timv@ccad.uiowa.edu (Timothy VanFosson) (04/16/91)
Our research center has standardized upon MOTIF as the GUI for all software produced by the center. Some of our industrial participants have Sun workstations, and as we do not want to get into the MOTIF support business, we would like to find a third-party source where they can obtain MOTIF for Sun workstations. If you know of, or have experience with, third-party MOTIF solutions for Sun (or any other vendor), I would appreciate hearing from you. If there is sufficient response, I will post a summary to the net. Thanks. -- Timothy VanFosson E-mail : timv@ccad.uiowa.edu Senior Systems Analyst US Mail : CAD-Research University of Iowa 228 ERF Phone : (319) 335-5728 Iowa City, Iowa 52242
jfr@locus.com (Jon Rosen) (04/17/91)
In article <1991Apr16.143713.15141@ccad.uiowa.edu> timv@ccad.uiowa.edu (Timothy VanFosson) writes: >Our research center has standardized upon MOTIF as the GUI for all >software produced by the center. Some of our industrial participants >have Sun workstations, and as we do not want to get into the >MOTIF support business, we would like to find a third-party source >where they can obtain MOTIF for Sun workstations. If you know of, >or have experience with, third-party MOTIF solutions for Sun (or >any other vendor), I would appreciate hearing from you. The March 1991 issue of UnixWorld had an entire article on this subject. Four versions of Motif on Sun were cited (and there are several others...) We acquired a version of Motif for Sparc from ICS and are quite happy with it... In fact, because we are using a GUI development tool for Motif which does not support Motif 1.1 yet, ICS gave us an old 1.03 version for the time being even though they are principally selling 1.1 now... We will move to 1.1 whenever our GUI tool vendor upgrades their product... Here is a shortened blurb on the four reviews in the article: ================================================================ (DISCLAIMER: THE REVIEWS WERE WRITTEN BY UNIXWORLD. I HAVE MERELY EXCERPTED THE REVIEWS FROM THE ARTICLE... JFR) ICS OSF/Motif Developer's Kit Integrated Computer Solutions 201 Broadway, Cambridge MA 02139 (617) 547-0510 Pluses: includes Prentice-Hall Motif books. Reliable technical support. Free updates for a year. ICS-written Motif source code examples. Minuses: Version 1.02 and previous lack support for shared object libraries (not a problem in 1.03 and 1.1). Price: $500 w/docs, $350 w/o docs Quest Commercial Motif Quest Systems Corporation 2700 Augustine Dr., #242, Santa Clara, CA 95054 (408) 496-1900 Pluses: Latest bug fixes. Shared libraries. Both 1.03 and 1.1 versions included. Provides capability of running Sun's OpenWindows 2 XView utilities under Motif. Minuses: 75 Megs disk space required. License manager requires additional effort to install and administer. Complicated installation. Price: $370 for Sun-3, $560 for Sparc. Santa Clara, CA 95054 IXI Motif Environment IXI Limited 62-74 Burleigh St., Cambridge, CB1 1OJ, England +44-223-462131 Pluses: Shared library support for 1.0 and up. Reasonable disk requirements. Minuses: Only passable documentation. Vendor support could be awkward from the US (time zone problems, etc.) Price: $495 XTech Motif Unipalm XTech 145-147 St. Neots Road Hardwick, Cambridge CB3 7QJ England +44-954-211862 Pluses: shared libraries, good documentation. Minuses: Must print your own docs from on-line documenation. Mandatory support agreement outside North America. Price: $695 first user, $249 additional users ================================================================ As a final note, we have had good success with Motif on the Sun... Since all vendors use the same OSF base, mostly you are looking for support and price... I am not grinding any axe for ICS, and in fact I am sure all of the above vendors will give you good results... The prices are similar but not identical... it probably pays to comparison shop and maybe even do some bargaining with the vendors... Good luck, Jon Rosen