IXI Limited
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

IXI Limited was a British software company that developed and marketed windowing products for
Unix Unix (, ; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...
, supporting all the popular Unix platforms of the time. Founded in 1987, it was based in
Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...
. The product it was most known for was X.desktop, a
desktop environment In computing, a desktop environment (DE) is an implementation of the desktop metaphor made of a bundle of programs running on top of a computer operating system that share a common graphical user interface (GUI), sometimes described as a graphi ...
graphical user interface A graphical user interface, or GUI, is a form of user interface that allows user (computing), users to human–computer interaction, interact with electronic devices through Graphics, graphical icon (computing), icons and visual indicators such ...
built on the
X Window System The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X originated as part of Project Athena at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1984. The X protocol has been at ...
. IXI was acquired by the
Santa Cruz Operation The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc. (usually known as SCO, pronounced either as individual letters or as a word) was an American software company, based in Santa Cruz, California, that was best known for selling three Unix operating system variants ...
(SCO) in February 1993.


Origins in the Cambridge hi-tech cluster

In the beginning of the 1970s, the so-called Cambridge hi-tech cluster became the site of a network of new firms in the rapidly growing computer field, many of which featured founders and employees who had studied at the
University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...
. See pages 6, 10 of pdf. And in particular, as an article in the journal ''
Regional Studies Area studies, also known as regional studies, is an interdisciplinary field of research and scholarship pertaining to particular geographical, national/ federal, or cultural regions. The term exists primarily as a general description for what ar ...
'' has noted, IXI was one of many companies started by founders or employees or those in the nexus of Cambridge-based
Acorn Computers Acorn Computers Ltd. was a British computer company established in Cambridge, England in 1978 by Hermann Hauser, Christopher Curry (businessman), Chris Curry and Andy Hopper. The company produced a number of computers during the 1980s with asso ...
, the most noted of which is
ARM Holdings Arm Holdings plc (formerly an acronym for Advanced RISC Machines and originally Acorn RISC Machine) is a British semiconductor and software design company based in Cambridge, England, whose primary business is the design of central processing ...
. At pages 17, 39 of pdf. IXI founder Ray Anderson was a graduate of the university who had become director of research and development at Torch Computers, a computer systems firm located in the Cambridge area that was most known for making peripherals for the
BBC Micro The BBC Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, is a family of microcomputers developed and manufactured by Acorn Computers in the early 1980s as part of the BBC's Computer Literacy Project. Launched in December 1981, it was showcased across severa ...
made by Acorn. Torch built workstations among its products, and also had a license agreement to provide
NeXT NeXT, Inc. (later NeXT Computer, Inc. and NeXT Software, Inc.) was an American technology company headquartered in Redwood City, California that specialized in computer workstations for higher education and business markets, and later develope ...
with aspects of workstation technology. In the end, Torch was not successful, but its work inspired Anderson to carry the idea on.


