Sigma Systems, the company which grew out of the government-sponsored Sigma Project, staged this year’s Symposium for Open Systems ’92 on February 4 in Tokyo. Discussions were primarily oriented towards the end-user, and included presentations by representatives from leading Unix users L M Ericsson Telefon AB of Sweden and Boeing Co’s Boeing Computer Services, as well as from leading proponents of open systems among Japanese users. The seminar was attended by over 400 people, only 22% of whom were users, with the remainder of the majority comprising software vendors and system integrators, as well as 10% of attendees from hardware vendors. In initial greetings, Sigma System president Mr Tsujioka and the Ministry of International Trade & Industry delegate from the Information Promotion Agency cited their activities in the promotion of open systems in Japan – Sigma runs four committees on the topic among its members, while MITI, as a result of a policy review last year, has begun a Study group on Open Systems Environments. This theme was taken up by the next speaker, Professor Saito of Keio University, who detailed a shift from Open Systems Interconnection to Open Systems Environment considerations, and the work being done on profiling Open Systems Environment in groups such as the Special Group on Functional Standards at the International Standards Organisation.
