In a spectacular move that was not anticipated by most players, the Object Management Group has decided to defer a final decision on the Object Request Broker for 90 days. The idea is that this length of time will give all those with technology in the ring time to see if they can bring together the language approach of the Distibuted Object Management Facility, backed by Hewlett-Packard Co, Sun Microsystems Inc, NCR Corp and Object Design Inc with the application programming interface approach of the Application Control Architecture that is supported by Digital Equipment Corp and HyperDesk. Everybody concerned seems optimistic that the technical fix can be done, and if it is done the Object Management Group will have been astonishingly successful in its first efforts to create a point of departure for the object-oriented software industry that every major player in that industry supports. More than that, the move means that object-oriented technology seems likely to unite the Unix industry in the sphere of creating truly interoperable software via the object-oriented paradigm, for Unix International Inc has already pledged to support decisions made at the Object Group, while the vision of DEC and Hewlett-Packard working together on an object request broker as they work together on technology for the Distributed Computing Environment at the Open Software Foundation should strengthen the acceptance of Object Group decisions at the Foundation. However, if after the 90 days no technical consensus is forthcoming between the two approaches for an object request broker, a new request for proposals will be made and the process will start from scratch. Consequently, the next 90 days will either see the Object Group emerge as the strongest force for standard isation in the industry, or the whole project could end in tears, delaying the commercial viability of object-oriented software for years.
