DCE and Open Systems: A Bright Future
	By Peter Shaw Vice President of Sales and Marketing, OSF

The Success of DCE

Momentum for the Open Software Foundation's Distributed Computing Technology (DCE) continues to build. There is perhaps no more vivid testimony to this than the growing production usage of the technology by end users. This is the focus of the articles you will be reading in this supplement.

These production stories span multiple industry segments, including telecommunications, manufacturing, finance, utilities, insurance and online services. There are interviews with executives of major corporations as well as the U.S. government discussing their DCE implementations. The articles in this supplement are a testimony to the success of OSF's DCE technology as well as the commitment to Open Systems by end users and vendors.

Currently, DCE is being supported by every major systems vendor and an increasing number of software vendors. It is being shipped or availability has been announced on all major platforms, including UNIX, MVS, Windows, Windows NT, VMS and OS/2.

The Open Systems Industry: What's Next?

OSF and its open systems technologies, such as DCE, have enabled organizations to break down the barriers between diverse and incompatible systems. As a result, users have been given the freedom to choose the systems and technologies that best meet their business needs -- regardless of vendor.

A new era of cooperation is being forged between a number of Open Systems industry organizations that will bring new initiatives within these groups and encourage cross-program synergies as well as increase resources to the highest leveraged activities. For example, organizations such as OSF, UniForum Association, UNIXWARE Technology Group (UTG) and X/Open Co. are participating in the Open Systems Pavilion at UniForum, offering "one-stop" access to information about the associations helping to lead the Open Systems movement.

And, history is being made as OSF and X/Open host the first "Joint Member Meeting," in San Francisco. By increasing the level of cooperation, and facilitating better communication and process management between the companies, OSF and X/Open are promoting consistency and commonality for Open Systems, benefiting members, ISVs and system vendors of both industry groups.

Peter Shaw is a past speaker at the OSF DCE Users & Developers Conference.