Item 8747540 93/09/08 14:10 From: CGEIGER@NEXT.COM@INTERNET# Internet Gateway II Subject: NEXTSTEP for HP PA-RISC in Open Systems Today - HP Focus Section, August 30, 1993 Hello, Here is a recent article on NEXTSTEP for HP PA-RISC from Open Systems Today (August 30, 1993 issue) that I thought that you might be interested in. Note the references to Windows NT. Conrad Geiger NeXT _________________________________________________________________ OPEN SYSTEMS TODAY August 30, 1993 HP Focus Section -- Page HP4 A Place On The Desktop For NextStep And Windows NT PA-RISC Attracts Client-Server Operating Systems By Ron Seybold HP's success with RISC systems in business environments has done more than draw praise from its customers: Its PA-RISC architecture has attracted two of the most talked-about desktop operating systems in the client server community today-Microsoft NT and Next's NextStep. Although HP said it sees customers using NT as a client, connected to HP hardware, it hasn't decided yet whether to support a direct port of NT to its PA-RISC platform. NextStep is a different story: HP appears quite enthusiastic about supporting the NextStep operating environment and other Next technology. For instance, HP's alliance with Next-called Object Enterprise-is moving forward and is expected to produce a tangible HP product sooner than a similar alliance with Microsoft is likely to bear fruit. Under the Object Enterprise agreement, HP promised to assist Next in its port of the NextStep 3.1 object-oriented operating environment to HP's PA-RISC-based workstations. The two have set product delivery for 1994. In addition, Next will deliver its Portable Distributed Objects (PDO) for the HP 9000 Series 800 Corporate Business Servers running HP-UX this fall. PDO technology addresses the need to distribute NextStep objects across multiple platforms in an enterprise computing environment. Earlier this year, HP said that although it doesn't believe Next is breaking new ground with its object designs, it cannot deny that NextStep has become highly favored among users in the financial services community, a key commercial market segment for HP's workstation efforts. "The financial marketplace and the traders are getting tremendous value out of NextStep," said Rick Sevcik, general manager of HP's systems and servers group. "They're using its object technology to do some very rapid application prototyping, Through using that operating system and software environment, they provides very quick, highly modifiable applications that they need in their businesses." HP is moving NextStep onto its systems that run HP-UX-the Series 800 servers and Series 700 workstations. Next expects the high-performing HP hardware to give its software a foothold in places where servers need more power than Intel-based PCs can provide. "This is an excellent alliance for Next," said Next CEO Steve Jobs, "especially given HP's leadership in enterprise computing and object-oriented computing standards." Adhering to those standards, especially Object Management Group's Common Object Request Broker Architecture, is a key HP objective at the enterprise level. HP praised Next's development environment, but said it found Next's participation in OMG and other standards bodies "less than significant." On the other hand, HP said it sees NextStep as the best operating system for traders' desks, noting that several major HP customers have chosen NextStep for development of financial services applications. "The question is: What [is the] operating system that's right for me in that market?" Sevcik said. "For those financial kinds of applications, the answer from HP is NextStep." In contrast to its enthusiastic support for NextStep, HP holds a wait-and-see attitude toward Microsoft's Windows NT. For one thing, HP wants to see which customers clamor for Windows NT. In addition, even though HP's support group signed a pact earlier this year to service NT users, HP has done only a preliminary technical study of an NT port to PA-RISC, HP executives say. "If NT finds a niche in the marketplace that's sufficiently large to demand our attention, we could certainly offer NT as part of our solution," said Dave Stevens, general systems division product manager. "We're already a multi-operating system environment on PA-RISC with MPE and HP-UX. We're not in a position yet where we think NT has established itself enough for us to be an NT supporter." Stevens said his division, which is the one working with Next engineers to port NextStep, "is watching acceptance and capabilities." "I think NT will probably have most of its success in the print and fileserving marketplace, where it tries to compete head-on with NetWare," he said, noting, as HP itself has done, that HP already has a Novell NetWare operating system license for its HP 3000 systems. Stevens also expressed skepticism that Microsoft's NT can serve multiple platforms with a single operating systems. To ensure the code integrity of its operating system, Microsoft must control its operating system licenses so licensees cannot make changes to the code. That's unlikely, Stevens said. "There are some inherent problems in that model that we learned through the OSF days," Stevens said. "NT would purport to be what OSF was unable to achieve-that is, a single set of binaries that will run across all platforms." Stevens added that HP also doubts Microsoft is big enough to respond in a timely manner to bug-fix requests and revision demands. "They're saying you can't make changes to NT," he explained. "That's fine, if you believe Microsoft can respond fast enough to the growing demands of the customer base, and if you're willing to wait as long as you do today in DOS for bugs to be fixed, when the next version comes out a year later." Graphic of NextStep screen shot: HP considers NextStep important to its financial services efforts. =END=