Santa Cruz Operation Inc. today won backing from four server vendors that said they will support SCO's UnixWare system, rather than proprietary architectures, for use in data centers.
Compaq Computer Corp., Data General Corp., ICL PLC and Unisys Corp. today officially endorsed UnixWare, which allows the Unix operating system to run on processors from Intel Corp., in a teleconference and in a statement from SCO.
Data centers, also referred to as "the glass house," typically operate enterprise systems running on mainframes and on servers using proprietary, RISC-based Unix systems.
The companies also have signed a contract to invest millions of dollars in research and development to move the UnixWare system into the data center using both Intel IA-32 and IA-64 platforms. The IA-32 is due for release this year, and the IA-64, or Merced, is due next year.
SCO said in the statement that the announcements mean UnixWare is the only hardware vendor-independent system for Intel microprocessor-based data center servers. UnixWare 7 is scheduled for release next month.
SCO is working with Intel to develop a 64-bit version of the UnixWare system, which will ship with Merced, the company said.
