Microsoft Corp, whose Unix interests are all currently embodied in its significant minority stake in the Santa Cruz Operation Inc, has secretly joined the Open Software Foundation alternative Unix club, according to Infoworld. The reason given for this move is that the Open Software Foundation is using elements of Microsoft’s LAN Manager in its its Distributed Computing Environment – although no formal agreement for this was ever signed. The employees of the Unix club interpret this to mean that Microsoft has far-reaching ambitions in this area but cynics will say that Unix is simply the biggest threat to market acceptance of OS/2, and that like IBM and DEC, Microsoft has an interest in preventing a single Unix standard emerging and in derailing the rush towards machine-independent standards. Craig Lamont, business manager for user interfaces at the Open Software Foundation in Cambridge, Massachusetts, told the US trade weekly that IBM, Microsoft and the Foundation had formed an informal working party to harmonise the behaviour of OS/2 Presentation Manager, Microsoft Windows and OSF/Motif. Microsoft’s Unix watcher Bob Kruger, denies the existence of such a working party, though, at which Lamont concedes that his claim could be open to misinterpretation. He insists, however, that the developers of the Common User Access user interface element of IBM’s Systems Application Architecture, which is effectively Presentation Manager – are responsible for making contacts with the Open Software Foundation and Microsoft, and for ensuring that all parties get an equal opportunity to participate in the further development of Motif.
