[ Thanks to Kelly
McNeill for this link. ]
“How should existing UNIX vendors deal with the rise of
Linux?” For now, though, let’s focus on SCO as a case
study.“
“Where they stand now: SCO is, in terms of volume, the world’s
largest distributor of UNIX Unlike virtually every other UNIX
vendor, their OpenServer and UnixWare run on commodity Intel
hardware, not proprietary RISC chips. This had been the key to the
company’s rapid expansion, and it places them more directly in
competition with Windows, NetWare, and Linux than, say, Sun, which
retains the benefit of their own high-end hardware.”
“The problem: SCO’s low-end offerings are positioned as low-end
file/print/web servers. At this level, what advantage can they
offer over Linux systems? Just the Tarantella-based WebTop
administration system, the CDE (if for some ungodly reason you
consider this an advantage over KDE, GNOME, or XFCE), and the SCO
brand name (which does swing a lot more weight than the Linux name
in many corporations). As Linux becomes better-known,
better-trusted, and easier to use, UnixWare’s advantages at the
departmental level quickly go out the window. Linux also continues
to improve at a pace far faster than any other OS on the market
today. On top of that, companies which insist on a non-open- source
solution will be able to get Windows 2000. Win2k supports the same
theoretical scalability as UnixWare (32 processors), aims to
improve reliability, and offers a brand name that certainly dwarfs
SCO’s. In the next two years, we’ll see a dramatic drop-off in
sales of UnixWare, I absolutely guarantee it.”