Latest trick from IXI Ltd, the Cambridge, UK company now owned by Santa Cruz Operation Inc is an extension to its Motif tool-kit that enables Unix applications to look just like Windows ones on the desktop. According to today’s edition of our sister paper Unigram.X, the company will this week introduce the facility under the name Win-tif: it modifies the appearance and behaviour of Unix-based applications, making them look and act exactly like Microsoft Corp Windows 3.1 ones so that for all intents and purposes, users will be running Windows 3.1. In reality they’ll be using Unix applications brought to their personal computers from a Unix server over X Window. Win-tif will be supplied as an upgrade to the IXI Desktop graphical user interface front-end, and will provide most applications that run under OSF/Motif 1.2 with what the firm is describing as a Windows Friendly front-end. It will be bundled free with IXI Desktop and existing sites will get an automatic upgrade; IXI will make money by charging a toll as users hook up personal computers to Unix hosts running Win-tif, and will also offer it as an OEM product.
