Posted by
Hemos
on from the darnit-we-need-more-money dept.
lazlo gave us the heads-up-SCO is going to be offering Linux support now, in an attempt to boost revenue. It's funny how much things can change in only a few months.
Re:Ironic? In more ways than one.
by
haggar
·
· Score: 2
Certainly compared to AIX, Solaris, Irix or HP-UX, UnixWare is less scalable. But it does scale well on much more CPUs and supporting much more disks and RAM than currently, for example, Linux or *BSD. (I think SCO OpenServer is SCOs current low-end OS). Linux will be there, too, one day, butyou have to get them credit that UnixWare 7 is a helluva OS (too bad Win2000 will try to get mindshare by showing much poorer performance). OK, now go ahead and flame:o)
SCO Unix is going to be dead pretty soon, and it had nothing to do with SCO's previous attitude. What has happened is that Linux made operating systems a commodity. When Linux starts doing things that the big Unices do (real soon now), then Solaris, HPUX, etc., will be dying off also.
I would suspect that in five or ten years, no is going to care what OS you use. Mix and match Linux/Hurd/etc with GNU/BSD/Etc with Gnome/KDE/UDE/etc as you see fit. It won't matter anymore. It will be like PC's today. It really doesn't matter much if you use Intel/AMD/Cyrix with Asus/FIC/etc MB's or with Seagate/WD/etc drives.
SCO can certainly ride this OS shattering storm out. They have the expertise to do it. All they need is to join the community and make an SCO/Linux distribution. It would be a tempting distro, after all they've been in the i386/Unix business longer than anyone. Keep supporting SCO/Unix in your existing customer base, but realize that it will fade away.
-- A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
In the 20+ years I've been in the industry most serious computer companies have had services as a major line item on their balance sheets.
Just as a point of interest, Microsoft Consulting is a break-even operation by design, and MS makes horks of money with no real services operation. (Novell operates in a similar manner.) This is one big reason there's lots of "MSCE Drones" out there - Microsoft shares the services pie, and generates alot of loyalty out of people and ISV's making their living on MS stuff.
On the other hand, if you've ever been in a competitive services situation with you're traditional minicomputer operations like IBM or DEC Consulting (or others), you know that they'll win most everytime because they can throw licence and hardware discounts at the customer, and tend to cripple the products to make to make value-add services seem more enticing.
I don't know about SCO in particular, but there does seem to be certain loyal ISV base out there (looking closely at Linux). Perhaps they're going to screw their 'friends' and try to monopolize the SCO consulting market and maybe pick up some Linux business too.
(BTW, we'll really see how chummy-chummy RedHat, VA, and IBM are when they start underbidding each other for big Linux service deals.) --
Sure, Solaris and their big systems are great products, overpriced, but great products. And Sun will never make it to the desktop like Linux has. The only thing Scott has done is instilled a hatred for MS products into Solaris users, and created an army of elitist arrogant sysadmins.
Now, I'm a pretty big Linux advocate, but...
There are free (or low-cost) licensing programs available for Solaris, UnixWare and SCO Open Desktop.
Linux still has scalability shortcomings compared to these UNIX(tm) operating systems.
It'd be my guess that most Solaris sysadmins also use (or at least) tinker with Linux and/or the free BSDs.
I've heard a lot of bad things about SCO's UNIX(tm) operating systems. Having never had the opportunity to use any SCO stuff, I can't speak to its quality. I have worked with Solaris for several years, and know that it is a solid product (I hope I'm not too elitist or arrogant:-)). I generally like free software better, for many reasons, but I have to admit that there are still some advantages (perhaps not for much longer) to the commercial UNIX(tm)es.
Re:Everything computer is a Microsoft spinoff
by
davie
·
· Score: 2
IBM Entry Level Systems "invented" the 5150 PC that Q-DOS (Quick n Dirty OS), later known as MS-DOS/PC-DOS, ran on. Microsoft didn't "write" anything, except maybe that annoying dancing paperclip thing in the Office apps.
