Year: 1994
Type: article
Abstract: The creation of open systems, based on standards and specifications, has created a market for standards conformance.This article looks at open systems from the perspective of a supplier to multiple vendors, and descrtbes what it is like to help drive the open systems movement, as well as meet market demands.pen systems has permanently changed the lanciscape of the computing industry.For better or worse, there is no going bxk.As with any massive change, there are those who capitalize on it ancl subsequently profit, and those who fail to recognize their opportunities and suffer as a clirect result.As manager of the standards-based source-cock procluct division of Mortice Kern Systems and as part of the open systems movement, I have watched the ew> Iution of open systems crvdte a lucrative ancl challenging market for venclors of component technologies; thus I base many of my c(mclusions (m this experihit of background, I want to clescrihe wh~t MKS cloe.s-mciwhy its activities can be seen M x viable prototype.MKS supplies source C(K\e f{x the IEEE Stc! 1003.2-1992 ( POSIX,2) and X/Open lk)rtabiiity Guide, Issue 4 (XIW4 ) Commands ancl [Jtilities stanckircls to a wide rmge ()f operating system vendors who pr(wicle open systems conf(mnanc'e to their encl-users.These sttinclm-cls cxmlprise the well-known [lNIX utilities, incluciing the Kern shell , awk, vi ancJ grep.Although open systems drdws heuvily on u [JNIX herirdge, MKS resp(mcis to d wicIer market demand.MKS clients inclucle a large number of non-lJNIX lY~secl venciors, including most minicomputer onci mainframe nwnufacturers.These vencl(]rs emhocly one of MKS' strongest Iwliefs: open systems encompasses much more than standardized ( INIX.HowMKS 6ol Into tba ~Business MKS (xigirwl]y entered the shell and utility husines.s to serve its own neecis.The f(mnclers of the company grew LLp with the [ JNIX toolset, which quickly he-Came an integral pwt of Ciay-to-ctidy pr(xklivity, As they fourxl themselves working on non-tJNIX platforms (specifically DOS), they l~cc~nle incr~asing-Iy frustrmecl at the lack of their favorite tmkt.Instead of working to Ixing over the AT&T c(KIt!, they StandardView Vol.2, No.1, March/1994 27 I
Source: StandardView
Author: David Rowley
Language: English
Subfield: Strategy and Management
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2069025278