Software AG, which is porting Distributed COM to non-Redmond platforms at the behest of Microsoft Corp, says it will be ready to announce introduction schedules in October. The software it’s working with is said to be the same core technologies that Microsoft has turned over to the so-called Active Group from which not a dicky bird has been heard since it was voted into life by the Open Group at last year and slunk off to Redmond to swap out Microsoft RPC (Remote Procedure Call) for the Open Group’s Distributed Computing Environment (DCE) RPC with Microsoft extensions in the ActiveX Core Technologies, and port an ActiveX subset to Unix. When we asked if the Active Group’s goal remained the same, Microsoft’s Cornelius Willis told us the goal is simple, to make COM/DCOM available on all commercial computing platforms. The goal still stands. ISO standardization has never been a specific plan. We’re still working on this goal. Joe Maloney, who was the Open Group’s director of product marketing and instrumental in setting up the Active Group, is now working at Microsoft as group product manager for objects working with Willis. There are rumors that Lotus Development Corp has quit the Active Group over Microsoft’s intellectual property issues. Active Group committee companies didn’t return calls on the subject.
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