If Bill Gates is responsible for anything, it is the presence of a hardware reset button on the front panel of virtually every Intel-based PC manufactured since the mid-1980s. Quite an accomplishment, huh. Have you ever considered the likelihood that PC manufacturers are more concerned about the MTBF rating on the reset switches they install than on the power switches?
If Gates hadn't inserted his evil self into the mix early on, someone else would have come along with a different solution, and probably a much better one. "Personal computing" was an inevitability, not a "Bill Gates invention."
Buy a clue.
-- slashdot broke my sig
SCO, and change..Tell me about it.
by
Bowie+J.+Poag
·
· Score: 2
I had the opportunity to speak with a SCO recruiter (got an uber-kewl "I (heart) UNIX" bumper sticker too..heh) on campus a couple months ago during a job fair.. Not to say anything bad about SCO, but, the recruiter seemed to give me the impression that they were fairly frightened about Linux's impact on their marketshare. It seemed like they were almost distancing themselves from their own product in order to prepare to embrace Linux if need-be. Looks like theyre making steps in that direction. A good thing, imho. Kudos to SCO!
So, if RedHat's market capitalization is ~5.7 billion and SCO's is only $270 million, then is it not feasible that at some point in time it might be possible for RedHat (or some other Linux company, maybe a few) to buy SCO? They could even open source UNIX (maybe), but could definately improve on several (some?) aspects of Linux, right?
Hmmm...
-- __
ipsa scientia potestas est "knowledge itself is power" - Francis Bacon
If you ever boot or log into a SCO server, you will see a list of copyright credits about two screens long.
I don't think anybody would have an easy time making it Open Source because you'd have to get permission from all the copyright holders.
--
Of all the comments I've ever posted, this is definately one of them
This will be interesting...
by
Ami+Ganguli
·
· Score: 3
SCO is the one company that will definitely be put out of business by Linux if they don't change their business model. It's good that they recognize this while they're still profitable.
The fact is that Red Hat alone has far greater market capitalization than SCO right now. That means Red Hat by itself has enough investment capital to dwarf anything SCO can put into research and development. Add to that all the other parties that are investing time and money into Linux, and SCO doesn't stand a chance.
Unfortunatly, SCO only has 40 people in their consulting group (not really surprising, since I've never heard of them before). They're going to have to work really hard to convince people that they're credible at anything other than SCO software.
-- It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
Actually, $12,000 is a sh!tpile of money at the company I work for. One of the beauties of Linux is that small companies have a way of getting Unix into the company without bending over for SCO, et al. Our proxy server was built with some hardware leftover from various upgrades, and a Slack CD.
I see two possibilities for small businesses needing a network OS (sorry, not familiar with NetWare, so they won't appear here):
First, NT, pointy-clicky. Can be kinda cheap, and it's hard to REALLY screw things up. Learn how to restart your server every night, and the BSOD's diminish.
Second, Linux. Save money on the OS, put money into the apps (Oracle?) It's harder to use at first than NT, but I've got tons of free support, whether it be on/., the man pages, the HOW-TO's, etc.
Sorry. Not everyone works for a Fortune 500 company. Some of us are in those companies that really provide new jobs for the economy.
-George
-- Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Failover clustering to 16-nodes, a journaled file system, 32-way SMP for starters... This is all good stuff in UnixWare7 - and all recently written, without the (c)AT&T. Red Hat could buy SCO, open source it tomorrow, and Linux would be unanswerable in datacentres. And doesn't SCO own the UNIX (TM)? And so Linux would officially become *the* official Unix?:-)
Re:Ironic? In more ways than one.
by
Galt
·
· Score: 2
SCO currently offers three operating system lines - Openserver 5.0.x, Unixware 2.1.x, and Unixware 7.x. They did not write any of them in their entirety.
Openserver 5 is based on the SVR3.2 kernel. They haven't done any real modifications except for new hardware support and bugfixes for nearly a decade. Not to mention that portions of OSR5 are purchased from outside companies, e.g. Panorama, their X desktop.
