Statement Of Technology and Commercial Direction

PR Newswire

February 28, 1989

NOTE TO EDITORS: THE FOLLOWING IS BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON TWO UNIX INTERNATIONAL SAN FRANCISCO RELEASES (SF004 AND SF004A) SENT EARLIER TODAY.

STATEMENT OF TECHNOLOGY AND COMMERCIAL DIRECTION

UNIX International today provided further evidence that it is aggressively pursuing its workplan to chart the future of the UNIX(R) System V operating system. Over the last few months, the organization with its 50 members has been hard at work to establish the initial key work groups that will examine and report back on the technology and commercial direction to be followed in future releases of UNIX System V.

These fully operational working groups are listed below:

LICENSING AND CONFORMANCE:

This working group, led by Dick Grundmeier of Unisys, has already produced considerable results as previously outlined. The group is working toward the target month of March for a complete System V Release 4 licensing and conformance policy for AT&T's attention.

MULTIPROCESSING:

This group, which will be led by Jerry Popek, chairman of Locus, will tackle one of the key technology issues to face the industry today -- extensions to the UNIX functional interface to allow applications to make effective use of multiprocessor systems, both tightly and loosely coupled.

INTERFACE WORK GROUP:

This work group will evaluate the various standards activities including the X/Open(TM) Common Application Environment (CAE), IEEE POSIX and FIPS for inclusion in the interface specification for UNIX System V Release 4.

FILE SYSTEM ENHANCEMENTS AND TRANSACTION PROCESSING:

One of the key technology issues to be addressed in the commercial processing environment is the provision of high availability, reliabililty and timeliness of data.

This group will examine and define further enhancements and revisions to the UNIX System V over and above current capabilities.

DESKTOP APPLICATIONS CAPTURE:

As UNIX System V becomes the operating system of choice from PCs to mainframes, a key requirement is to enable easy porting of applications from other operating system environments. This work group will examine the technical and commercial requirements that need to occur in the next release(s) of UNIX System V in order to shift the bulk of available applications to UNIX.

"UNIX International is committed to issuing further updates on a regular basis to the industry and to keep the entire user community fully apprised of the progress of our achievements," said Peter Cunningham, president and chief executive officer of UNIX International.

UNIX International is a non-profit consortium formed to guide the future development of UNIX System V as the industry standard open operating system. Membership is open to all parties worldwide who are interested in the standardization and use of UNIX System V, including users, independent software vendors, computer manufacturers, systems integrators, resellers, industry standards bodies, industry consultants, academic and research institutions, government agencies and microprocessor vendors.

(TM) OPEN LOOK is a registered trademark of AT&T

(R) UNIX is a registered trademark of AT&T

(TM) X/Open and the "X" symbol are registered trademarks of X/Open Company Ltd. in the United Kingdom and other countries.

/CONTACT: Randall S. Coppersmith or Victoria B. Glazar, 212-757-9100, both of Edelman Public Relations, for UNIX International/ CO: UNIX International ST: California IN: CPR VH -- SF004B -- 4109 02-28-89 17:25 EST