Boston, Massachusetts is the venue for the final evaluation session to be held this week by the Open Software Foundation in its efforts to choose a standard user interface technology for members. According to one of the participants, IXI Limited of Cambridge, only six of the original 23 companies selected for presentation to the Foundation are still in contention. Although the original plan was for a decision on the to be reached right around now, the process has been delayed by the Foundation’s decision to incorporate technology from more than one company into the final product. IXI says it has been shortlisted for the graphical shell component of the interface with the X.desktop product, but there are apparently now three other categories which together will go to make up the complete Open Software Foundation offering: toolkits and widgets, user interface management systems, and window managers.
