Micro Focus Plc wants to explore virtual reality and related exotic technologies and has signed up Superscape VR Plc and Sense8 Corp as partners in its Emerging Technologies Programme. Three-dimensional visualisation is the first of several advanced computing technologies that Micro Focus is evaluating as part of the new programme, which was announced last month and is intended to identify and meet user requirements for the next generation of computing technologies. Micro Focus wants input from the two on the tools that will be needed to develop business computing applications in three dimensions to run on a range of different systems. The Newbury, Berkshire company will subsequently evaluate speech recognition and synthesis, object-oriented databases and object assembly tools, which are also seen as critical technologies for enabling the Cobol language. Sense8 provides virtual reality application development software, systems and consulting services to corporate, education and government application developers, and under the pact, Micro Focus will team with Sense8 to develop a version of Sense8’s WorldToolKit tailored to the Micro Focus Workbench. With Superscape it will provide corporate clients with an environment for developing robust three-dimensional visualisation applications for commercial deployment and Micro Focus will distribute Superscape Visualiser, Superscape VRT, Superscape Networks and the Superscape Developers Kit.