Independent company

IXI Limited was founded by Ray Anderson in 1987 as a private company. Anderson originally had a former colleague as a partner, but the partner decided a start-up was too uncertain and pulled out within a year or so. Anderson found funding for IXI from sources in the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, and Japan, but avoiding US investors as his prior experiences had made him leery of them. As one former SCO UK employee has succinctly summarised, "IXI specialised in software that ran on Unix and made Unix easier to use." In particular, a goal was to make Unix workstations as easy to use as a
Macintosh Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...
, which would allow non-technical people to use such platforms. IXI's best-known product was X.desktop, an
X11 The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X originated as part of Project Athena at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1984. The X protocol has been at ...
-based graphical
desktop environment In computing, a desktop environment (DE) is an implementation of the desktop metaphor made of a bundle of programs running on top of a computer operating system that share a common graphical user interface (GUI), sometimes described as a graphi ...
with finder and file management capabilities for Unix systems. There was an opportunity for such a product because when the X11 version of the X Window System came out in 1987, it made a point of separation of mechanism and policy (indeed, it has been termed a canonical example of that design philosophy). Consequently, while it supported the ability to provide such things, it contained no specification for application user-interface design such as buttons, menus, or window title-bar styles, nor did it provide a standard window manager, file manager, or desktop. The initial unreleased version of X.desktop, intended as a proof of concept, was programmed to the
Xlib Xlib (also known as libX11) is an X Window System protocol client library (computer science), library written in the C (programming language), C programming language. It contains subroutine, functions for interacting with an X Server (computi ...
level; the first version that saw public release, 1.3, was based on the Xt library and Athena widgets. The X.desktop product then came to be based on Motif toolkit from the
Open Software Foundation The Open Software Foundation, Inc. (OSF), was a not-for-profit industry consortium for creating an open standard for an implementation of the operating system Unix. It was formed in 1988 and merged with X/Open in 1996, to become The Open Group. ...
(OSF), a switch that happened in 1989 with release 2.0. The first customers for IXI came in the financial industry, who were early adopters of Unix-based workstations. These were generally American companies, with sales to the Japanese market coming soon thereafter. Indeed, IXI has been characterized as an example of a "global start-up", in that instead of following the expected route for a start-up of establishing a domestic business first and then slowly expanding into international operations, it worked to establish an international business right away. See pages 32, 34, 35, 39, 41. A crucial part of IXI's standard was to capitalize on standards and thus defeat competitors who were based more upon proprietary solutions. This later paid benefits when X.desktop proved cost-effective to internationalize to other languages. X.desktop was sold as both shrink-wrapped software for end users, at a price of $495 for any platform. But it was also sold on an OEM basis to system manufacturers. Early OEM customers included
Locus Computing Corporation Locus Computing Corporation was formed in 1982 by Gerald J. Popek, Charles S. Kline and Gregory I. Thiel to commercialize the technologies developed for the LOCUS (operating system), LOCUS distributed computing, distributed operating system at UCL ...
,
BiiN BiiN Corporation was a company created out of a joint research project by Intel and Siemens to develop fault tolerant high-performance multi-processor computers build on custom microprocessor designs. BiiN was an outgrowth of the Intel iAPX 43 ...
,
Olivetti Olivetti S.p.A. is an Italian manufacturer of computers, tablets, smartphones, printers and other such business products as calculators and fax machines. Headquartered in Ivrea, in the Metropolitan City of Turin, the company has been owned b ...
,
Acorn Computers Acorn Computers Ltd. was a British computer company established in Cambridge, England in 1978 by Hermann Hauser, Christopher Curry (businessman), Chris Curry and Andy Hopper. The company produced a number of computers during the 1980s with asso ...
and
Compaq Compaq Computer Corporation was an American information technology, information technology company founded in 1982 that developed, sold, and supported computers and related products and services. Compaq produced some of the first IBM PC compati ...
. An OEM sale was to
IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...
in 1989 for its RS/6000 and
IBM AIX AIX (pronounced ) is a series of Proprietary software, proprietary Unix operating systems developed and sold by IBM since 1986. The name stands for "Advanced Interactive eXecutive". Current versions are designed to work with Power ISA based ...
proved to be a turning point in IXI's fortunes. The SCO OpenDesktop product was another early adopter, and was another key usage of the product for the company. OEM customers gained by 1990 included
NCR Corporation NCR Voyix Corporation, previously known as NCR Corporation and National Cash Register, is a global software, consulting and technology company providing several professional services and Electronics, electronic products. It manufactured Self-c ...
,
Dell Dell Inc. is an American technology company that develops, sells, repairs, and supports personal computers (PCs), Server (computing), servers, data storage devices, network switches, software, computer peripherals including printers and webcam ...
, Uniplex, Parallel Systems International, and Network Computing Devices. As an ''
InfoWorld ''InfoWorld'' (''IW'') is an American information technology media business. Founded in 1978, it began as a monthly magazine. In 2007, it transitioned to a Web-only publication. Its parent company is International Data Group, and its sister pu ...
'' article from 1990 stated, the ability to have OEM customers was a key factor in IXI Limited being successful. Part of this success was due to X.desktop coming with a customization toolkit that allowed system manufacturers to modify the appearance and functionality of the desktop environment to match their needs. The customization took the form not just of customizing icons, but the ability to tie icons to arbitrary series of commands. The X.desktop product was stated as being ported to, and sold on, over a dozen different Unix variants. And as a paper published for a 1994
USENIX USENIX is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit membership organization based in Berkeley, California and founded in 1975 that supports advanced computing systems, operating system (OS), and computer networking research. It organizes several confe ...
conference detailed, versions of X.desktop were actually built for over 30 different Unix platforms. The ability to maintain the portability of the X.desktop code base became a key factor in IXI's success with the product. The primary competitor of X.desktop was the Looking Glass product from the American company Visix Software, Inc. Trade publications ran comparisons of the two desktop environments, and detailed cases where one beat another for an account. Eventually over a million instances of X.desktop were in use. In 1992 IXI released Deskworks, a suite of productivity tools that included such things as a clock, a text editor, a mail client, a time management tool, and the like. For 1992, IXI Ltd had revenues of about $6 million. By early 1993, the firm employed around 50 people, and in addition to its Cambridge headquarters, it also had offices in
San Ramon, California San Ramon (Spanish language, Spanish: ''San Ramón'', meaning "Saint Raymond") is a city in Contra Costa County, California, United States, located within the San Ramon Valley, and east of San Francisco. San Ramon's population was 84,605 per th ...
, in the US and in Tokyo in Japan. According to a later article in ''
MoneyWeek ''MoneyWeek'' is a British weekly investment magazine that covers financial and economic news and provides commentary and analysis across the UK and global markets. ''MoneyWeek'' is edited in London. History ''MoneyWeek'', founded by Jolyon Conn ...
'', by this time IXI had some 70% of the workstation market.


