1,900 at the sessions. UniForum '95 is scheduled for March 13-17 in Dallas. The 20-member UniForum '95 Steering Committee undertook a reevaluation of the conference structure and, after an extended discussion, voted to develop sessions around the following 12 preliminary tracks: o PCs in an Open Systems Environment o The Mainframe in an Open Systems Environment o The Internet and the Information Highway o Robust, Mission-Critical Open Systems o Large, High-Volume Solutions o Distributed Systems Management and Network Management o Open Systems Networking o Open Workgroup Computing o Developing Applications in an Open Systems Environment o Futures in Open Systems o Object Computing o Industry Trends and Issues. The committee consists of representatives from the user community, vendors, analysts, editors and industry observers, consultants, members of the UniForum Board of Directors and UniForum staff. Overall the committee concluded that UniForum's mission should be "to create the definitive conference experience that provides people with the skills, knowledge and ability they need to solve real-world problems that PCs and mainframes cannot solve alone." To carry out that mission, committee members suggested that the following factors be considered, among others: provide usable ideas, make newcomers and those new to UNIX feel welcome, emphasize that open systems solves problems, emphasize business applications and needs, bridge technology gaps, enable an exchange of ideas, provide information that leads to action, provide real solutions for the real world, emphasize interoperability at the application level, and provide a road map from now to the future. A call for participation in UniForum '95 has been issued. Proposals for presentations should be submitted by Aug. 1, 1994. For more information and a participation form, contact Deborah Bonnin, UniForum conference and seminar manager, at (408) 986-8840 or debbie@uniforum.org. End Article ------------------------------------------------------------ UniForum Newsgroup Proposed; Voting Required --------------------------------------------- UniForum is in the process of extending its Usenet newsgroup name comp.org.uniforum to official status, to deliver better service. The association will provide in this newsgroup some of the information from its World Wide Web server. In addition, the newsgroup will provide for your questions and discussions. This newsgroup extension involves a Usenet voting procedure, and because of the way votes are counted, a big turnout is required for approval. Please help by voting, following these steps: Locate a Usenet article with the subject "CFV: comp.org.uniforum" in any of these six newsgroups: news.groups, news.announce.newgroups, comp.unix.misc, comp.org.ieee, comp.org.sug, comp.org.usenix. Read the article and follow the voting procedure it describes. You will send to a designated e-mail address at least this line: I vote YES on comp.org.uniforum Please ask your friends and fellow workers to vote. A good way to do that is to e-mail them a note that appends the call for votes. One doesn't have to be a UniForum member to vote. End Article ------------------------------------------------------------ Mike Fields: Open Visionary ---------------------------- CEO saw the need for systems management tools and acted [Editor's Note: With this article, UniNews begins a series of profiles of open systems personalities.] Name: Michael S. Fields Age: 48 Position: Chairman and CEO, OpenVision Technologies Inc. Birthplace: New York City Years in the Industry: 30 Years in Current Position: Two Pet Open Systems Peeve: "Standards du jour" Management Philosophy: Respect the individual, inside and outside the company; keep the customer in mind in everything you do; understand the need to both compete and cooperate with other vendors. Mike Fields didn't know when he took a $58-a-week job working with accounting machines for a New York insurance company that he would some day become chairman and CEO of a systems management software company. What was important to him was that the job paid $6 a week more than the administrator's job he was about to take. That decision, in 1964, and a draft notification a year later, led Fields into active duty with the Air Force. He took technical training and a job helping set up some of the most advanced Burroughs computers of the day for the Strategic Air Command. Since mid-1992 Fields has headed OpenVision, the Pleasanton, CA, startup that has been trying to establish itself as a leader in client-server systems management. But still he remembers, "I'm in this business for six bucks more a week." Fields, who grew up on New York's Long Island, studied drafting in college but never graduated. His Air Force experience as a programmer/analyst led to a job with Burroughs, where he stayed until 1979, eventually working into sales. He remembers that his mother was present when his mentor at Burroughs informed her, "We're going to make Mike a salesman." Concerned, she replied: "But I