Digital Equipment Corp is expected to begin deliveries of its Unix System V.4 on top of OSF/1 version 1.2 running on Alpha AXP systems as soon as this summer. DEC says it won’t shy from promoting and advertising the add-on to potential customers, as it believes large corporates and telecommunications firms, some which specify System V.4 in any case, are already interested in the personality. In the run-up, DEC will put in place a campaign aimed at independent software vendors, OEM customers and other technology partners which will stress the ability to run the catalogue of Unix System V.4 applications on the personality, plus OSF/1 software, from within the same environment. DEC says it will go along with the Open Software Foundation’s choice of symmetric multiprocessing technology and expects it to be delivered in a new release early next year. DEC says it has no plans to offer a similar personality for its OpenVMS operating system, but officials at the company’s Unified Unix briefing a couple of weeks ago admitted it would be good marketing hype.
