The Open Group’s Open Software Foundation wing says its members are currently evaluating what to include in the next generation of desktop technologies to be delivered through point releases of the Common Desktop Environment or as add-on items. These will arrive well after the X Consortium delivers its final releases of X/Motif/CDE at the end of the year. Although the goal, the Foundation says, is to deliver technology that can be incorporated into a common, integrated desktop, it says it is unlikely that one of its Pre-Structured Technology initiatives will be created to develop another complete desktop metaphor. As well as items for data execution independent of location, local and remote file access and common on-line tools, other work at the Foundation’s Research Institute in Grenoble, including Java technologies, is being assessed as future desktop releases. Indeed the same companies funding the Institute’s work are expected to shell out for the next round of desktop Pre- Structured Technology searches.