thought he was doing so well." From Burroughs, Fields moved to Applied Data Research (ADR) in Princeton, N.J., where he became vice president of North American sales and service. While leading a team looking for resources for a leveraged buyout in 1988 he met Lionel Pincus and William Janeway of the New York investment firm Warburg, Pincus Ventures, which eventually gave OpenVision its initial funding. In early 1989, a few months after the sale of ADR by then-owner Ameritech to Computer Associates (CA), Fields elected not to stay with CA and joined Oracle as head of U.S. sales. Then 18 months later, Oracle had a disappointing financial quarter. Fields was offered what he calls "a battlefield commission" as president of Oracle USA. But Fields kept his contacts with the officials at Warburg, Pincus during his stint with Oracle. It was through that collaboration that they decided to do something about the systems management problem in client-server. In assessing the chances that a new company could succeed, Fields looked at the competition. He saw Legent and Computer Associates, two firms that then specialized only in mainframe systems management, as his potential challengers. "CA was coming out with CA/Unicenter and Legent was going to form a team to acquire technology for client-server," he says. "I wasn't worried about CA for a couple of reasons. First, I knew they would be pretty narrowly focused in the technology they were delivering. Secondly, you could do a very big business just selling to companies who refused to buy anything from CA. I was really worried about Legent-about their $175 million in revenue. I didn't think we could compete with public stock even with $25 million in funding." However, sometime early in 1992, Legent announced a merger with Goal Systems, another mainframe systems management company. "OpenVision started that day," Fields says. "I called Bill [Janeway] up and I said 'Let's go.' There was no way they could merge two companies of that size and at the same time figure out how to move into a new paradigm. We started in June and in June Legent postponed their open systems foray for a year. There was a window of opportunity when there was no one buying products in systems management for client-server. We went after them and bought nine companies or divisions." Since the original $25 million capital infusion, OpenVision has received additional private funding, now some $63 million in all. Fields and his management team have completed 14 acquisitions, including four companies, three company divisions, three product lines and four strategic product licenses. In the process, they have put together a 26-part product and services offering. Major customers include Wells Fargo Bank, GTE and First Boston Corp. OpenVision has added 300 customers to the 700 it acquired by buying companies and products. Fields likes to point out that his company doesn't fit the high-tech norm. Although OpenVision follows its own technological guidelines, "It wasn't founded only on a technological vision," Fields says. "Typically you get a few smart guys in a room and you go build something and in a few years you may have a company. We started with the corporate business strategy that was necessary and decided how our technical strategy would impact our business strategy." Fields gives credit to Asa Lanum, senior vice president of the technology division, for the company's technological leadership. "Asa has helped us develop the technical vision of what our product strategy should be and the environment that encapsulates our products," Fields declares. Foremost in that strategy was to acquire only object-based products that could be encapsulated in an object environment and interoperate across platforms, operating systems and databases in a client-server architecture. But the technological vision had to coincide with the business strategy as well, which centered on an acquisition strategy. "We had to get the size to compete in a major market where the competitors were going to be large corporations coming from the mainframe side. So what strategy should we take from an acquisitions standpoint? If we just went out and acquired products on the basis that most companies have used in the past - market share, market visibility-we wouldn't succeed. The most important thing was how integratable any product that we acquired was going to be. So we defined our integration environment and what things should be in a product before we acquire it. Was this product built using object design and object programming methodology? Did they define APIs that modularize things such as porting and device drivers? Did they separate backup code and separate all the peripheral functionality as objects or subsystems? Also, did they understand client-server? A lot of the applications that are coming out in client-server are not scalable because the vendors that have brought them here don't understand some of the basic things." Once it was decided that the technology met OpenVision's integration requirements, the