🚀 go-pugleaf

Kevin Brown (kcbrown@starfruit.csd.sgi.com) wrote:

>By the time PC-class
>hardware was beefy enough to run NeXTStep, it was too late: Microsoft
>had captured most of the market with Windows and managed to get it
>past the point where compatibility is everything.
>
Umm, Sean Luke missed out on saying that "This is an odd observation from an
SGI chap..."
:-)

What's interesting is that in the interim the rest of the Unix manufacturers
had still not got their acts together to try to take on Micro$oft.  Now it
appears that about the only chance many have of salvation-through-
unification in the face of the Window$ onslaught is either NEXTSTEP running
natively on their hardware (HP, Sun -- of course NEXTSTEP also runs on Intel
PCs), or through implementations of OpenStep on their own OS (Sun, DEC --
note of course that NeXT is also porting OpenStep to Window$95 and Window$
NT).

OK, so I exaggerate, but it's not clear to me how Unix will survive if it
doesn't unite behind *something* in order to try to deliver on some of the
promises of "Open systems" made a couple of years ago, and the best
something that there is is NEXTSTEP, and fortunately it's in almost all the
right places(*).  Now if only SGI would accept a port to their hardware (if
only to keep Cambridge Animation happy! :-)

(*) NeXT is placing bets on M$ too, though, as I mentioned above (OpenStep
Window$95/NT)... this makes it a bit of a double-edged sword as far as the
Unix manufacturers go, albeit a very sharp one!

Have fun,

mmalc.