In a move that would tear further strips from the tattered credibility of the Advanced Computing Environment initiative, Compaq Computer Corp is tipped to be among the companies NeXT Inc has lined up to endorse and adopt the 80486 version of the NexTStep operating environment when it is announced at NeXTWorld on January 22. According to the New York Times, Dell Computer Corp, which in the Unix arena has so far committed only to offering the Solaris version of SunOS for Intel Corp iAPX-86 machines from Sun Microsystems Inc’s SunSoft, is also thought to have agreed to offer NeXTStep on its high-end machines. NeXTStep is a Unix-derived object-oriented multimedia operating environment with its own graphical user interface. It is not clear whether Compaq and Dell will offer machines bundled with NeXTStep or simply offer the software to their customers: the latter would not be a major development, since NeXT plans to make it available through retailers anyway. But as a result of its close ties with Silicon Graphics Inc, Compaq is in a position to create new models for NeXTStep with powerful graphics capability alongside the 80486 or forthcoming 80586 microprocessor. It is clear that iAPX-86 machines will represent the major part of the market for Microsoft Corp’s forthcoming Windows New Technology 32-bit operating system in the early years of its life, and Compaq is well-nigh certain to offer NT, one of the two operating environments at the core of the ACE initiative. But NeXTStep, already existent, is a direct competitor for the planned ACE Open Desktop environment, and if Compaq does decide to create its own NeXTStep machines, it could stick to its Intel-only last and would not need to introduce machines using the MIPS Computer Systems Inc R4000 RISC. None of the three companies had any comment on the reports.
