Unisys Corp’ plans for the emerging struggle over Unix standards are to be firmly rooted in strategy rather than products, according to Chris Mellor, Senior Unix Marketing Manager in the UK. Although it is only enough to make up for attrition in the combined mainframe bases of Sperry and Burroughs, the company is making significant progress in the mid-range in the US, and its plans are being formalised in its commitment to the Enterprise (now where have we heard that term before?) Open Systems Architecture approach, an integrated strategy covering all styles of computing from desktop to data centre. Unisys is committed to the Archer Group’s efforts to establish AT&T releases of Unix as the major market standard, although the group is said to be less than happy about the UKP500 it paid to a code word company for the Archer nametag! Unisys has established an Open Systems Centre at its head offices in London to provide support for Unix-based systems and will be linked to regional activity centres in Leeds, Birmingham and London during 1989. Each will demonstrate a range of open systems solutions with the assistance of specialists, funded to the tune of UKP4.5m. Further to this, Unisys declared this month that its 5000 and 6000 systems are now ready for X/Open branding, its merger with Convergent Inc will be complete by the end of this month, and its System 5 desktops will support Open Look, X Window and Sun News X Window. The UK company is holding its Open Systems World exhibition at the Kensington Exhibition Centre this week, including 40 seminars with a keynote speech by Rob Wilmot, and an exhibition with the participation of 30 applications vendors.
