I'm forwarding this from FRANZ ...

[buff%pravda@gatech.edu (Richard Billington)]

It may address some questions about CLIM which have been raised here,
and it is also clearly of interest to many others:

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cInformation Release from FRANZ Inc.


FRANZ Inc. Announces Distribution Agreement for CLIM--The Common Lisp 
Interface Manager--on Allegro CL.

Berkeley, CA - In making yet another great stride to provide Lisp Machine
capability and user interface conformity on UNIX workstations, FRANZ
Inc. today announces it will distribute CLIM on Allegro Common Lisp
(Allegro CL).  CLIM, the Common Lisp Interface Manager developed in
cooperation with International Lisp Associates (ILA), extends the
powerful "look and feel" interface environment found on many Lisp
Machines to work with standard window systems, such as Motif (tm) and
OPEN LOOK (tm).  In making the announcement, Franz Inc. will
distribute CLIM to its wide user base as well as pave the way for many
Lisp Machine users to develop and deliver more applications on
standard UNIX platforms.   

As a sophisticated hi-level interface layer that exists on
top of a low-level graphical windowing system, CLIM allows program
developers to stay entirely in the Allegro Common Lisp environment
while taking advantage of standard user interface packages and
toolkits for low-level graphical interaction with the screen.  This
permits the application developer to either provide a consistent user
interface across a wide variety of window systems or to accentuate the
particular interface environment of the workstation on which the
application runs.   

Two productivity benefits result; 1)  Applications will be more
portable across operating systems and hardware; and  2)  The burden of
creating window-based applications with current low-level window
systems will be greatly reduced.  Software development organizations
using CLIM will be able to support a wider variety of platforms at no
additional development or maintenance expense. 

"The ability to provide a common graphical interface represents a
major step for users who need a truly portable solution for delivering
Lisp-based applications across several platforms," said Franz Inc.
President, Fritz Kunze.  "CLIM on Allegro CL "opens the door" to a
wide range of development and delivery options for those accustomed to
Lisp Machine environments.  It also increases the productivity of Lisp
developers currently using UNIX workstations.  We are extremely
committed to this effort," continued Kunze. 

The development of CLIM on Franz' Allegro CL is the result of a
cooperative design effort whose members included Franz Inc., ILA,
Symbolics and Xerox PARC. In particular, CLIM on Allegro CL
incorporates design concepts from Silica--the most advanced window system 
technology to come out of Xerox PARC. This research has focused on
optimal designs of architectures that provide flexible and efficient
support of a wide range of user interface functionality. 

The power of the Silica design comes from a novel use of object orientation to
explicitly manipulate the fundamental concepts in the window system
kernel. This approach makes it possible to provide application
portability without dictating look and feel or compromising
functionality or performance.  Silica's meta level architecture is
similar to the metaobject protocol the Common Lisp Object System (CLOS). 

"This announcement signals the beginning of the 'commercial roll-out'
for CLIM," said ILA President, Mark Son-bell.  "User interest in CLIM
has been high and growing steadily since the first announcement of the
effort almost a year ago.  The availability of CLIM on UNIX
workstations has been the single most frequent question addressed to
us at ILA.  THat question can now be answered resoundingly: Here it is.

"We're gratified by the commitment that Franz has shown to the CLIM
effort," continued Son-bell, "and enthusiastic about the technical
capabilities that it is yielding up for Lisp developers..  The
combination of CLIM, CLOS, and a full-feature Lisp like Allegro CL is
a mighty powerful set of tools for developers of modern,
sophisticated, interactive applications."

Although developers' pre-release copies will be available April 30th on Allegro
CL release 3.1, CLIM will also be fully optimized to take advantage of
the native CLOS implementation that will be part of Franz Inc.'s
Allegro CL release 4.0 later this year. 

"CLIM and CLOS complete two more steps in our Allegro CL product
strategy to provide a full range of Lisp-based development
environments, programming tools and efficient delivery options across
multiple platforms supported directly by one vendor," said Franz'
Kunze.  "We already offer Allegro Composer, a very successful
Lisp-based program development environment and will be announcing a
new, highly optimized runtime application delivery strategy shortly,"
added Kunze.

In addition to cooperating in the development of CLIM, Franz Inc. and
ILA will coordinate marketing, sales and support activities as well.
Franz Inc. will market CLIM directly,  ILA will ship the product
and provide customer support.  Developers' pre-release copies are
available April 30th.  Final release will occur in the third quarter this year.

The U.S. price for CLIM on Allegro CL is $1,000 and will be available first
on the SUN 4 and the Sparcstation workstation.  For further
information, call 1-800-333-7260 or (415) 548-3600. 

FRANZ Inc., located in Berkeley, CA is the world's leading supplier of
LISP systems.  Its flagship products are Franz Lisp and Allegro CL,
for which it has OEM and third party supplier contracts with major
computer companies and semiconductor manufacturers.  Allegro is
available on machines ranging from microcomputers to mainframes. 

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