A.P. Lawrence

Finally SCO understands the problem - sort of

Wed Aug 4 18:56:42 2004 Finally SCO understands the problem - sort of
Posted by Tony Lawrence
Search Keys: sco lawsuit
Referencing: /Blog/B1035.html

http://www.integratedmar.com/ECL.cfm?item=DLY080304-02 tells of SCO's plan for their "Diamond" release - the single OS that apparently will be able to take on either Unixware or OpenServer personalities, dependent upon the installer's desires - or perhaps even the users wishes.

SCO has needed this for some time, though most of us are thinking that it's a little late to be pushing on that barn door. A lot of the horses are long gone, the rest are spooked, and the world is switching to those dang horseless carriages to boot.

Aside from all that, let's pretend for a moment that this Linux stuff all gets sorted out one way or another and SCO still has customers in 2006. Jeff Hunsaker says (about Diamond)

It might take the blinders off of partners

Pardon me, Jeff, but if anyone has had blinders on about markets and SCO's positioning therein, it hasn't been the partners and resellers. We aren't the ones who didn't want a free or inexpensive Unix for home users and students- if that had been available early on you never would have had to worry about Linux. We aren't the ones who went chasing after the big elephants with Unixware - we knew that SCO's market was small to medium business and small developers. We aren't the ones who told the world that OpenServer would be discontinued, causing it to quickly lose even more support from third party developers. Nor were we the ones who steadfastly ignored the need for businesses to safely connect to the Internet, have up to date and secure mail etc. until way past "too late".

And finally, we sure as heck were not the ones who decided that suing IBM and trying to license Linux users was a brilliant idea.

No, Jeff, we aren't the blind ones. Look inward, Jeff. SCO made the thorny bed it now lies on - against the advice and wishes of your partners and resellers.

I hope Diamond gets to become reality. I hope that SCO can somehow repair all the damage it has wrought. I hope.. well, many things. Mostly I hope for a world not dominated by Microsoft. Whether SCO is part of that or not is rather unimportant to me.

Psst - Wanna work for yourself?

Comments
CommentsBlog1037 :

---August 4, 2004

It seems to me that SCO still doesn't understand where its market is. Reading between the lines of Jeff's comments, I think I still smell a company that wants to party with the big boys.

I think the small reseller market is a place SCO could succeed again - if they woke up and realized what small developers need: stability, security, reasonable pricing, and development support.

ButWhoListensToMe





---August 4, 2004

If anyone has an extra gmail invitation, I would appreciate it at bobby01@mail.com. Thank you.

--


---August 4, 2004

Right this second Gmail isn't letting me give out any, but if it opens up again I'll let you know.

--TonyLawrence



---August 4, 2004


I see a place for SCO still in the sceme of things. They definately have a chance.

Personally I adore Linux, not so much because of the technical merits of it (although I like that part too), but I like the concepts behind.

However right now Linux is in a race, a race with MS. Linux
So to aviod longhorn lockdown Linux must make a big splash on the business desktop market in the next 3-4 years, otherwise there is no way (it seems) that you will get anything to work well with Longhorn.

So that has lead to some side effects in the direction that Linux is going. Rapid developement leads to rapid change, rapid change leads to mistakes, and that means that in the future that Linux may not be the best choice for creating a server that will be well supported and chugging away in the back room for the next 15 years.

A commercial Unix may be just the ticket if they open it up... SCO has a small window of opertunity to make everybody their freinds again, if they open up Unix code then that may be enough and they wouldn't have to open it all the way up to the GPL. Just make it friendly.

Otherwise you have Solaris 10, which Sun says will be released on a OSI approved liscence...
--Drag

---August 4, 2004

I certainly agree. And as ButWhoListensToMe said, they need to re-win the hearts of developers and resellers.



--TonyLawrence



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