With the accession of Sun Microsystems Inc to the X/Open Ltd non profit Unix standards company, the group is optimistic that it will remain in close touch with the on-going effort between Sun and AT&T to carry Unix System V standard forward. Sun and AT&T are working to merge completely the two main strains of Unix the AT&T original and the Berkeley series which was the starting point for Sun’s SunOS. Sun, and NCR Corp became the twelfth and thirteenth members of the group earlier this month. Although the group says that it has abolished its requirement of a minimum level of revenues from prospective members, Sun only passed the previous lower limit of $500m last year. Member companies are required to produce systems that conform to the X/Open Common Applications Environment; Sun says it plans to do so at an early date. Rumours of the imminent enrolment of NCR have been circulating since as long ago as January 1987 when NCR officials were indicating that the company was ready to join. X/Open says there has been no delay on its part in making NCR a member. The other 11 members of X/Open are the founders, ICL, Bull, Nixdorf, Olivetti and Siemens with Ericsson – now Nokia, presumably, Philips, AT&T, Unisys, DEC, and Hewlett-Packard. Others, including Fujitsu, are thought to be knocking on the door. The standards group has a budget of about $7m this year.
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