NeWS-makers-request@BRILLIG.UMD.EDU (04/24/87)
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 87 08:21:25 PDT From: lorrie@lizard (Lorrie Duval) To: allsun@sun.com Subject: SUN FLASH!! (Merged Windows) Cc: lorrie@lizard The following was released this week: an announcement of Sun's new window system strategy to merge NeWS and X Window; an announcement of a growing list of NeWS licensees; and a compendium of endorsements of Sun's strategy from a wide range of companies in the computer industry. Marketing contact: Smita Deshpande, NeWS product marketing manager (415) 354-4634 Additional information will be coming to Sales and Marketing in the next couple of days from Smita. Please refer any questions in the interim to her. Press contact: Lorrie Duval (415) 691-7533 SUN MICROSYSTEMS TO INTEGRATE X and NeWS WINDOW SYSTEMS; GROWING LIST OF NeWS SUPPORTERS MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA -- April 21, 1987 -- Continuing its commitment to industry standards, advanced technology, and powerful networking platforms, Sun Microsystems today announced a new window system strategy, which combines support for Version 11 of the X Window System (X.11) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with the continued availability of Sun's PostScript-based Network/extensible Window System (NeWS). Sun plans to merge the popular X.11 with NeWS, providing a unified window system for its customers. Sun's new strategy responds to a growing industry demand for one window system that combines both the wide acceptance of the X Window System, an emerging industry standard window system offered by MIT for technical workstations, and the leading-edge technology of the NeWS product. Sun also announced several new NeWS licensees and increasing support for NeWS by a variety of companies, including computer manufacturers, application developers, and major corporations. The list of licensees and supporters includes Alliant Computer Systems, Data General, EDS, Intel, Interactive Systems, Toshiba, and Unicad. Commenting on Sun's new strategy, Eric Schmidt, vice president and general manager of the Software Products Division, said, "The computer industry has long acknowledged the value of standards combined with continued innovation in technology. This is particularly true today in the area of window systems, where the market is demanding cooperative and complementary window system standards, which include the X Window System, NeWS, and Microsoft Windows. We are committed to providing our customers with high-performance implementations of a comprehensive set of standards, state-of-the-art technology, and a smooth migration path and coexistence between these environments." Schmidt continued, "With today's announcement of a unified window system approach, Sun takes the first step in offering application developers a single window system that combines the workstation industry backing provided by X.11 and the advanced technology of NeWS. The integration of the two technologies will be transparent to the application developer and the end user, thus protecting their investments in application software and personnel training. We want application developers to program to NeWS or X.11 today with the understanding that applications developed now on NeWS or X.11 will run on Sun's merged window system version." NeWS and X Integration Strategy Sun is working with MIT to ensure the continuing development and future stability of X.11. "MIT is pleased to have Sun supporting the X Window System," said Steve Lerman, director of Project Athena at MIT. "We look forward to Sun's involvement in the further evolution of X as a widely adopted means of display management. A number of Sun's technial staff have made informal contributions to the X architecture through the process of comment and review on specifications, including Version 11 of X that will be released in Fall, 1987. MIT will provide the Sun version as part of this release of X." Sun's evaluation of an early release of the X.11 version indicates that X.11 and NeWS can be integrated while maintaining the high performance that the technical workstation market demands. Merged X and NeWS will meet the same high-performance standards as separate implementations of the two window systems. The merged version of NeWS and X.11 will be available in Spring 1988. Sun is one of the first companies to implement X.11 for its technical workstations. X.11 on the Sun-3 family of workstations will be available from MIT with the next release of X.11 scheduled for later this month. The X Window System was developed at MIT by Robert Scheifler of the Computer Science Research Labs and Jim Gettys of Project Athena. It is well-suited as a graphical window interface for technical UNIX system workstations. The current version 10 of the X Window System (X.10), shipping since December 1985 for Sun workstations, is available from MIT's Project Athena. Version 11 is hailed as the basis of standardization, and a reference port will be available from MIT in Fall, 1987. Growing Industry Backing for NeWS