This product has no real advantages over Linux except for a large legacy application base. Sales are currently impressive due to an upgrade rush prompted by the Year 2000.
SCO is planning on dropping this product after one or two more revisions. Unfortunately for them, it is also their current cash cow and it will hurt their gross profits immensely when they do.
Unixware 2 is based on the SVR4MP kernel. No real modifications to this product since its purchase from Novell.
Another product that really only has a market for legacy applications. Sales are typically upgrades or for itsy bitsy teeny weeny niche markets. To be honest, I have no idea why this product is still being sold.
Unixware 7 is based on what SCO is calling SVR5, since they now own the AT&T codebase. It adds some "enterprise" features that are lacking in the Unixware 2 product line and merges in admin tools from Openserver 5.
This is where SCO would have everyone go in the future. Sales have been tepid, but are starting to pick up some.
Personally, though it has potential, I still wouldn't touch it. As it is a brand new product line it still is buggy as hell, the interface is a nightmarish cross between Unixware 2 and Openserver 5, they currently don't have their own support personel trained on it and its pricing structure makes it as expensive (if not more) as the traditional high end *nixes.
Never Trust UNIX People
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 2
Don't trust these UNIX people. They are all demons. They kill their parents and fork children. I don't know how they could do this with their balls cut off but they manage. Be afraid. They are taking over the world.
Everything computer is a Microsoft spinoff
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 2
If you'll remember, Microsoft invented the PC. Whenever I make this statement of fact, people invariably mention Apple. What Apple had was a game machine. It wasn't until Microsoft came along and wrote the missing software for an IBM that computers became truly useful to regular people who wanted to get work done. In fact today there are many other, and better, choices of operating systems. This is a direct result of Microsoft popularizing the computer. So anything related to computers is a Microsoft spinoff. I rest my case. I know I'll get moderated because I refuse to flame Microsoft. Now I don't like Microsoft anymore than the next guy on Slashdot but this doesn't blind me to the facts.
Re:Everything computer is a Microsoft spinoff
by
zentena
·
· Score: 2
Microsoft wrote CPM/86? They sure didn't write DOS. Seattle something or other did. CPM/86 died because it was too expensive. Microsoft was cheap. People are cheap.
I thought I read an article just yesterday where SCO claimed to hold 41% of the Unix market because the are the *cough* *cough* "leader in stability and scalability" *cough* *cough*. They also claimed to own 80% of the Unix on Intel market.
--
Of all the comments I've ever posted, this is definately one of them
Slashdot Mirror
Certainly compared to AIX, Solaris, Irix or HP-UX, UnixWare is less scalable. But it does scale well on much more CPUs and supporting much more disks and RAM than currently, for example, Linux or *BSD. (I think SCO OpenServer is SCOs current low-end OS). Linux will be there, too, one day, butyou have to get them credit that UnixWare 7 is a helluva OS (too bad Win2000 will try to get mindshare by showing much poorer performance). OK, now go ahead and flame :o)
Sigged!
SCO Unix is going to be dead pretty soon, and it had nothing to do with SCO's previous attitude. What has happened is that Linux made operating systems a commodity. When Linux starts doing things that the big Unices do (real soon now), then Solaris, HPUX, etc., will be dying off also.
I would suspect that in five or ten years, no is going to care what OS you use. Mix and match Linux/Hurd/etc with GNU/BSD/Etc with Gnome/KDE/UDE/etc as you see fit. It won't matter anymore. It will be like PC's today. It really doesn't matter much if you use Intel/AMD/Cyrix with Asus/FIC/etc MB's or with Seagate/WD/etc drives.
SCO can certainly ride this OS shattering storm out. They have the expertise to do it. All they need is to join the community and make an SCO/Linux distribution. It would be a tempting distro, after all they've been in the i386/Unix business longer than anyone. Keep supporting SCO/Unix in your existing customer base, but realize that it will fade away.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
In the 20+ years I've been in the industry most serious computer companies have had services as a major line item on their balance sheets.
