Anything goes to win the business these days, and Open Software Foundation backer IBM Corp is again offering Unix System V.4 on its PS/2 systems in response to customer demand – this time in the hope of landing an $118m order from the Pizza Hut chain of restaurants in the US. IBM’s previous foray into System V.4 was forced onto it by the K-Mart retail chain, an ultimately unsuccessful bid. This time the company is thought to have gone to the same software house – tiny UHC Inc of Texas – to put Unix System V.4 on some 7,000 PS/2 Model 57 and 90s in the US for point of sale, delivery management and administration tasks. Pizza Hut is currently an IBM mainframe user. In the UK, where Pizza Hut is a joint venture between Pepsico and Whitbread Plc, the company uses an ICL mainframe, but it is downsizing to IBM AS/400s and RS/6000s, communicating with IBM point of sale equipment which is currently undergoing pilot tests.
