Industry Experts Review 1994 in Open Systems

Who are the heroes and villains? Panelists differ

Who or what did the most, and the worst, for open systems in 1994? A panel of open systems experts tackled those and other questions last week before an audience at the Software Entrepreneurs' Forum/UniForum Open Systems SIG in Palo Alto, CA.

[The same questions were posed to UniForum members via electronic mail. For a summary of their answers, read the related article on this page.]

Panelists were Andrew Binstock, editor-in-chief of UNIX Review; David Card, director of software research for International Data Corp.; Rikki Kirzner, technology editor of Open Computing; and Richard Jaross, executive director of UniForum.

Curiously, Microsoft and Novell each rated mentions in both the "most" and "worst" categories. Binstock said Novel deserves praise for the company's change in leadership, and for not trying to make UnixWare compete with Microsoft as a desktop operating system. "I think 1995 will be a fairly good year for Novell in UNIX and open systems," he said.

However, Kirzner said Novell was the worst offender, for "what it did to USL, NetWare, and UnixWare. I can't think of a company that's done more to trash UNIX." Kirzner said Microsoft had done the most for open systems, "if for nothing else than to make it look more attractive." Card said he thought Microsoft had done both the most and the worst.

Jaross noted that UniForum members clearly put Microsoft and its Chairman, Bill Gates, in the "worst" category because "people believe what they say about NT being an open system."

The Open Software Foundation (OSF) got Binstock's vote for doing the worst. "They are doing everything in their power to make themselves completely irrelevant," he said. "Many folks on the open systems side think giving the Common Desktop Environment to OSF is a way of killing it."

Who was 1994's most successful open systems entrepreneur? Binstock said it was Atria Software, Inc., of Natick, MA, vendors of configuration management tools for software development environments. Kirzner nominated two companies-Cygnus Support, of Mountain View, CA, a company founded in 1989 to provide commercial support for free software, as well as Ready to Run Software, Inc., of Groton, MA, vendors of communication, system administration, and desktop utilities, and multiplatform development tools. The favorites of UniForum members were the executives who engineered database vendor Sybase's acquisition of Powersoft last November, Jaross said.

Panelists also were asked for their favorite new open systems products, and came up with a varied list. Card nominated Microsoft Back Office, a collection of desktop tools and services, although he admitted, "You're going to have a great debate on whether it's open or not." The Mosaic World-Wide Web browser was the favorite of UniForum members, as well as Binstock, who nominated Lotus Notes on UNIX for second place. Jaross said, "Many of the things that made UNIX and open systems successful are also true for Mosaic. There's a whole pyramid of industries that will be built on this product." Binstock and UniForum members also praised Linux, the freeware version of UNIX for Intel platforms.

Kirzner's favorite products of the year are the Next environment, for its business applications, and Hewlett-Packard Odapter, software which maps database schemes between objects and, ultimately, between all object-based environments.

What opportunities stand out for software development, and what products and services are missing from the current array? Front-end applications and extensions that plug into Lotus Notes are in great demand, Binstock said. Card agreed, and added that there's "tremendous opportunity for small companies to make OEMable products"-that is, software that can be adopted and sold by large companies as part of a suite of products. Kirzner said more productivity applications are needed along the lines of those that have been ported to Microsoft Windows, with "Windows-type pricing."

Jaross noted the need expressed by UniForum members for more system management, and integrated system and network management products. He also said it's his opinion that enablers on the World-Wide Web will see huge growth. "I think you're going to see an explosion of companies with Web products. Companies are now being born and formed and there will be more to fill that demand," he said.