As expected, Open Environment Corp is making a bid for the Distributed Computing Environment client market with DCE Adapter, which it claims offers broader support than Gradient Inc’s PC-DCE or Transarc Corp’s DE-Lite, running under Windows 3.1, Windows for Workgroups, Windows 95, Windows NT, OS/2 Warp and Macintosh System 7.5 (CI No 2,484). Open Environment claims that DCE Adapter delivers directory, security, naming and encryption services, and support for multithreaded applications to the desktop and that by comparison Transarc’s DE-Lite will offer a stripped-down Distributed Computing client without these key Distributed Computing services, while Gradient’s PC-DCE offers full Distributed Computing Environment capabilities, but requires Pentium-level machines with large amounts of memory to handle the huge RAM and processing requirements of the client software. DCE Adapter uses a Distributed Computing-compatible agent based on the remote procedure call that Open Environment developed for its application development environment. The company says DCE Adapter requires 100Kb to 200Kb RAM compared to 100Kb for DE-Lite and 2Mb to 4Mb for PC-DCE, with run-time licences at from $20 to $90 compared with PC-DEC’s $50 to $100 (DE-Lite is not shipping yet). Open Environment sold 2.75m shares at $15 each in its initial public offering a week or so back.