Technology Sun also announced growing support for the NeWS technology. More than 12 companies and universities have licensed NeWS to date including Microsoft Corporation, Toshiba Corporation, Tektronix, Inc., Raster Technologies, Inc., Unicad, Incorporated, and Acorn Computers, Ltd. A range of companies, including application developers, system integrators, and computer manufacturers, have endorsed NeWS and Sun's merged X Version 11 and NeWS strategy for future development to meet their windowing requirements. These include Alliant Computer Systems Corp., Applix, Incorporated, Culler Scientific Systems, Electronic Data Systems Corporation (EDS), Floating Point Systems, Inc., Frame Technology Corporation, Franz, Inc., Intel Corporation, IntelliCorp, Interactive Systems Corporation, Island Graphics Corporation, Lucid, Inc., Microport Systems, Inc., Pyramid Technology Corporation, Reasoning Systems, Teknowledge, Inc., Visual Engineering, Inc., and Whitechapel Workstations. NeWS, based on a subset of the PostScript page description language, provides advanced features, such as display resolution independence, portability of graphics applications, high interactive performance, flexible architecture, and sophisticated user interface tools. NeWS 1.0 is currently shipping and lists for $100 per copy for Sun workstations. INDUSTRY COMMENTS ON NeWS AND THE X WINDOW SYSTEM Alliant Computer Systems Corp. Craig Mundie, Vice President, Product Development "NeWS provides a visual interface to our network-based supercomputing environment. Our users can now combine the ease-of-use features of workstations and PCs windows, pop-up menus, icons, and bit-map graphics with the number-crunching power of the Alliant FX/Series. The Alliant FX/Series, with its multiple parallel processors, large physical memory, and parallel I/O capabilities, is ideally suited as an interactive server supported multiple networked users. Alliant's support for interactive network graphics complements our long-standing support for interactive file and compute sharing, via Sun's Network File System (NFS)." Applix, Inc. Jit Saxena, President "We are very excited about the merge of NeWS and X for application developers such as Applix. We whole-heartedly support the merge towards a standard." Culler Scientific Systems Dr. John Richardson, Research Director "Sun's announcement of their window system strategy enhances the relationship between Sun's network of high-powered workstations and Culler Scientific's Personal Super Computer, allowing for more homogeneous solutions to compute intensive applications." EDS Jeff Heller, Senior Vice President "NeWS from Sun represents the type of open systems environment which EDS encourages. The announcement that Sun will unify NeWS with Version 11 of the X Window System and making that technology widely available means that EDS can take full advantage of the applications to be developed for NeWS, as well as those applications being developed on X.11. Sun is following the tradition of NFS with this announcement of a strategy to unify window system platforms across workstation vendors. Their contribution to the standardization of workstations, LANS, and the overall computing facility and capability by promoting open architecture and standards is very much in the spirit of the open systems cooperation among the various vendors which is beginning to take place. We see this as a step forward and trust that Sun will continue to support and expand the standardization of the workstation/communications environment while also promoting technical innovation." Floating Point Systems John M. Harte, Vice President, Marketing "Floating Point Systems is pleased to endorse Sun's converged window system strategy. This will allow our customers of the FPS M64 220 and 230 Super Servers to better distribute graphics applications and provide them the flexibility to use X.11 applications and Postscript-based NeWS applications." Frame Technology Corporation Charles Corfield, Principal Author of Frame Maker "In developing Frame's desktop publishing software, it was a constant struggle dealing with a first-generation window system. NeWS has changed all that. It is by far the best windowing environment available." Franz, Inc. Fritz Kunze, President "As an application developer in a field where window systems and graphic sophistication are key, and portability across varied platforms is essential, the combination of NeWS and X as a window system platform is an exciting answer to our needs. We fully support Sun in the search for standards coupled with technical excellence; both NeWS and the NeWS/X merge offer solutions to the problem of application portability and vendor independence." Inference Corporation Larry Lesser, Director, Corporate Development "Our dynamic expert systems shell creates special challenges for window system development. Users of the ART system from Inference demand a flexible window system environment with sophisticated graphics and high performance. In the past, we have had to provide this capability ourselves with a window system