development team in the prospective acquisition had to agree to join the new company. "Once we had those two factors, then we sat down to talk about an acquisition opportunity," Fields says. "We immediately took the standalone product, repackaged it as an OpenVision product and started selling it. That allowed us to continue to grow, along with the substantial financing that we received. We are selling these products while we are continuing to encapsulate them with our integration strategy." Fields is expecting to hit at least $40 million sales for calendar 1994 and notes that "We only need marginal growth in order to achieve that. We feel we can respond to much more significant growth." His long-range goal? "We believe that we can be the leader in this market, and it's all about execution. I don't say this with any arrogance, but I actually do believe that there is nothing that any of our competitors can do to stop OpenVision from being successful. The only thing that can stop us is our ability to execute." Fields has seen the now-obvious pressing need for systems management in client-server environments since his days at Oracle. "I noticed we were delivering business-critical applications in client-server and the customer would say, 'That's nice, but how do I manage it? How do I employ it productively? How do I make it reliable? How do I secure it?' We didn't have all those features. Those are the things that were common in the traditional, mainframe world, but in the UNIX world they just weren't there. My background in this industry told me that the lack of tools in this market was going to be the bottleneck of the deployment of business-critical applications in client-server. So the push was coming from the enterprise." He adds, "It's a very big market. We don't have to be the only winner in this market. I believe there will be a number of winners." End Article ------------------------------------------------------------ UNIXWare Gets a Support Group ------------------------------ Officials of UNIXWare Technology Group explain their organization Last February the formation of the UNIXWare Technology Group (UTG) was announced. The nine founding members were AT&T Global Information Solutions (formerly NCR), Fujitsu, ICL, NEC, Novell, Olivetti, Sony, UniSoft and Unisys. Chorus Systems, Mitsubishi/apricot, Stratus Computer, Amdahl and Tandem have since joined. UTG's stated objective is "to provide a vehicle for UNIXWare OEMs, technology providers, systems integrators and independent software vendors to directly influence and guide the direction of the UNIXWare system by submitting product requirements and recommendations that will accelerate standardization and extend industry support for UNIXWare as a key operating system for client-server applications." UNIXWare is an operating system based on UNIX SVR4.2 and developed by Novell and the former UNIX System Laboratories, (since acquired by Novell). It is designed to operate on Intel-based servers and desktops. In May, UTG announced the appointment of Lawrence D. Lytle as president and CEO and Michael Dortch as vice president of marketing. Lytle was previously Novell's senior director for end-user relations and had been a marketing director at USL before it was acquired by Novell. Dortch was senior writer for Communications Week. UniNews interviewed them within days of their appointment. *** Where did the impetus come from to start UTG? Lytle: I think it came from the OEM partners initially. There are two things happening here. In the past, UNIX System Laboratories, and AT&T before that, always had a mechanism for having a direct working relationship with its OEMs. Novell really didn't have OEMs of the same nature. Yet Novell has a strong reputation for working cooperatively with a lot of partners. Culturally it really fits the mold of both cultures-the old USL culture and Novell's culture-and also it's something that the OEMs wanted to see happen. They wanted to make sure, with Novell's ownership of UNIX and UNIXWare, that they had an opportunity to influence the direction of the technology. The process by which, and the expectations by which we cooperate are a little different. In the past the OEMs would get together, as they did for UNIX International, and come up with a road map of not just recommendations but really requirements. And they would present those to UNIX System Laboratories. And there was an expectation that those requirements would be incorporated into the development plans for UNIX 4.0 and 4.2 after that. And under the new structure I think everyone recognizes that UNIXWare is a Novell technology. It is Novell's implementation. And Novell isn't necessarily obligating itself to implement everything that's presented as a requirement. Instead what's happening here is that the OEM community and other constituencies that become part of UTG have a direct way of working on a regular basis with Novell. And they will make recommendations. You can probably anticipate that Novell will act on many of them if