Just as a point of interest, Microsoft Consulting is a break-even operation by design, and MS makes horks of money with no real services operation. (Novell operates in a similar manner.) This is one big reason there's lots of "MSCE Drones" out there - Microsoft shares the services pie, and generates alot of loyalty out of people and ISV's making their living on MS stuff.
On the other hand, if you've ever been in a competitive services situation with you're traditional minicomputer operations like IBM or DEC Consulting (or others), you know that they'll win most everytime because they can throw licence and hardware discounts at the customer, and tend to cripple the products to make to make value-add services seem more enticing.
I don't know about SCO in particular, but there does seem to be certain loyal ISV base out there (looking closely at Linux). Perhaps they're going to screw their 'friends' and try to monopolize the SCO consulting market and maybe pick up some Linux business too.
(BTW, we'll really see how chummy-chummy RedHat, VA, and IBM are when they start underbidding each other for big Linux service deals.)
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
True, Linux and the free BSDs are not UNIX(tm), but Solaris is.
I have a hard time believing that SCO has a userbase five times as large as Solaris/Intel.
--
Interested in XFMail? New XFMail home page
Now, I'm a pretty big Linux advocate, but...
- There are free (or low-cost) licensing programs available for Solaris, UnixWare and SCO Open Desktop.
- Linux still has scalability shortcomings compared to these UNIX(tm) operating systems.
- It'd be my guess that most Solaris sysadmins also use (or at least) tinker with Linux and/or the free BSDs.
I've heard a lot of bad things about SCO's UNIX(tm) operating systems. Having never had the opportunity to use any SCO stuff, I can't speak to its quality. I have worked with Solaris for several years, and know that it is a solid product (I hope I'm not too elitist or arrogant--
Interested in XFMail? New XFMail home page
IBM Entry Level Systems "invented" the 5150 PC that Q-DOS (Quick n Dirty OS), later known as MS-DOS/PC-DOS, ran on. Microsoft didn't "write" anything, except maybe that annoying dancing paperclip thing in the Office apps.
If Bill Gates is responsible for anything, it is the presence of a hardware reset button on the front panel of virtually every Intel-based PC manufactured since the mid-1980s. Quite an accomplishment, huh. Have you ever considered the likelihood that PC manufacturers are more concerned about the MTBF rating on the reset switches they install than on the power switches?
If Gates hadn't inserted his evil self into the mix early on, someone else would have come along with a different solution, and probably a much better one. "Personal computing" was an inevitability, not a "Bill Gates invention."
Buy a clue.
slashdot broke my sig
I had the opportunity to speak with a SCO recruiter (got an uber-kewl "I (heart) UNIX" bumper sticker too..heh) on campus a couple months ago during a job fair.. Not to say anything bad about SCO, but, the recruiter seemed to give me the impression that they were fairly frightened about Linux's impact on their marketshare. It seemed like they were almost distancing themselves from their own product in order to prepare to embrace Linux if need-be. Looks like theyre making steps in that direction. A good thing, imho. Kudos to SCO!
Bowie
PROPAGANDA
Bowie J. Poag
Bowie J. Poag
So, if RedHat's market capitalization is ~5.7 billion and SCO's is only $270 million, then is it not feasible that at some point in time it might be possible for RedHat (or some other Linux company, maybe a few) to buy SCO?
They could even open source UNIX (maybe), but could definately improve on several (some?) aspects of Linux, right?
Hmmm...
__
ipsa scientia potestas est
"knowledge itself is power" - Francis Bacon
SCO is the one company that will definitely be put out of business by Linux if they don't change their business model. It's good that they recognize this while they're still profitable.
The fact is that Red Hat alone has far greater market capitalization than SCO right now. That means Red Hat by itself has enough investment capital to dwarf anything SCO can put into research and development. Add to that all the other parties that are investing time and money into Linux, and SCO doesn't stand a chance.
