About StarNet Communications

The first X Server product, MicroX, was launched in 1991. It enabled users of 286 and 386-based Intel systems to access the X Window System from their personal computers. Being self-financed, we lacked the resources for traditional sales and marketing operations. So the founders decided to utilize the internet for delivering the product and providing tech support for its customers. Thus, StarNet was quite possibly the first company to base its entire business model on the internet, because in 1991, the internet was mostly used by universities, science institutions and government agencies. As a result, and aided by its low cost, simplicity and focus on the X server functionality, X-Win32 quickly became popular in these sectors.

In the late 1990s, we actively sought to broaden our share of the corporate sector, then dominated by half a dozen solutions costing two to four times as much. Our competitors, like Hummingbird Exceed and ReflectionX from Attachmate typically offered a suite of solutions, mostly non-X server related (FTP, NFS, terminal emulation, etc.). As the enterprise market shifted towards more focused solutions, many firms found that X-Win32 nicely fit their needs and budget. Today, in the market for LAN-based legacy PC X servers, X-Win32 remains as the only actively-supported X Windows emulator.

In the early 2000s the market shifted towards Client-Server solutions, starting with VNC. Hummingbird followed with Exceed OnDemand (EOD). StarNet launched its first Client-Server solution, “Survivor” in 2008, followed in 2012 with the first generation of FastX servers. Other competitors entered the market, including NICE and NoMachine. OpenText, which acquired Hummingbird launched its second generation Exceed TurboX (ETX) in 2006.

ETX and NICE languished after they were sold, leaving just FastX and NoMachine as the major commercial entities in the remote Linux display market.