not most of them. But it still reserves the right not to go act on something. Dortch: We get to take advantage of what you could perceive as Novell's schizophrenic participation in UTG because they're a member but they own UNIXWare. So commercially it's only in their best interest to implement at least the best and the brightest of the suggestions made by the people driving the market for the product that they make. Lytle: Every one of the companies that join fits on some continuum of overall commitment to UNIXWare. Some of them are absolutely committed to UNIXWare as the product implementation that they're going to make a market in for UNIX as a high-end client and server technology. *** Which ones? Lytle: I'll mention a couple. You take companies like Unisys and Olivetti, OEM customers. What they're basically saying is "We really want to have a finished product that we deliver to customers. We may add value, but we don't see ourselves in the business now of making major modifications. But we're committed to the server technology and the high-end client technology." So they're much more interested in our organization and doing joint cooperative marketing programs. On the other hand, if you look at virtually all the Japanese members and some of the American companies as well, particularly ones that are in the mainframe business, they're saying, "We want to add significant value, we want to continue to make modifications, so we are more interested in the source end of this arrangement." They're going to be much more interested in technical programs. Then you're going to have companies who join who are going to say, "UNIXWare is one of two or three implementations that I will support, based on customer demand. So I may have in my product portfolio Windows NT, UNIXWare, or even some OS/2 or Solaris solutions. And if my customers want these solutions I'm going to provide it." And for them, the uniqueness and benefit of UTG is that this is the only organization that gives them that direct voice in making recommendations and working cooperatively with the vendor providing the technology and with other vendors making a market for the technology. *** Have any end users come forward and said that they need this kind of organization? Lytle: This organization starts off with the catalyst 14 OEMs. And I would expect that number to grow by another dozen within the next nine months or so. And added to that, I would expect to see some software developers, some systems integrators and value-added resellers, and certainly some end users. At least three major, very large end-user organizations have already approached Novell and UNIXWare Technology Group and said "How do we get involved?" We're talking about in one case one of the major retail organizations in the world. They are saying "As a user who is going to buy in significant volume, we want to have a voice in this." Right now those mechanisms are not in place. One of the jobs Michael's going to have is figuring out how to serve these various constituencies. Dortch: A growing number of users are becoming predominantly or exclusively their own software developers. They're turning less and less outside and they're doing more and more stuff inside to tailor software to their specific needs. When you look at the evolution of user needs, there's obviously a role for UTG to play in helping users meet those needs. Lytle: Some users or some systems integrators and some OEMs may say, "We really want to see UNIXWare on a particular platform." And Novell may say "We don't have the bandwidth and that's not a priority for our development efforts. And we don't see the critical mass there for us to apply a resource to that." A couple of things might happen there. If there's enough pressure from the constituencies within UTG, it may change the level of priority. Or-and this is more likely-enough people share that interest within the constituency memberships of UTG that they say, "That's OK, we're going to get together and roll up our sleeves and do the work or fund the work and apply resources to get it done." I think everyone realizes that no one company is going to be able to do it all, so this basically provides a forum in which people can get together and do those kinds of things. *** Larry, you're a former Novell employee working in a Novell building. What does that say about UTG's relationship with Novell? What is it? Lytle: I did terminate from Novell to take the position. Novell would have been happy to let me go as a loaned executive. They've done things like that on other occasions. But the UTG membership said "No, we can't do it that way. We want to make sure this person is obligated to us, that we're responsible for not only his salary but the salaries of all the people who are part of that organizations, and that they understand where their obligations are." There may very well be instances where there are differences of opinion between Novell as a member and some of the other members or constituencies. Dortch: Novell is on the bus but