Distribution - SCO keeps its options Open

SCO has made former sub-distributor Open Computing the only UK wholesaler to carry its full product line, as it tries to seize the initiative in the thin-client market.

SCO has made former sub-distributor Open Computing the only UK wholesaler to carry its full product line, as it tries to seize the initiative in the thin-client market.

The vendor has also given long-time partner Sphinx CST the job of distributing its Tarentella suite of Web-enabling applications, in addition to the UnixWare operating system it already handles.

Jonathan Ellis, sales and marketing director at Open Computing, said the promotion means the firm is the only distributor in the UK to offer the NonStop Clustering product set that SCO has developed in conjunction with Compaq. This will give resellers access to the high-end market, he said.

Open claimed to have 80 per cent of the Intel-based Unix market and has set up an enterprise computing unit. Ellis said it is in talks with 40 resellers about offering NonStop Clustering.

Barry Walker, regional director of SCO UK and Ireland, said the appointment of Open allows VARs to go "higher up the food chain" with an Intel product, and will prepare them for Intel's forthcoming 64-bit architecture.

SCO also unveiled Tarentella Express, the second product in its Web-enabling software portfolio, aimed at firms with fewer than 1,000 staff - a market dominated by Citrix. It will also be positioned as a platform for application service providers, when it is launched next month.

Ellis, who had claimed that SCO's Tarentella Enterprise offering was too high-end for resellers (PC Dealer, 1 September 1999), said the Express version will appeal to VARs. "Express will go head to head with Citrix.

There will be much more interest in it," he said.

Walker said Tarentella would offer resellers important service opportunities.

"In future, people will develop Web applications, but they will also run legacy applications. Tarentella will deliver all of these applications to the same desktop."

SCO also said Landis would take on its Unix OS and Vision line following its acquisition of Ilion, another long-time pan-European SCO distributor.