“The Tyrannosaurus in your company’s basement, unleashed by the
System/390 Linux port, may soon take time out from its hunting and
devouring to help with your word processing and spreadsheets. At
the same time, mighty Rex will also help to dispel thoughts of
extinction among users of Applix Office, one of the most popular
Linux office suites. Peter Zimmer, Vice President of Marketing for
VistaSource, says Applix Office is, and will continue to be, alive
and well.”
“VistaSource, the maker of Applixware Office, is being accquired
by Parallax Capital Partners, and that pending acquisition has
sparked rumors that Applixware Office could become a casualty. The
latest round of rumors follow an earlier flurry when the company
annouced that it was refocusing emphasis from the desktop to the
enterprise. Zimmer, in a telephone interview, reaffirmed the
company’s commitment to Applixware and says that the name will
change but the product is emphatically not going away any time
soon. In fact, he revealed, the newly-renamed Anyware Office will
become available on additional hardware platforms including the IBM
System/390 and zSeries mainframes.”
“Among the other companies on the Parallax portfolio is UTS
Global, a software company with a long history of development on
the S/390. Long before there was Linux for big iron, UTS Global
created and marketed a full UNIX System V port for IBM mainframes
along with a suite of development tools and utilities. The UTS
version of UNIX has achieved a dominant position among Regional
Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs) and the company in recent years
has begun to move toward the Application Service Provider (ASP)
market space, a natural direction for its telecomm and financial
customers.”