Unix Alliance Makes a Stand Against MS

James Harding, VNU Newswire US, reports from Uniforum, last week?s Unix developers conference in San Francisco

Unix vendors have joined forces to collaborate on defining a standard in a desperate attempt to break Microsoft?s stranglehold on the market.

Allen Brown, vice president and chief operating officer at The Open Group ? the main standards body overseeing Unix specifications ? blamed Vars and system integrators for helping Windows NT attack Unix? market.

?Unix has six times the sales of NT, but we?re seeing Vars supplying NT first,? he said. ?They have told us suppliers only let them offer Windows 95 or NT.?

Brown said customers only hear about how NT is defeating Unix and that is why they order NT from Vars. ?We need to change the market perception of Unix and ensure buyers have a choice.?

He said The Open Group will oversee a single Unix 98 specification and will help vendors collaborate on ?urgent promotional activities?. The Open Group has been joined by Digital, Hewlett Packard, IBM, SCO, Sunsoft and Siemens Nixdorf/Pyramid.

The collaboration came at the same time that Digital also reaffirmed its commitment to to NT.

According to Digital Unix marketing manager Mark Silverberg, Microsoft and Digital will have won contracts covering one million seats by mid 1997 and Windows NT Beta 5 will be delivered on Digital?s Alpha architecture by the end of 1997.

Brown hoped The Open Group can ratify its standards with the NC Reference Profile, which is co-ordinating specifications for network computers, within 10 weeks, to exploit its future market as the server OS for NC installations.