Redwood Shores, CA Ð NeXT's agreement with SunSoft signals an industry realignment in the emerging battle over object standards.
"Our mission is to establish OpenStep as the alternative to [Microsoft] Cairo," said NeXT CEO Steve Jobs.
"Taligent [from Apple and IBM] is in danger of being relegated to the back room," said Craig Sultan, vice-president of Montgomery Securities in San Francisco. "Cairo may be most valuable for connecting applications together, with OpenStep viewed as the high-end robust solution."
The deal raises questions for the Common Open Systems Environment (COSE) initiative, an industry alliance aimed at providing a unified UNIX environment. According to SunSoft President Ed Zander, COSE covers interfaces only for procedural, not object- oriented, applications.
Unlike COSE, the SunÐNeXT initiative is grounded in solid technical details, said Chris Stone, president of Object Management Group. "What we wanted to see happen for four years is finally starting to happen," he said.
NeXT and Sun will encourage other COSE members to adopt OpenStep. Hewlett-Packard is already working with NeXT on Object¥Enterprise and may sign up as an OpenStep partner.
"Sun's announcement represents an endorsement of NeXT's technology leadership, something that HP has already recognized and embraced," said an HP spokeswoman. "HP is pleased that NeXT's products will now be available to an even wider audience."