Acquisition by SCO

IXI was acquired by the
Santa Cruz Operation The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc. (usually known as SCO, pronounced either as individual letters or as a word) was an American software company, based in Santa Cruz, California, that was best known for selling three Unix operating system variants ...
(SCO), in an announcement made on 25 February 1993. Terms of the purchase were not publicly disclosed, but did involve an exchange of stock. As mentioned, SCO had previously licensed IXI technology in its operating system product, and there were existing ties between the engineering and marketing functions of both companies. Anderson later said of his motivation to sell, that having gotten a 70% share, "getting the remaining 30% of the market would have required heavy reinvestment. I felt ready to move on." The IXI brand continued on for the next couple of years as a relatively independent subsidiary of SCO. The announcement in mid-1993 by several major Unix vendors of the
Common Desktop Environment The Common Desktop Environment (CDE) is a desktop environment for Unix and OpenVMS, based on the Motif (software), Motif widget toolkit. It was part of the UNIX 98, UNIX 98 Workstation Product Standard, and was for a long time the Unix desktop a ...
(CDE) project posed a competitive threat to X.desktop, but it took two years of further development until CDE actually came out. Several new products were introduced during this time. IXI Panorama, introduced about a month after the acquisition, was a Motif-based
window manager A window manager is system software that controls the placement and appearance of window (computing), windows within a windowing system in a graphical user interface. Most window managers are designed to help provide a desktop environment. They ...
, that could run with or without X.desktop; it had the ability to plot and manage a virtual space much greater than the physical space of the monitor itself. Panorama was extended in March 1994 with IXI Mosaic, reflecting the incorporation of the first popular web browser,
Mosaic A mosaic () is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/Mortar (masonry), mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and ...
, into the SCO Global Access product, a modified version of SCO Open Desktop that served as an Internet gateway. In doing this, SCO and IXI put out the world's first commercial web browser based on Mosaic, and, according to Anderson, the first commercial web browser of any kind. IXI Premier Motif was a product that came from IXI taking the OSF-released Motif source code and applying a set of bug fixes and enhancements and then porting it such that it would give identical behavior across platforms. IXI also offered some twenty different Motif training courses for users. The IXI Wintif product, which became available in 1994, built further upon Premier Motif to create a version of Motif that had the look-and-feel of Microsoft Windows 3.1 and thus would enable Windows users to operate Unix applications without confusion or need for additional training. A later version extended this capability to
Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft and the first of its Windows 9x family of operating systems, released to manufacturing on July 14, 1995, and generally to retail on August 24, 1995. Windows 95 merged ...
. Then in 1995, the IXI business unit of SCO was merged with another SCO acquisition, the
Leeds Leeds is a city in West Yorkshire, England. It is the largest settlement in Yorkshire and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds Metropolitan Borough, which is the second most populous district in the United Kingdom. It is built aro ...
-based Visionware, to form IXI Visionware. (IXI had previously collaborated with Visionware, going back to 1988 when the Visionware technologies were first being developed within Systime Computers Ltd.) Later in 1995 the merged business unit was subsumed more fully into its parent and became the Client Integration Division of SCO, which put out products from both former companies under the "Vision"-branded family name. This included the creation of VisionFS, an SMB server that could do network installs of the Windows components of the Vision family from a Unix server with minimal user configuration needed. This division then developed and released the Tarantella terminal services application in 1997 and that became the core of Tarantella, Inc. in 2001. Tarantella, Inc. struggled and following company-wide layoffs, the Cambridge development site closed in the summer of 2003.


Fates

The X.desktop code gradually went into maintenance mode as X.desktop OEM providers migrated to CDE and many end-users abandoned Unix-based workstations altogether and switched to
Wintel Wintel (portmanteau of ''Windows'' and ''Intel'') is the partnership of Microsoft and Intel producing personal computers (PCs) using Intel x86-compatible processors running Windows. Background By the early 1980s, the chaos and incompatibility ...
platforms. Ray Anderson left SCO after several years there, and in 1999 founded Bango plc, a mobile commerce company based in Cambridge.


References

{{reflist Defunct software companies of the United Kingdom Defunct companies based in Cambridgeshire Software companies established in 1987 Software companies disestablished in 1993 Software companies of England 1987 establishments in England 1993 disestablishments in England