As part of the broader alliance it is working on with NeXT Computer Inc, Hewlett-Packard Co appears to have delivered a blow to its Taligent Inc investment, characterising CommonPoint, formerly TalAE, as the route object customers should go if they want to retain compatibility with IBM Corp mainframe environments but saying that NeXTstep (or OpenStep as it will soon become) should be used for doing distributed object development. Hewlett-Packard said Taligent – due under HP-UX in mid-1996 – is of primary importance to its mainframe alternative programme. It said IBM is touting Taligent’s cross-system functionality as a way of keeping customers on IBM kit, telling them they will also have the option of running applications on Hewlett-Packard boxes. Meantime it said, its discussions with NeXT will likely see it begin selling versions of NeXT’s Portable Distributed Objects engine, Enterprise Objects Framework and application environment running on HP-UX. NeXT currently supplies its integrated Mach OS and NeXTstep environment natively on Hewlett-Packard Precision Architecture RISC and iAPX-86 systems. As part of any wider agreement, Hewlett-Packard is also seeking closer integration between NeXT technologies and its own management services and development tools such as OpenView and SoftBench. It denies claims that its NeXT/Taligent/Distributed SmallTalk/ORB-Plus object strategy is unfocused or its business model over-stretched. It said it is simply taking advantage of other companies’ trail-blazing market development and research and development dollars, leaving customers to work with whatever object systems they feel comfortable. Hewlett-Packard said it will spend so that it can add other transport mechanisms such as HP OpenMail or IBM MQ Series to existing technologies over time.
