Hewlett-Packard Co and Sun Microsystems Inc have now revealed details of their collaboration on object-oriented technology and say that the aim of their efforts is to enable easy application interoperability on high-volume computers, so that users will be able to integrate data – for example, a spreadsheet, a graphic and a block of copy – from systems made by different vendors located on one or more networks. As gell as their joint submission to the Object Management Group, the two have agreed to work through standards bodies to promote interoperability of Hewlett’s Apollo Computer Inc-developed Network Computing System and Sun’s Open Network Computing at the networking protocol level. And the two commit to making a common distributed application environment for Unix and other systems, notably MS-DOS, for users and software developers – a reality. Hewlett and Sun’s new SunSoft Inc systems software subsidiary are already working on this, saying that the common environment will transcend today’s confusion over which version of a software technology will become the standard – by using common software interfaces, the new environment will support interoperability regardless of the underlying technologies – a multi-vendor software environment that will enable developers to write applications for common interfaces rather than creating different versions based on the underlying system software operating system, graphical user interface, window system, networking protocol and other elements. The technology will be licensed to other vendors of Unix software and hardware. The distributed Object Management Facility submitted to the Object Management Group can be used for applications that run on Unix and other operating systems from different vendors and is claimed to be the only specification submitted that supports more than one networking service – Open Network Computing and Network Computing System. Hewlett will make the technology available for other systems that support the Open Software Foundation’s OSF/1 operating system and Distributed Computing Environment and Sun and Unix System Laboratories will work with Unix International Inc to encourage integration the technology into systems based on Unix System V.4 and Open Network Computing. The Romeo and Juliet collaboration was initially urged by Unix System Laboratories, which saw the proposed technology as a way of unifying the industry and opening up Unix to more users – and it could also loosen Microsoft Corp’s grip on the hearts and minds of developers with Windows 3.0.
