For those still interested in the underlying NTerprise technology/value proposition (individual application remoting), the following is worth tracking. - Mitchell
( BTW - GraphOn has its own SI thread at: Subject 24377 )
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The other shoe drops: GraphOn To Demand Royalties from Citrix, IBM, Sun, Others
By Maureen O'Gara
Tuesday, Novenmber 16, 1999 - Little GraphOn, the California start-up
that suddenly and unexpectedly finds a huge chuck of the Mainland
Chinese market within its grasp, thanks to its skills at connecting
any kind of client to any kind of server (CSN No 324), has purchased
the patent for the technology that it says underlies displaying
Windows applications on both Unix and Linux desktops. It would
involve most places where X Windows is used.
Although the patent is untested in the courts, GraphOn's management
says it will be asking for royalty payments from companies such as
Citrix, Sun and IBM as well as Windows terminals vendors such as NCD
and Wyse. No one knows yet that GraphOn owns the patent and it has
yet to make any claims. But, just to prove it ain't kidding, Marshall
Phelps, who ran IBM's IP operation, has just joined GraphOn's board.
The scheme promises to be lucrative considering that Microsoft is
opening up its multiuser NT RDP protocol for use on non-Windows
platforms now that Citrix' two-and-a-half-year lock on the non-
Windows multiuser NT marketplace has quietly expired (CSN No 322).
Microsoft is offering to license the RDP specification for free to
rivals of Citrix and its ICA protocol, the de facto standard.
Microsoft is expecting to find homes for RDP in widgets outside the
conventional PC, and RDP should also find a berth with the newborn
and potentially huge rent-an-app ASP business.
GraphOn bought the patent - number 5831609 - from American United
Global Inc, otherwise know as AUGI after its ticker symbol, in
exchange for some of its stock. GraphOn wouldn't tell us how much it
paid. GraphOn shares, listed as GOJO, closed yesterday at 9 1/8, up
from roughly 6 at the beginning of November.
AUGI, a non-high-tech concern, came by the technology through its now
defunct Seattle holding Exodus Technologies, the only distributor
Paris-based Groupe Prologue, Citrix' one-time competitor, was ever
able to muster in the United States. When Microsoft sucked up Citrix'
multiuser NT technology into NT 4.0 and beyond, it also acquired
rights - for a much cheaper price - to Prologue's multiuser NT
technology as well, but not apparently the work that Exodus had done
on its own and filed with the US Patent Office as the "Method and
System for Dynamic Translation between Different Graphical User
Interface Systems."
Exodus died after Microsoft refused to give Prologue a license to
sell its technology on NT 4.0. Microsoft did the same thing to Citrix
but provided it with a cushion. Exodus had used the Prologue engine
and blended it with its own client/server application protocol and
distributed display developments as the patent indicates.
Back in the spring of last year when Exodus went bust, GraphOn hired
its engineers, a group of eight people, which is how it may have
learned of the patent's existence and utility. Exodus, whose Java
client and X protocol Oracle wanted so its very first NC could run
Windows apps, in turn was the heir to ConnectSoft Communications Inc,
which it spun out of, one of three original companies along with
Citrix and Prologue that worked on multiuser NT. |
