Santa Cruz, California-based Santa Cruz Operation Inc has improved its services for developers by introducing a cheaper worldwide two-tier support programme to defend its position against its desktop Unix rivals. Now developers have a choice of two levels of support: Partners and Associates. Whereas before, developers paid UKP600 for Santa Cruz Unix and Open Desktop source code, Partners now pay UKP450 and get source code, technical support and help in establishing market leads. Associates pay UKP95 and get the basic documentation. Both tiers have access to on-line Santa Cruz application directories, technical reference library, a problem and solutions database and a help desk. Santa Cruz also offers 25% reductions on training costs and free entry to Santa Cruz-run conferences. English, German, French, Italian and Norwegian versions of the documentation are available. Santa Cruz hopes the new programme will help it focus on three markets: retail, finance and government within which it expects to sell 1,500 Partner developers kits in its first year between 400 and 500 kits in Europe. Santa Cruz claims that 200 independent vertical market developers provide 5,000 to 6,000 applications, hardware products and services worldwide. Santa Cruz has certainly taken its time in providing its developers with such services, and it seems that the rush by Sunsoft Inc and Univel Inc to get a piece of the Intel Corp Unix market pushed the company to co-ordinate its efforts worldwide and pre-empt its rivals. Sunsoft Inc’s Solaris 2.0-on-Intel product is still planned for release in April. Univel’s UnixWare was released in October.
