ComputerWorld: “Recruiters at a staffing conference said they are tapping into firms that lay off workers to find IT workers.”

ZDNET: “What if there is no easy next step for technology? What if there is
no need for going any further, at least not in the immediate future? In the sixties, exploring outer
space was all the rage. There seemed to be such implacable logic to it: first we put a man on the
moon, then on Mars, etc. To infinity and beyond. Well, it didn’t really work out that way, did it?

The computer business looks a bit like the space program of the sixties. There is (or rather, was)
a lot of starry eyed enthusiasm about what technology could provide. Unfortunately, we have
now come to the end of one growth phase–and we don¹t know yet how and when the next one
will kick in.”

ComputerWorld:“IBM’s launch of a 64-bit Intel Corp. server last week should give users a brand-new option for hosting enterprise class Windows 2000 Datacenter applications, according to the company.”

CNN: “Microsoft Corp., the world’s leading software supplier, said on Monday it
had led an eight-month crackdown on Internet software pirates it said were using illegal software to fund
drug-running and terrorism.

Microsoft’s Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) division said in a statement it had acted in concert with
national law enforcement agencies in a sweep against sites distributing illegally copied software, in some cases
unknowingly.”

ComputerWorld: “With last week’s Beta 2 release of its new Windows XP operating system, Microsoft tried to clear up the marketing message for corporate users who may be wondering what’s in it for them.”

ZDNET: “The GNOME Foundation is set to release its latest open-source desktop environment,
GNOME 1.4, on Monday morning–a release that it claims makes the desktop far more
user-friendly and easy to manage.”

“With all the talk about open standards and cross-platform software development, it’s easy to
get an impression that we are entering the new era of universal compatibility.

But in reality, being an alternative operating system user is as difficult as ever. Pretty much all of
the same issues that turned the very concept of peaceful platform coexistence into an oxymoron
still exist.” From OSOpinion.com.

ZDNET: “Online trade publisher Internet.com on Monday said it was cutting approximately 15 percent of its
work force to streamline its media operations amid a weak advertising market.”

eeTimes: “Microsoft Corp. will not support Bluetooth in the next major version of
Windows, executives said this week, portraying the technology as not ready for prime time. Nor will
Windows XP, a version of the operating system aimed broadly at consumer and business users,
adopt the emerging HomeRF wireless local-area network standard. XP instead will use 802.11,
which company managers see as taking off rapidly.”

Mark Hatch writes: “Integrated Computer Solutions, Inc. (ICS), the leading supplier of Motif® products and support, today announced the Developer’s Release of its initiative to add themes to Open Motif. Themes is a capability supplied with Linux desktop environments that provides users with the ability to personalize the overall look of the user interface of their desktop. The integration of themes into Open Motif will improve the usability of enterprise applications ported to Linux while allowing them to continue to be developed with the highly reliable Motif user interface toolkit.

The Developer Release of Themes for Open Motif works with GTK themes created for Gnome, the default desktop on Red Hat Linux. Currently, themes are converted by hand into a format that Open Motif can process. As the Open Motif Themes capability evolves, no conversion will be necessary and Open Motif based applications will automatically adopt the theme set by the end user. The objective of the initiative is to support both the Gnome and KDE desktop environments. ICS is actively looking to recruit other Open Source developers to help with this project.

“Motif is the industry standard, highly reliable user interface toolkit that enterprise applications use on systems from Sun, SGI, IBM, Compaq, HP, and others,” said Mark Hatch, Chief Operating Officer, ICS. “With Themes for Open Motif, enterprises can port their applications to Linux with less effort because they don’t have to worry about reengineering for compatibility with the Linux desktop.”

In addition, with the adoption of Gnome on non-Linux platforms, ICS is in discussions to provide themes capability for Motif on traditional UNIX platforms too. This will provide existing applications using Motif with further personalization facilities that will smooth portability between Linux and UNIX even further.

Availability

The Developer Release of Themes for Open Motif is available for free download at the Open Motif community site, http://www.motifzone.net. The completed work will become a standard part of ICS’ Open Motif Everywhere distribution. Changes made to the internals of Open Motif will be released under the Open Group Public license. Software written exclusively by ICS, and external to the Open Motif toolkit will be released under the Mozilla Public License (MPL) originally developed by Netscape and an officially recognized open source license. This will allow the ICS software to be reused by other Open Source efforts.

About Integrated Computer Solutions
Founded in 1987, ICS (http://www.ics.com) was chartered to provide software development tools and training for developers working with the then emerging X Window System?. Prior to the widespread adoption of Motif by the UNIX workstation vendors, ICS was the leading independent supplier of the Motif toolkit. In 1998, The Open Group chose ICS to provide technical support for its Motif source code licenses.

Today, ICS’ Builder Xcessory PRO (BX PRO) is the market leader in Motif graphical user interface development tools. In its fifth major release and representing over 100 person years of effort, BX PRO defines a level of sophistication, functionality and ease of use that is unmatched in the industry. In November of 1999, the combination of BX PRO from ICS and Code Fusion from Red Hat software was awarded the Editor´s Choice award for the Best New Application for Software Development by The Linux Journal. Commenting on the importance of this alliance, The Linux Journal described the software as “?the first Visual C/C++ equivalent for Linux.”

ICS sponsors the MotifZone (http://www.motifzone.net.), a community site for Motif developers to gather additional knowledge and request input on technical problems from other engineers. The MotifZone also hosts the Public CVS source code repository for Open Motif as well as the defect database.

Contact:

Mark Hatch
Integrated Computer Solutions
mhatch@ics.com
617-621-0060 x108

###Builder Xcessory and BX PRO are trademarks of Integrated Computer Solutions. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

“