The Open Look graphical user interface for Unix may not have as many subscribers as its OSF/Motif rival, but right now it looks to have the edge in the number of commercial software packages that it has accumulated. Sun Microsystems’ tally of applications currently shipping is up to 50 programs in such categories as office automation and electronic publishing, productivity tools, financial services, visualisation, data analysis and database management systems, imaging, manufacturing, networking, mapping and software engineering. The company’s recent publication of A Guide to Open Look Applications, however, is somewhat misleading, with over half the 122 entries still not delivered, and yet not clearly marked vapourware. OSF/Motif’s current position seems a whole lot more nebulous, with the Motif software catalogue (published back in April) turning up very little in the way of down-to-earth commercial software. Most of the 124 entries are programming tools, and of those 58 were then still under development. The Open Software Foundation, which readily admits to being grossly behind in [its] canvassing, doesn’t have a list of available software at the ready. Motif technology manager Kathryn Birkbeck, however, claims that there are approximately 500 additional applications currently available and that this figure will pass 1,000 in the next six months. She cannot say what they are or if they are commercial products. The raw data, she says, derives from polling DEC, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi, Santa Cruz Operation, Unisys and Intergraph, whose estimates in turn represent work being done both internally and at third party houses. The current issue of the US publication Personal Workstation magazine, which tracks the applications race on a month to month basis, gives Motif a mere 16, putting it well below Open Look and even NextStep and Presentation Manager. Ms Birkbeck’s tidal wave could still appear. She says OSF/Motif has 25,000 binary licensees on each of which it is collecting fees of around $40. In addition there are 700 source licensees and the consortium’s projections forecast 1,300 in total by the end of the year.