tailored to each platform. We can now depend upon NeWS to supply the functionality and vendor independence we need. Sun's announced merge of NeWS and X.11 will allow us to take advantage of the features of both these significant window systems without having to make an exclusive choice." Intel Corp. Dave House, Vice President and General Manager, Microcomputer Group "With its high-performance capabilities and ability to run applications from other window environments, we believe NeWS will be the window system of choice for many OEMs in the upcoming generation of 386-based standard computing platforms. NeWS and UNIX System V/386 will showcase the capabilities of the 386 for scientific and technical applications." Interactive Systems Corporation Ron Fisher, President "We applaud the coming together of these two key windowing technologies X Window and NeWS. The industry benefits not only from the broader support of such standards but also by the advanced technology that NeWS offers to the market. Island Graphics Corporation Paul Remer, Executive Vice President "Island Graphics supports Sun Microsystems' incorporation of the two windowing systems, X version 11 and NeWS. This joint windowing system is ideal for graphics applications in that it offers the advantage of being able to use the emerging industry standard interface of X Window, along with the sophisticated imaging model available in NeWS." Lucid, Inc. Dr. Richard Gabriel, President and Chief Technical Officer "Lucid has already made significant progress in porting our system to make use of NeWS facilities, and are excited about seeing it available on different platforms. Sun's strategy to combine both NeWS and X version 11 provides an ideal application development environment for software developers interested in both portability and state-of the art technology." Microport Systems, Inc. Chuck Hickey, President "We are a very strong supporter of NeWS. We believe this PostScript-based window system provides the next generation of technology advancement to window systems and that it will provide a strong bridge to the continued evolution of computer hardware and software." Pyramid Technology Corporation Robert A. Ragan-Kelley, Director, Advanced Software Development "Pyramid Technology is committed to providing the standard tools, environment, and applications that will allow Pyramid's powerful multiprocessors to work in high-performance distributed-processing architectures implemented with connections between PCs, workstations, microcomputers, mainframes, and other superminicomputers." Reasoning Systems John Anton, President "Sun's strategy to unify the NeWS and X Window systems provides the application developer with both market penetration and technical sophistication. It removes the uncertainty in the windows standards arenas for applications developers. Adding Sun's active commitment to open systems, standards, and high technology to the X Window System direction is very important to us." Teknowledge, Inc. Dr. Earl Sacerdoti, Vice President "In supporting over 100 fielded customer applications, Teknowledge has learned that the integration of expert system technology with conventional computing is critical. Fully half the effort in fielding an expert system typically involves integration with other applications, existing databases, or existing user interfaces. Teknowledge supports the growing movement to interface standards on the range of hardware platforms its software employs. By committing to support both NeWS and X, Sun will facilitate the coming proliferation of expert systems into computing applications of all types." Unicad, Inc. Chad Alber, VP Technology Kenneth E Garnett, Graphics Manager "We are integrating NeWS into our software development tools because NeWS meets our requirements for device independence, high performance, and consistency of presentations across a wide variety of hardware platforms. We are particularly excited about our NeWS-based User Interface Design System, which will provide applications developers with unprecedented power and flexibility to develop interfaces that end users can then tailor to their individual needs. Visual Engineering, Inc. Allen Ginzburg, Vice President, Engineering "NeWS incorporates some useful new features, however, X has emerged as a de facto UNIX window standard. It is gratifying to see Sun's commitment to maintaining UNIX standards, making it easier for UNIX software developers like VE to support a wide range of hardware and the NeWS window system." Whitechapel Workstations "We welcome the availability of NeWS, the first UNIX windowing system to resolve the conflicting demands for interactive performance, a powerful graphics model, and device independence. We shall take a source license for NeWS as soon as it is available, and NeWS will become the basis of windowing software on future Whitechapel products. Whitechapel endorse Sun's choice to provide X.11 functions within NeWS, and will be taking the same path. We see this as the best way to support the valuable but less sophisticated X standard."