X/Open Company, Ltd., originally the
Open Group for Unix Systems, was a
consortium founded by several European
UNIX systems manufacturers in 1984 to identify and promote
open standards in the field of
information technology. More specifically, the original aim was to define a single specification for
operating systems derived from UNIX, to increase the interoperability of applications and reduce the cost of porting software. Its original members were
Bull,
ICL,
Siemens,
Olivetti, and
Nixdorf—a group sometimes referred to as
BISON.
Philips and
Ericsson joined soon afterwards, at which point the name X/Open was adopted.