A Brief Taligent History
dot_clear  Taligent was founded in early 1992 as part of a historic agreement between IBM and Apple Computer to develop the next generation microcomputer operating system. This new OS was to run on any hardware platform. It was also to be completely object-oriented from the ground up. Both companies had been committed to object-oriented technology for quite some time and it made sense to bring their knowledge together for a common cause. 

As time went by, priorities shifted as the industry and the partners changed. It was decided that people didn't really want a new operating system, but that rapid application development was still important. The Taligent OS became a layer that could sit on top of any modern operating system and provide numerous services to applications software, thereby shortening the development cycle. This layer consisted of more than a hundred object-oriented frameworks and well over a thousand classes. It ran on top of AIX, HP-UX, OS/2 and Windows NT and it was called CommonPoint. 

Early in 1994, Hewlett-Packard, which had been doing its own ground-breaking work with object-oriented technology, made the decision to become a Taligent partner. The first versions of CommonPoint shipped for AIX and OS/2 in 1995. Although the technology was critically acclaimed, CommonPoint was met with a lukewarm response in terms of sales. 

After the tragic death of its CEO in late 1995 Taligent faced somewhat of a crisis. There was a reduction in force at the end of 1995 as Taligent made the decision to focus on the technology and leave marketing to their partners. 

In the spring of 1996, Taligent became a wholly-owned subsidiary of IBM. As an important center for object technology, Taligent provided key software components for IBM development tools such as the Open Class class libraries for IBM's VisualAge for C++.  Taligent also created a set of Java- and JavaBeans-based development tools called VisualAge WebRunner and a groupware product based on Lotus Notes called Places for Project Teams.  In addition, Taligent licensed key Java and C++ technologies to industry partners such as Sun/JavaSoft, Netscape, and Oracle.  By late 1997, Taligent software technologies had been awarded over 120 US patents, plus another 180 internationally. 

After two years of maintaining Taligent as a wholly-owned subsidiary, IBM recently decided to complete the transition of Taligent formally into IBM.  Effective January 1998, the Taligent corporate entity will be dissolved and the Taligent engineering teams will become IBM employees, continuing their development of Java technologies and products for IBM.