Unfortunatly, SCO only has 40 people in their consulting group (not really surprising, since I've never heard of them before). They're going to have to work really hard to convince people that they're credible at anything other than SCO software.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
Actually, $12,000 is a sh!tpile of money at the company I work for. One of the beauties of Linux is that small companies have a way of getting Unix into the company without bending over for SCO, et al. Our proxy server was built with some hardware leftover from various upgrades, and a Slack CD.
/., the man pages, the HOW-TO's, etc.
I see two possibilities for small businesses needing a network OS (sorry, not familiar with NetWare, so they won't appear here):
First, NT, pointy-clicky. Can be kinda cheap, and it's hard to REALLY screw things up. Learn how to restart your server every night, and the BSOD's diminish.
Second, Linux. Save money on the OS, put money into the apps (Oracle?) It's harder to use at first than NT, but I've got tons of free support, whether it be on
Sorry. Not everyone works for a Fortune 500 company. Some of us are in those companies that really provide new jobs for the economy.
-George
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Failover clustering to 16-nodes, a journaled file system, 32-way SMP for starters... This is all good stuff in UnixWare7 - and all recently written, without the (c)AT&T. Red Hat could buy SCO, open source it tomorrow, and Linux would be unanswerable in datacentres. And doesn't SCO own the UNIX (TM)? And so Linux would officially become *the* official Unix? :-)
SCO currently offers three operating system lines - Openserver 5.0.x, Unixware 2.1.x, and Unixware 7.x. They did not write any of them in their entirety.
Openserver 5 is based on the SVR3.2 kernel. They haven't done any real modifications except for new hardware support and bugfixes for nearly a decade. Not to mention that portions of OSR5 are purchased from outside companies, e.g. Panorama, their X desktop.
This product has no real advantages over Linux except for a large legacy application base. Sales are currently impressive due to an upgrade rush prompted by the Year 2000.
SCO is planning on dropping this product after one or two more revisions. Unfortunately for them, it is also their current cash cow and it will hurt their gross profits immensely when they do.
Unixware 2 is based on the SVR4MP kernel. No real modifications to this product since its purchase from Novell.
Another product that really only has a market for legacy applications. Sales are typically upgrades or for itsy bitsy teeny weeny niche markets. To be honest, I have no idea why this product is still being sold.
Unixware 7 is based on what SCO is calling SVR5, since they now own the AT&T codebase. It adds some "enterprise" features that are lacking in the Unixware 2 product line and merges in admin tools from Openserver 5.
This is where SCO would have everyone go in the future. Sales have been tepid, but are starting to pick up some.
Personally, though it has potential, I still wouldn't touch it. As it is a brand new product line it still is buggy as hell, the interface is a nightmarish cross between Unixware 2 and Openserver 5, they currently don't have their own support personel trained on it and its pricing structure makes it as expensive (if not more) as the traditional high end *nixes.
Don't trust these UNIX people. They are all demons. They kill their parents and fork children. I don't know how they could do this with their balls cut off but they manage. Be afraid. They are taking over the world.
If you'll remember, Microsoft invented the PC. Whenever I make this statement of fact, people invariably mention Apple. What Apple had was a game machine. It wasn't until Microsoft came along and wrote the missing software for an IBM that computers became truly useful to regular people who wanted to get work done. In fact today there are many other, and better, choices of operating systems. This is a direct result of Microsoft popularizing the computer. So anything related to computers is a Microsoft spinoff. I rest my case. I know I'll get moderated because I refuse to flame Microsoft. Now I don't like Microsoft anymore than the next guy on Slashdot but this doesn't blind me to the facts.
I thought I read an article just yesterday where SCO claimed to hold 41% of the Unix market because the are the *cough* *cough* "leader in stability and scalability" *cough* *cough*. They also claimed to own 80% of the Unix on Intel market.
Of all the comments I've ever posted, this is definately one of them
I've used both Red Hat and a couple of SCO flavors. I have yet to find a SCO feature Red Hat would want.
--The basis of all love is respect