Another company that believes low-end Unix and high-end personal computers are a marriage made in heaven is Austin, Texas low-cost MS-DOS micro manufacturer Dell Computer Corp. Dell caused surprise last year when it appointed IBM refugee Glen Henry as its vice-president, research and development: Henry was an IBM Fellow and largely responsible for the development of the AIX version of Unix. Now it looks as if Dell is ready with its first entry into the Unix market. According to the US newspaper Computer Reseller News, Dell is set to launch its own version of Unix V.3.2, which will run on its 80386-based hardware, currently running MS-DOS and OS/2. The paper says that Dell is currently developing machines that will run MS-DOS, OS/2 or Unix on a single machine. We’ll support MS-DOS sessions running under Unix as a feature, but on the same machine you’ll be able to run MS-DOS all by itself or OS/2 by itself, according to chief executive Michael Dell, quoted in the report, who also said that Dell was becoming increasingly interested in the small business systems market currently addressed by manufacturers such as Altos Computer and NCR. A company spokesman refused to comment on the report, but did confirm that Dell would be exhibiting at the Uniforum trade show in San Francisco at the end of the month.
