OPEN LETTER
Mapping your future on the open information highways
In our cover story, Geoff Moore of The Chasm Group talks about the new “phenomenon” of the virtual corporation. He points the way to the era of the “information grid,” a time when you and I will plug our personal application assistant, an appliance as ubiquitous as the common toaster, into the wall. That intelligent and personalized assistant will search the grid for relevant hot information to answer our questions on sales to date, new products, prices, movies, travel, self-improvement courses, our next meal, you name it.
Yes, there is still a way to go yet to enjoy this information nirvana: an information society based on a world-wide, robust, secure, and open information infrastructure. But if you are an open skeptic, just hold up a moment and think. Think through the seismic change in open systems brought about by X/Open. Think about the impact of the Internet and the Web. Open systems are here to stay and they are growing at an hourly rate. While we continue to push forward the frontiers of access to the open information society, we need to sustain the demand for open and compatible technology that does not gridlock the highway. We need the digital equivalents of maps, road signs, gas stations, maintenance groups, traffic management systems, and even the highway patrol.
So how can X/Open continue to play a part in the fast lane open world of the Internet and the Web? The answer is to rev up the capacity in the virtual X/Open corporation. The changes brought about in the beginning of open systems were a result of fast progress enabled by a partnership that empowered X/Open to act. As Geoff Moore points out, the ossified mega corps of the mid-’80s jumped out of their proprietary skins, not out of a sake of religion, but out of a need to survive and re-invent themselves for the new open systems market. X/Open was right there providing people, push, and process.
Today our values are based upon those of our buyers. The top five values are:
We will be delivering new brands throughout 1996 and 1997 to satisfy these needs.
- An architecture that provides buyers with a framework for IT capital planning for open systems.
- Standards for interoperability between multi-vendor systems to enable information exchange.
- Standards for performance management and control over the network.
- Standards for security, including control over user access and protection of the data.
- Standards to ease remote access to mass information systems over the network.
How do we accomplish all this with less than 100 people stretched across the globe and a budget measured in millions, not billions? By being a virtual corporation in a digital sense and a real partnership in a human sense. The digital strength is our use of the Internet. The human strength is the total commitment of our partner members, who volunteer their time and expertise to make open systems a reality. It is the volunteers from the X/Open global village who help design the brands, products, and services that keep the highways open.
Bill Davidow coined the phrase virtual corporation. X/Open put it into practice.
So don’t hold back. If you aren’t plugged into our virtual corporation, it’s time you signed up. Call your nearest X/Open office. We’ll give you a starter pack that will put you in touch with a pragmatic world-wide partnership designed to reduce your cost of information management, improve the flexibility of your information systems, and give you access to the mass information highways of the future.
Wishing you a prosperous 1996, made all the more successful through the effective use and deployment of open systems.
Geoff Morris
X/Open’s President & CEO
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