SCO Company

1131 words [ 2 Pictures ] [ 3 Weblinks ] - Last update: 2023-12-22 Page created: 2004-04-03 [SB]

 


SCO Company History

Website 2007 SCO (Santa Cruz Operation) was founded in 1979 of the both brothers Doug and Larry Michels who developed the UNIX derivative SCO UNIX for Intel computers. The enterprise went to stock exchange 1993 under the name SCOC. SCO bought all rights at the AT&T UNIX source code as well as UnixWare 2 of Novell in 1995 which purchased the UNIX source code together with the technology and rights by AT&T at the operating system UnixWare before. Novell takes about 17% of the SCO shares, SCO licenses the network technology from Novell in return and HP develops a 64 bit version of UNIX.

1999 had SCO sales offices in approximately 80 countries. SCO showed the next company plan at the "Forum 2000" after the sale of the UNIX business to the Linux company Caldera. The left bussiness division of SCO was renamed in Tarantella Incorporated. The line of business is aligned to the development and sale of the web middleware Tarantella. Caldera split up into the SCO Group for the complete UnixWare and Open Server operating system business. Caldera purchases all rights by the take-over at the operating system UnixWare and the associated applications with exclusive right for sale of the older Open Server system. SCO ensured further the license income which flow in the Tarantella division. About 800 employees of SCO shall change to Caldera Inc. As a selling price 7 million dollars cash as well as 28 percent of the shares, which are about 17.5 million share certificates, from this are 2 million share certificates from a reserve for employee options. In addition, the Caldera investor "The Canopy Group" has agreed to grant a credit of another 18 million dollars for SCO.

Caldera plans the disclosure of the source code of UnixWare. But copyrights of AT&T, Novell, Tandem, Compaq and SCO are still parts of it. The time for the release isn't published yet. Currently (July 2003) is the SCO Open Server 5.0.7 with enhanced hardware support and USB 2.0 support the latest release.

The SCO Group took the company IBM to court for 3 billion dollars compensation in March 2003 because of injury of an intellectual property from the former common project Monterey. It is all about more exactly that SCO has basic rights at the UNIX source code and Linux relies on UNIX architecture and APIs own copyright claims are injured. SCO wants to prove this by facts of the source code transfer between UNIX and Linux. In August 2003 IBM answered with a countersuit for reason, SCO has hurt the GPL by the Linux distribution of her own and loosed possible copyright claims through this. SCO has taken licence fees for the use of Linux which is forbidden by GPL.

Several companies were included in this court process as plaintiff or defendants. The legal discussion lasts without a clearing judgement in meanwhile for more than 3 years.

Software Products


- SCO Open desktop 3.0
- SCO Linux 4.0 Client & Server, LSB 1.2, Kernel 2.4.19 (Jan. 2003)
- Tarantella
- UnixWare
- Open Server (with JavaT of Virtual Machine)
- Enterprise System, Host System, Internet FastStart System, Desktop System

Company History


Short info 1979 - 1986
1979 SCO is founded by Doug and Larry Michels to port UNIX® and offer consulting.

1983 SCO delivers the first UNIX system (called SCO XENIX system V) for Intel 8086 and 8088 CPUs. It makes the reliable use in enterprises possible and is designed for critical enterprise applications.

1984 SCO has created himself an two ways sales model to be able to offer his operating systems worldwide. SCO works together with computer manufacturers, resellers and application developers to serve the market with SCO server software for intel CPU systems.

1985 SCO delivers SCO XENIX 286 for Intel CPU 80286 systems. SCO XENIX 286 is compatible to older applications of the pre-versions.
1986 SCO purchases parts of Logica Ltd. in England, the first European headquarters is founded.

Short info 1987
SCO invits computer manufactures and software developer to the "386 summit" in San Francisco, the first meeting of these people for insights into the new Era of the 32-bit Intel platform. In the same year SCO released XENIX 386, the first UNIX and 32-bit operating system for x86 systems with GUI.

Short info 1989
SCO publishes SCO UNIX system V/386, the first product which one was licensed from AT&T to use the UNIX system trademark. The SCO Open Desktop is coming out too.

Short info 1990 - 1996
SCO purchases HCR, foundation of a branch office in Canada. SCO delivers SCO MPX the first software package for the new Intel multi-processor architecture

1992 SCO publishes the SCO OpenServer family of the operating system. SCO version 4 (UNIX System V release 3.2) for computer with 386s or 486s CPU by Intel is released. The multi-processor extension SCO MPG allows the use of up to 30 CPUs in a system now.

1993 SCO takes IXI Limited, an established development centre.

1994 SCO purchases Visionware

1995 SCO provides the first commercial Web browser IXI Mosaic which was licensed from NCSA too. SCO purchases the UNIX technology of Novell and also takes over the UnixWare 2 operating system.

1996 SCO founds first initiative of computer sellers to establish a standard UNIX system for Intel systems in enterprises. The campaign was called "Big E initiative".

Short info 1997
SCO published the network software Tarantella which supports the central administration and guide server-based applications about the network. SCO delivers the first Cluster solution for Intel-based servers.

Short info 1998
SCO delivers the UnixWare 7 operating system, a progressive server operating system for Intel CPUs. It consists of parts of the two UNIX derivatives UnixWare and Open Server. Altogether 4 variants are offered: Enterprise, Application/Database, Mayl/Messaging and Intranet. SCO founded the "Data Center Initiative" to create a standard UNIX system for in data centre environments.
SCO and IBM developed a high performance UNIX system for the Intel IA-32 and IA-64 architecture in Project Monterey with the support of Intel. As a result a single production line arises for IA-32, IA-64 and IBM CPU systems from entry server up to large enterprise environments. SCO delivers UnixWare for intel "Merced" (BL2) CPU, the first stable UNIX system developer platform for Intel IA-64 CPU "Itanium".

Short info 1999
SCO publishes UnixWare 7.1 with the Webtop software (Tarantella Technology) and a new enterprise and data-centre version. UnixWare 7 of NonStop® Cluster software for Intel CPUs is released. SMP systems also can contain at most 8 CPUs, max. 64 gbyte RAM are addressably. Clusters can consist of a combine of up to six computer machines. SCO publishes different open source initiatives. SCO announces Tarantella Enterprise II which allows the high-speed network access to Windows 2000 and Windows NT 4.0 applications also about the Internet. The Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) of Microsoft will be used.
(Source: SCO)

 


Screenshots

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Weblinks

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