A software development venture initially commenced by Apple and IBM corporations. In 1994, Hewlett-Packard announced it would take 15% in Taligent and provide technical support. Taligent's primary mission is to develop cross-platform object-oriented operating systems and applications software, the first release of which will be in 1995 for IBM's Unix-based system called AIX. Versions for OS/2, PowerOpen, and Hewett-Packards HP-UX systems will follow. The future of Taligent along with a similar joint venture at Kaleida Labs is somewhat uncertain due to changing times and top management strategies in IBM and Apple according to Information Week, May 23, 1994. Key features of the Taligent applications operating system and the "People, Places, and Things" user interface are discussed in
Panettieri (1994b). The key feature is the object-oriented design that will greatly reduce the time and effort needed by software developers who can make use of chunks of pre-written code.
In in 1996, Taligent seemed beaten up and dead in the water until IBM decided to put an enoromous investment into Java support. In 1997, Taligent became the industry leader in Java development. (See also Java, Kaleida and Pink)