Novell is not driving the bus. Lytle: Novell is actually fronting considerable funds to start this, but that's also similar to what they did when they started NetWare User International, which is a user group which I was heading before I left, but which is absolutely an independent organization with its own board of directors. When I was there I had to maintain an arms-length relationship with that organization. I was really there to liaison with it and to make sure that no one at Novell took any inappropriate leverage from that. For example, Novell couldn't access the database of NetWare International user members to do marketing direct mail campaigns. This is even further removed. This is a separate corporation. But I'm glad they gave us the facilities. Dortch: If you look at Larry's history and at my history-especially me being a Novell outsider and having written some pretty tough articles about them over the past few years-if all Novell wanted was a couple of shills for UNIXWare they could have found much more malleable people than us. *** Michael, you're basically a writer. What are you doing there? Dortch: I am here for two reasons. One is that I think UNIXWare has been the Rodney Dangerfield of UNIX implementations in that it's gotten no respect. If you look at who owns 70 percent of the LAN market and therefore who represents the vendor who has the largest number of people who stand to gain the most from a UNIX that is easily integrated with their LANs, UNIXWare has got to be an ideological front runner there. The other reason I'm doing this is that it basically extends an almost 15-year career in doing what I call user advocacy. When the idea of this organization was first discussed with me, in my guise as a reporter, I went home excited about it. I hadn't seen an organization like this before. I hadn't seen an opportunity to take LANs and add to them the additional headroom and power that a UNIX that is well integrated with NetWare can bring to these people. Lytle: During and since the acquisition of USL, I have probably been one of the most outspoken critics internally to Novell. And Novell accepted that. I said I'm not sure I agree with all the ways they're trying to market the technology. Like others around the industry, it was unclear to me where the technology was going to go under the guidance of Novell. And I think it took awhile for Novell to sort of get its arms around that and figure it out. UNIXWare 1.0 is sort of like any 1.0 product that ever hit the streets. Everybody who took it said "This is great, but I'm certainly not going to make a major strategic commitment to it before I see the follow-on versions. Now we've got 1.1 which is a lot better, and 2.0 imminent. This is where people are making their commitments. So I said, "Now I believe that the solid commitment is there from Novell. The technology is right and customers and others who have used it agree with that. This is a good time to get on the bandwagon and not only ride the wave but drive the momentum in the industry." With (new Novell CEO) Bob Frankenberg coming aboard, when he says three sentences in a row, you'll hear UNIX in one of those three sentences. Long before he was resurrecting and expanding the PC business for Hewlett-Packard, he was right in the throes of all the UNIX things that company was doing. *** What does it cost to join the organization? Lytle: $35,000 is a sponsor level member and there's a $5,000 associate level membership. Sponsor members have a seat on the board and get to vote. *** Many analysts say that UNIXWare is a flop because it hasn't sold well. Are you there to rescue UNIXWare? Lytle: No. You're talking about a 1.0 release of a client. It aims at an Intel high-end client or server level. It is the leading technology aiming at that space. Sun would like to persuade the world that Solaris is taking over in droves. It's doing very well in the Sun/Sparc space. It's not doing anything in the Intel space. [Microsoft's Windows] NT- there's a product that had high expectations that a number of people are evaluating but the normal response is that it will be some time before I'll want to run any mission critical applications on it. UNIXWare is not a flop. In the market space that it's intended for, I think it's the leading technology. It hasn't sold hundreds of thousands of units, but I think that has more to do with the fact that you're dealing with the first release and 2.0 is going to make all the difference in the world. End Article ------------------------------------------------------------ AFFILIATE ROUNDUP ------------------ *** UniForum New Zealand Conference The 11th annual UniForum New Zealand conference, UniForum NZ '94, held in Rotorua May 18-21, attracted nearly 200 delegates, and included 30 local and international speakers, tutorials, workshops and vendor presentations, and a small but exciting exhibition of leading edge technology. The conference theme was The Open Advantage and the presentations offered a hard look at the real-life costs, benefits, and