Re: IBM's Microkernal

["Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com>]

Mr. Anonymous:
Why is this being sent to cypherpunks? Its totally irrelevant.

.pm

Anonymous writes:
> The Wall Street Journal, October 31, 1995, p. B6. 
> 
> 
> IBM Announces New Software Code That Is Universal
> 
> By Laurie Hays
> 
> 
> International Business Machines Corp., in its effort to reduce
> the importance of computer-operating systems, announced a new
> kind of universal-software code called Microkernal that
> enables software to work on incompatible hardware.
> 
> For software developers and businesses that want to develop
> one set of codes to run applications on many different
> machines, Microkernal offers an opportunity for the
> long-touted open computing. A big challenge remains, however:
> to market the technology and make a business case for software
> developers to write for Microkernal in a world that is
> dominated by Intel Corp. and Microsoft Corp.
> 
> "It's exciting technology, but it will be hard for them to
> market," says Dan Kuznetsky, an analyst with International
> Data Corp., a Framingham, Mass., market-research firm. "It's
> also got a long way to go from what they've announced to the
> future."
> 
> Mr. Kuznetsky likens the technology to the development of a
> great automobile transmission that has yet to be turned into
> a truck or a car.
> 
> The key to Microkernal is a single source code base that
> communicates between the hardware and the operating system.
> One long-term possibility, for example, would be to make the
> Apple Computer Inc.'s Maclntosh operating system work on an
> Intel PC, impossible today because the two have different
> design architectures that don't talk to each other.
> 
> IBM's delayed OS/2 operating system for the PowerPC chip,
> which is expected to be shipped by the end of the year, will
> be the first IBM offering for the Microkernal allowing
> developers to move applications to the chip with only small
> changes.
> 
> IBM so far has garnered a number of licensing agreements for
> Microkernal, including Digital Equipment Corp., Maynard,
> Mass., and LG Electronics, formerly the Korean electronics
> concern Goldstar, as well as a number of universities.
> 
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