SCO doesn't sell UNIX

[Chip Salzenberg]

According to tneff at bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff):
>In article <27519123.34A2 at tct.uucp> chip at tct.uucp (Chip Salzenberg) writes:
>>Unless we, the developers and users, keep the pressure on SCO, there
>>will never be a C2-free version of "SCO Unix."  And that would be a
>>pity.  Let's keep reminding them of what we want.
>
>With all due respect, I'm still wondering why the marketplace so
>desperately needs a fixed SCO UNIX in particular.

What a good question!  Let me enumerate some reasons:

1.  Installed base.

We're a SCO shop for some time, and we've installed SCO Xenix and SCO
Unix at several customers.  OS vendor changes are always more or less
traumatic, and we must still support our installed customer base.  It
would be infinitely preferable to get a C2-free SCO UNIX, so we don't
have to go through a massive changeover.

2.  Equal support for ISA and Micro Channel.

Because of our business partners, who are Really Big Companies, we're
stuck with the very conservative and non-negotiable stand that we
*will* sell IBM hardware.  Thus we're stuck with the PS/2 Model 80.
Since our primary development machine is an ISA bus Compaq Deskpro, we
obviously prefer to have one OS that runs on both the Compaq and the
PS/2.  The only current alternative to SCO with this feature is
Interactive, and the advantages of Interactive (no C2) are outweighed
by its disadvantages (poor support, requires vendor change).

3.  Support.

No, SCO support isn't perfect.  But the fact remains that when they
identify something as a bug, they fix it for free, and they put the
fixes on a publicly accessible archive machine.  You can't beat that
with a stick.  And once you find the knowledgable people, they're
friendly and helpful.

CONCLUSION:

Switching from SCO to another vendor will be a painful experience.
We're trying to avoid it.  Still, if it must be done, it will be done.

If a vendor of System V Release 4 for ISA machines comes out with a
Micro Channel version, I'll bet dollars to donuts that we'll buy their
product.  Assuming that doesn't happen, I'll motivate management to
buy Dell Unix for the Compaq machine and AIX for the PS/2.

Yet -- we could avoid all this pain, if only SCO would sell UNIX...
-- 
Chip Salzenberg at Teltronics/TCT     <chip at tct.uucp>, <uunet!pdn!tct!chip>
    "I've been cranky ever since my comp.unix.wizards was removed
         by that evil Chip Salzenberg."   -- John F. Haugh II