Rivals to Challenge AT&T; Rules on Computer System
A high-stakes brawl will go public today when leaders of the world’s two biggest computer companies unite with five others to challenge American Telephone & Telegraph over computer operating standards.
The battle pits AT&T; and its hotshot younger partner, Sun Microsystems, against the might of International Business Machines and Digital Equipment as well as Hewlett-Packard, Apollo Computer and three European computer makers.
IBM, Digital and the others believe that AT&T; and Sun are exerting too much control over the operating system known as Unix, a layer of software that controls the basic operations of a computer.
AT&T; invented Unix and licenses it to other computer makers for use on their machines. The dispute is important because Unix is becoming a major force in the computer industry, thanks to the ease with which it runs on a wide variety of computers.
In a rare display of power, IBM Chairman John F. Akers, Digital President Kenneth H. Olsen and Hewlett-Packard Chief Executive John A. Young are scheduled to make personal appearances at a press conference in New York today along with top executives of the other companies.
Dissatisfied With Policies
The companies have said only that the news conference will concern “the future of the computer industry.” But there is speculation in the industry that they will announce establishment of a consortium that would oversee a version of Unix independent of AT&T.;
Hewlett-Packard spokeswoman Marlene Somsak confirmed that the news conference will concern the companies’ dissatisfaction with AT&T;’s policies on Unix.
“HP is concerned about recent moves by AT&T; that would tend to make Unix less open in our view. We’ve expressed those concerns to AT&T; at the highest levels, but we’re not satisfied with their assurances,” Somsak said.
“One of the concerns that we had is that you can’t have an open standard if you have one company controlling what it is,” Digital spokesman Joe Codispoti said.
The European companies scheduled to participate in today’s news conference are Siemens AG and Nixdorf Computer AG of West Germany and Groupe Bull of France.
According to industry speculation, each of the seven companies would contribute 10 employees and $4.5 million a year to the consortium, said Maury Domengeaux, an analyst for International Data Corp. in Framingham, Mass.
The seven computer makers are irked by the requirements AT&T; imposes on companies that license the latest version of Unix. Licensees must assert that they comply with certain AT&T; standards for the way their versions of the operating system hook into applications software, such as database managers.
AT&T; Denies Claims
As a last resort, if companies failed to bring their versions into compliance, AT&T; could revoke their Unix licenses.
“That type of control is one of the major bones of contention,” Domengeaux said.
But Michael DeFazio, AT&T;’s director of software systems, said computer users and independent software developers are happy with the company’s efforts to ensure uniformity because it makes it easier for them to run programs on a variety of machines.
DeFazio denied claims that AT&T; and Sun were working to make sure that future versions of Unix work best on their own computers.
AT&T; recently agreed to buy a stake of up to 20% in Sun Microsystems, a Mountain View, Calif.-based maker of scientific and engineering work stations that has been moving into other segments of the computer industry.
There was speculation Monday that the computer companies would set up a body to make sure that their versions of Unix complied with the interface standards specified by Posix, a project of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
Posix stands for Portable Operating System Environment.
The seven firms holding today’s news conference are suspicious of AT&T; and its role in overseeing Unix, said Greg Cline, analyst for Yankee Group in Boston.
But AT&T; is suspicious of those companies, too, Cline said.
“It’s like verifying nuclear treaties on-site,” he said.
