by >Note: I don't speak for SCO, and these are my own opinions and impressions.
>} I'm pretty amazed at these prices if they are true.
>} [...] I believe that if any inroads are
>} made now, it will not be because of Unixware or $co.
>In this case those "fairly reasonable" prices were below cost: Novell was
>losing money on every copy of packaged UnixWare they sold. They could afford
>this loss-leader strategy to try and ``buy'' marketshare from SCO, as they
>were a multi-billion dollar company and UNIX was a small fraction of their
>entire revenue.
biggest difference is that NT is a more important strategic product
for MS than UnixWare turned out to be for Novell.
As many newcomer products must do.Quote:>Their pricing structure was never intended as a viable,
>sustainable business-model: it was a calculated and ongoing _promotional_
>price.
Well, this was the first competitor that SCO bought rather than ranQuote:>And it didn't work.
into the ground :-).
I have my own, marketing-based reasons why. Novell's corporate culture,Quote:>Even with Novell's "dumping" UNIX on the market, SCO was outselling them
>10 to 1 (and while I don't have hard numbers at my disposal, I'd wager
>SCO sold more UNIX desktops than Novell over the past few years as well).
expept for a precious few Novell advocates, had an extremely hard time
with the concepts we generally refer to as "open systems".
That is a certain corporate mentality that, I suppose, will always beQuote:>And ironically, the low-ball pricing hurt them in many commercial accounts
>(i.e., ``You get what you pay for: why are you giving this away if it's so
>darn good?''
with us, and cause people to buy overpriced *merely because "if it's
so expensive it *must* be better" (not that I'd ever apply this to SCO :-).
I admit this mentality exists; when confronted with such a scenario, my
reaction (as a salesperson) would be "all the more reason to get it
*before* they realize how underpriced it is!"
One *must* acknowledge, however, that the influence of freeware Unix
clones (not just Linux but the BSD derivitives too) has an effect on
the perception on the cost of quality in this market.
Only for lack of anything better to do. :-) They'd destroyed PE, whatQuote:>Most of the other "UNIX" companies are still focused on the desktop (though
>Novell eventually began to follow SCO's lead in this regard).
else could they do?
Check out the proportion of Web sites being run from Sun *servers*.Quote:>For instance,
>while Sun sells a whole bunch of UNIX systems, these are almost all clients
>(and RISC-based workstations at that: they have the same problem with regards
>to *izing their bread 'n' butter with Solaris for Intel as Novell had
>with their positioning of UnixWare vs. NetWare).
That's not a market to sneeze at...
Even when counting Linux installations? The various distributions on CDQuote:>it's also true that while the entire UNIX
>market is showing healthy growth, the ratio of desktops to servers is on
>the decline.
are selling between 50,000 and 100,000 per month depending on who you
talk to. Even if only a quarter of these sales are actually installed,
that's a heck of a base.
OK. If you believe this, and such an attitude is common within SCO, I'mQuote:>I do hope that Caldera can make a go of it with Linux, and nothing would
>please me more than to see a huge explosion of low-cost UNIX-like systems
>on the desktop. This would be great for the entire open systems/UNIX market,
>and thus a win-win for SCO as well.
going to make a fairly bold suggestion:
Does SCO have the courage to donate a significant piece of its
technology to the freeware community, in the interest of promoting
"a huge explosion of low-cost UNIX-like systems on the desktop"?
I have something very specific in mind -- the package installation
technology. One of the few areas in which the Linux world is heavily
fragmented is in the issue of software installation, Red Hat doesn't
use the same format as Slackware, which doesn't use the same as
Yddrasil, etc. A donation of a stable, functional installation
mechanism would encourage the distribution of binary-level apps for
Linux/Caldera, and standardize a very basic function across the two
major forms of Intel Unix.
Many other commercial vendors have donated technology to the freeware
community; Unix basics such as NFS would not be there without such
actions.
Installation procedures are functions which do not make or break a
product at a competitive level. Is SCO interested enough in the
development of apps to encourage a minimum level of commonality with
the Linux community?
Too true.Quote:>Over the years I've seen a lot of wannabies come into the market and then
>go out of business. Coherent went belly-up last year, and there've been
>many, many more who failed and left their customers in a lurch in the past.
Indeed. But the Linux community is none of these...Quote:>[SCO has] been around for over fif* years,
>and by all accounts should be around a good deal longer. Just compare
>and contrast with those fly-by-night operations who're now gone, or those
>companies who's overriding concerns of *izing commissions from their
>cash cows thwarted their selling into the open Intel-based industry-standard
>and/or UNIX space.
Excellent. And thanks.Quote:>P.S. -- All that being said, I think that a very competitive *promotional*
>(not list) price to keep the middle-ground UnixWare advocates on board is
>a very good idea, and am (along with others) lobbying for it here.
In other words, buy UnixWare 2.01 if you can still find it :-).Quote:>And don't forget that that $550 AS upgrade gives you a server which lists
>for over $14,000 (and SCO has sold a number of those 5,000-User licenses)!
>That's what I call a heckuva rate of return!!! ;^)
--
Evan Leibovitch, Sound Software Ltd., located in beautiful Brampton, Ontario
Economists have successfully predicted 14 of the last 2 recessions