The Advanced Computing Environment seemed to be heading towards damaging disarray at the end of last week over the desktop manager to be used in the Unix environment standard. Our sister paper Unigram.X reports in today’s issue that Compaq Computer Corp is holding out to prevent IXI Ltd’s X.desktop being used as the desktop manager, and wants to adopt the Visual User Environment from Hewlett-Packard Co, a company not aligned with the ACE consortium. Compaq’s stance, currently the subject of much backroom politicking, puts it at loggerheads with the Santa Cruz Operation Inc, the firm ACE entrusted with building its operating system and a strong proponent of X.desktop. The wrangling is understood to have caused Santa Cruz to postpone a rollout of the operating system, Open Desktop for ACE, with X.desktop included, last week at its annual Forum. Compaq is seen as the lynchpin of the consortium, so that without its continued whole-hearted support, ACE would begin to be regarded as dead in the water. Compaq it cast the lone vote against X.desktop at ACE’s latest technical advisory committee meeting but Santa Cruz insists that the decision has now been made: X.desktop will figure in the Open Desktop release for ACE’s MIPS Computer Systems Inc and Intel Corp hardware, not Visual User Environment. The final choice – after consulting with ACE’s committee, was ours, says Santa Cruz UK system marketing manager Mark Miller. While he admits that there may still be different viewpoints, among ACE members, Compaq couldn’t maintain its commitment to ACE if it chose VUE, he insisted. It wouldn’t get Open Desktop for its machines because it’s got X.desktop in it, and the two technologies are irreconcilable on a single platform. This seems to rule out any possibility of a middle approach where Santa Cruz Operation might have been pressured to offer a choice of either X.desktop or VUE to the ACE developers.