technical and management issues in open information systems today. UniForum New Zealand conferences typically do not tolerate thinly-disguised vendor sales pitches. Delegates-users and vendors alike-come to the conference to learn, share experiences and discuss issues that are important to them. This conference was no exception. On more than one occasion, overenthusiastic vendor representatives were interrupted and threatened with water pistols, startling some of the overseas guests. Apologies were made and accepted, and discussion resumed. Some 20 local and multinational companies sponsored the conference. Sponsors got to exhibit if they wished and UniForum NZ '94 featured a multivendor interoperability display and access to various Internet services. UniForum New Zealand has 500 members from commerce, government and industry. The association's membership has increased at 15 percent per year over the last four years. Regional meetings, an up-to-date library, book shop and a monthly newsletter are provided. -Brenda Lobb, president, UniForum New Zealand *** Australian UNIX and Open Systems Conference The annual conference sponsored by the Australian UNIX and Open Systems Users Group (AUUG) is slated for September 6-9 in Melbourne, Australia. A Call for Papers for the program has been issued with submissions for the one full-day and two half-day sessions centered around the theme Open Systems. Looking into the Future. AUUG '94 will be a four-day conference, with the first day devoted to tutorial presentations, followed by three days of papers, works-in-progress and product update sessions, and BOFs. Tutorials are lecture format with plenty of "how-to" content. Papers are tracked toward both technical and management audiences. Works in progress and product updates are 15 minute highlights and the BOFs tackle individual topics in one-hour informal sessions. The Conference Secretariat can be contacted at P.O. Box 468, Paddington, NSW 2021 Australia, or by phone at (02) 332-4622 or by fax at (02) 332-4066. *** UniForum Trinidad and Tobago Open Systems Conference UniForum's newest affiliate, UniForum Trinidad and Tobago will hold their annual conference and exhibition July 13-14 in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad. The objective of the conference is to discuss and demonstrate interoperability in heterogeneous computer environments. Demonstrations at three levels are sought: applications, database and operating system. The basic services to be examined include file transfer between different applications, electronic mail, accessing different databases from any client and mounting of remote network drives. An ambitious exhibit is planned that will see the formation of a fictitious company with five departments. Four of the departments will have their own servers and clients, which should all be able to communicate seamlessly . The fifth department will have only client systems, which will be able to access data from the servers located in the other departments. For more information contact Terrence Pierre, Petroleum Company of Trinidad and Tobago Ltd., Pointe-A-Pierre, Trinidad, WI, telephone (809) 658-2858, or fax (809) 658-1825. *** Dallas Ft. Worth UNIX Users Group (DFWUUG) This active UniForum affiliate holds membership meetings every month, with varied programs that recently have addressed topics such as wide area networks, business process re-engineering, and superservers. Typically these sessions feature presentations from regional representatives of leading systems vendors who present technical and applications-level reports on new developments. The June 2 meeting featured one such session entitled Business Process Re-engineering Using Adaptive Applications, which was presented by representatives from Applix. DFWUUG publishes a regular newsletter; for information about receiving the newsletter via e-mail or for details on their programs, contact Evan Brown at (214) 519-3577, or via e-mail at evbrown@spd.dsccc.com. End Article ------------------------------------------------------------ UniNews Recruitment and Positions Wanted ---------------------------------------- For inclusion in the UniNews Classified Section, please provide the following information, being as specific as possible. If you do not want your name printed, please indicate in item No. 1 and UniNews will receive replies and forward them to you. Please type or write legibly. Your classified may be edited for length or clarity. UniNews "Positions Wanted" classifieds are available FREE OF CHARGE to UniForum members only. Upon receipt of your material, we will publish your classified in the next TWO available issues of the biweekly UniNews. You must be a member of UniForum to participate. 