Leading network computer supplier IBM Corp plus Sharp Electronics, Acorn Group and Key Tronic have licensed the Citrix Systems Inc ICA independent computing architecture software for thin clients which separates application logic from the user interface enabling the majority of software instructions to be processed on the server. It’s a significant crop of endorsements for Citrix as some vendors, including IBM, have been reluctant to openly embrace Citrix, Microsoft Corp’s partner on multi-user Windows NT software. IBM already gets ICA and the WinFrame NT access software from Network Computing Devices Inc, which supplies Network Station NCs and WinCenter Pro system software for accessing Windows applications to IBM. However IBM will later this year switch over to NCs running JavaOS and will presumably use ICA in conjunction with this system software. We’ve heard no more from Citrix about the Java version of ICA it said last February it would make available by the end of 1997, nor anything of the work Sun Microsystems Inc was doing with its Citrix licence acquired in 1996. Using ICA a user’s mouse clicks are sent to the server, processed and the results sent back down to the client although as far as the user is concerned it happens locally. UK’s Acorn Group Plc, which sells a NC reference design and RISC OS operating system software for its ARM RISC as well as third party microprocessors says it will integrate ICA with all future system software. Acorn says it will develop a new NC device optimized for ICA which would require a system footprint only big enough to display a user interface. Acorn’s currently working on a line of internet appliances. Sharp Electronics Corp will embed ICA in its Mobilon hand-held PCs. Peripheral manufacturer Key Tronic Corp will use ICA in a future line of keyboards.
