This group is often unduly worried about UNIX. I say "unduly" only because of
the quality of UNIX as a business solution; the worry is otherwise quite
justified because of HP and its ambivalence towards the HP3000.
 
But, if you really want to find worried system managers, talk to any UNIX
purchaser. In general, they are much more worried and are much less sure of
the correctness of their decisions than any HP3000 user is. They know what
kind of problems they have -- and they fully well realize the hodge-podge of
operating systems that UNIX has become. What they're looking for is some
order in their lives -- and they can't seem to get it.
Design-by-independent-committees works no better for software than it does
for airplanes or cars. They desperately want somebody to take control, and
the person that they're very afraid will do it is Bill Gates with his Windows
NT.
 
Ultimately, the only standards are always proprietary. "Open systems
standards" that are defined by a committee, or by a committee of committees,
can never work for locking down anything more complicated than the shape of
the prones that plug into a wall socket. Otherwise, innovation inherently
kills standards. And innovation inherently becomes increasingly easier as the
subject under consideration becomes increasingly complex.
 
But the real problem is that standards kill innovation -- and no
profit-seeking organization is likely to pay much attention to the rules that
it help create, even if it is a member of the committee that set the rules
(Netscape is as good an example as currently exists; they go to all of the
meetings and agree to all of the standards -- but do precisely as they wish
because it is to their great advantage to do so. If you're dominant in a
marketplace, it is simply foolish to allow everyone else to play on "a level
playing field").
 
But, in this hierarchy of worry, if you want to know what deeply worries Bill
Gates (with potentially some good reason), it is the Sun/Java/Oracle idea
that "the network is the computer" and its corollary statement, "the end of
the operating system." Whether this vision of computing will come to pass or
not is too early to tell, but if it is as successful as Scott McNealy and
Larry Ellison want it to be, the world will become again a universe of
mainframes and cheap terminals (but this time, the terminals will have
windows, mice, and color). If so, Microsoft, which now seems as invincible as
IBM did 15 years ago, could become just as insignificant a player 15 years
hence as Control Data Systems, Amdahl, or Cray are now -- should Microsoft
lose its current domination of PC-based operating system technology. This is
enough of a worry that Microsoft, like IBM, is completely reorganizing itself
based on this premise alone.
 
================================
 
      SAN FRANCISCO (Reuter) - Oracle Corp. Monday unveiled its
much-anticipated low-cost personal computer to access the Internet, promising
to introduce a new generation of computer users to the World Wide Web.
 
    At a developer's conference here, Oracle Chief Executive Officer Larry
Ellison demonstrated a working prototype of the network terminal and unveiled
a new category of information management software optimized for network
computing.
 
    Called the ``Universal Server,'' Oracle said the combination of programs
has the power to store and deliver any kind of data to any kind of personal
computer, network computer or other client device from any application.
 
    The moves are part of Oracle's strategy to develop a new group of
machines -- priced around $500 -- that would get their software from the
Internet, eliminating the need for operating systems from Microsoft Corp.
 
    Oracle has been touting the NC -- network computer -- for several months.
It is a scaled-down PC to access the Internet.
 
    Sun Microsystems Inc. Chief Executive Scott McNealy has also been talking
about such a device. Two weeks ago, McNealy demonstrated the company's ``Java
Client,'' which can run applications in Sun's Java language, which is widely
becoming an Internet standard.
 
    Oracle's ``Universal Server'' aims to compete with similar services for
storing multimedia information.
 
    Last week Informix, a rival database developer, completed its purchase of
Illustra Technologies Inc., a developer of complex database software and
tools for managing data on the Internet, multimedia and other environments.
 
   Oracle stock closed up 5/8 at 54 1/4 on the Nasdaq index. Sun Microsystems
closed up 2 1/8 at 56 1/8. Microsoft closed off 2 7/8 at 100 5/8.
 
18:34 02-26-96
 
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Wirt Atmar