1 Your name Shall we print your name in UniNews? Your UniForum Membership # (if available) 2 Where Hiring Companies May Reach You (include phone, fax and e-mail) 3 Title and Description of the Job You Want 4 Geographical Preference 5 Professional Experience and Qualifications 6 Highest Grade or Degree Achieved, and Where 7 Salary Range $ 8 Availability You may mail or fax this form to: Sandy Parker UniForum 2901 Tasman Drive, Suite 205 Santa Clara, CA 95054 (408) 986-1645. GOOD LUCK! *** Systems/Network Administrator Seeks position as systems/network administrator. Experience: 4+ years in systems administration, technical and user support on SCO UNIX, Solaris, OS/2 and LAN manager, DOS and Windows 3.1. Substantial exposure in Progress 4GL/RDBMS. Personal: B.S. in computer engineering; prefer New York City, Central and Northern New Jersey; salary open; available immediately. Jaime Rebutoc, 35 Williams Ave., Jersey City, NJ 07304-1126; phone (201) 435-5847; CompuServe 73073,3016. *** Human Factors Engineer Seeks position as human factors engineer, using object-oriented programming knowledge and distributed computing services experience to design graphical user interfaces. Experience: 10 years of combined experience as a software engineer, technical writer and human factors engineer in the UNIX, COSE and Macintosh operating systems environments. Has worked with distributive objects in NextStep, DOE and artificial intelligence. Personal: B.S. in liberal sciences, San Diego State University; prefer California; salary $65K+; available in mid-June. Spencer Ivery, phone (33) 76 41 42 05 (work) or (33) 76 62 27 80 (home) or e-mail spencer.ivery@France.Sun.Com. End Article ------------------------------------------------------------ UniForum '94 Conference Session Videotapes on Sale --------------------------------------------------- Phone (800) 255-5620 or (408) 986-8840 for more information. End Article ------------------------------------------------------------ Publications, Conferences, Discounts and More ---------------------------------------------- UniForum Member Benefits Benefits for General Members ($100 per year): o UniForum Monthly magazine and UniNews biweekly newsletter; Free ads in the "Positions Wanted" section of UniNews; Open Systems Products Directory; All UniForum Technical Guides; Discounts on purchases of additional UniForum publications; Discounts on all UniForum conference registrations; Educational seminars and special classes; Opportunity to participate in local Affiliate activities. o Discounts on Avis car rentals. o Discounts on corporate sponsors' hardware and software: o Specialix Inc. sales, (800) 423-5364, (408) 378-7919 or fax: (408) 378-0786. e-mail: info@specialix.com o Mortice Kern Systems (MKS), 35 King St. North, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2J 2W9. Phone: (519) 884-2251 or (800) 265-2797; fax (519) 884-8861 or e-mail inquiry@mks.com. o Discounts on products, training and publications from the following companies: o Locus Computing Corp., 9800 La Cienega Blvd., Inglewood, CA 90301-4400. Or call (310) 670-6500. o Fujitsu Open Systems Solutions Inc., (800) 545-6774. o InterCon Systems, (800) NET2YOU or (800) INTERCON. o Gemini Learning Systems, (403) 263-UNIX or fax (403) 261-4688. o ACI Technology Training, 500 Park Blvd., Suite 1111, Itasca, IL 60143; phone (708) 285-7800 or fax (708) 285-7440. o Open Systems Training, 4400 Computer Drive, Westboro, MA 01580; phone (800) 633-UNIX or fax (508) 898-2382. o Open Systems Alternatives (Steve Kastner), 250 Production Plaza, Cincinnati, OH 45219; (513) 733-4798; fax (513) 733-5194. o ITDC, 4000 Executive Park Drive #310, Cincinnati, OH 45241; (513) 733-4747; fax (513) 733-5194. o Nina Lytton's Open Systems Advisor, (617) 859-0859 or write OSA at 268 Newbury St., Boston, MA 02116. o Patricia Seybold Group's Monthly Reports, Don Baillargeon, (617) 742-5200 ext. 17; 148 State St., Boston, MA 02109. o .sh consulting, call (408) 241-8319 or write to 3355 Brookdale Dr., Santa Clara, CA 95051. o Faulkner Information Systems, 114 Cooper Center, 7905 Browning Road, Pennsauken, NJ 08109-4319. o QED Information Sciences Inc., 170 Linden St., P.O. Box 82-181, Wellesley, MA 02181; (800) 343-4848. o Specialized Systems Consultants Inc., P.O. Box 55549, Seattle, WA 98155-0649; (206) 527-3385; fax: (206) 527-2806. o Client/Server Tool Watch: Enabling Open Applications Development from Hurwitz Consulting Group (Dena Brody), P.O. Box 218, Newton, MA 02159; (617) 965-7691; fax (617) 969-7901. o Client/Server News from G2 Computer Intelligence, P.O. Box 7, Glen Head, NY 11545; (516) 759-7025; fax: (516) 759-7028. o Addison-Wesley Publishing Co. (Dan O'Gara), One Jacob Way, Reading, MA 01867 (800) 238-9682; fax (617) 944-7273. Benefits for associate members ($50 a year) include UniForum Monthly magazine and UniNews newsletter; free ads in the "positions wanted" section of UniNews; discounts on all UniForum conference registrations; the opportunity to participate in affiliate activities; and discounts on the publications and products listed above. Send your correspondence to Susan J. Hoffmann, Membership Services Manager, (408) 986-8840, ext. 26; (800) 255-5620, ext. 26 or via e-mail at sooz@uniforum.org. End Article ------------------------------------------------------------ End UniNews.