Meanwhile 88open, the supportors club for the Motorola Inc RISC, says that it will still be in business for the new fiscal year starting in April. Its members have paid all their dues, some $3.5m, so the operation won’t have to do any trimming. 88open chief Tom Mace notes that a full subscription list means that some of his members are pulling double duty and joining other consortia as well. 88open’s idea of licensing its compatibility technology, however, looks kind of stalled having managed to pull in only Hewlett-Packard Co as a customer. Mace says that part of the difficulty is that potential customers want the software customised, and 88open won’t do that for them. We’ve heard the soon-to-be PowerOpen people are eyeing Mindcraft and Unix System Laboratories Inc, while not having closed the door on negotiations with 88open, is looking to Unisoft Ltd. In both cases, of course, unlike the 88open offering, their technology covers system software, not applications.
