Although Microsoft Corp is currently making hay on Intel Corp iAPX-86 machines with its Windows desktop environment – and Windows NT will follow – there are still expected to be some rich pickings left over for the gaggle of hopefuls that are working on desktop Unix implementations for the architecture, which will soon include the new P5 80586 iteration. Santa Cruz Operation Inc is likely to face increasingly stiff competition on its turf from the likes of SunSoft, with its Solaris-on-Intel play and the Interactive Systems Corp customer base to upgrade, Unix System Laboratories Inc-Univel Inc, which is already proclaiming great things for its cut-down, shrink-wrapped Destiny desktop, and NeXT Computer Inc’s NextStep environment, if it ever finds its way onto Compaq Computer Corp or any other machines. Santa Cruz is already battling with IBM’s OS/2, which, if the spin doctors are to be believed, will still make at least some of the running in its 32-bit incarnation. To try and steal a march on SunSoft and Unix Labs – whose products are still vapourware – Santa Cruz last week announced release 2 of its Open Desktop Unix operating system environment, which will ship on July 1. Open Desktop 2.0 offers an enhanced graphical interface incorporating version 1.1 of the Open Software Foundation’s Motif – although that isn’t the latest release of the window manager – and the new release of IXI Ltd’s X.desktop. It features TCP/IP 1.2, Network File System 1.2 and Novell Inc IPX/SPX networking protocols, with further NetWare integration to follow. Locus Computing Corp’s Merge, already included in Open Desktop, now supports MS-DOS 5 applications. The Ingres relational database is no longer bundled, but is offered as an option.

Multiprocessing extensions

Open Desktop was designed originally as a desktop product, but the addition of MPX multiprocessing extensions has made it more popular in multi-user environments: it requires an 80386 personal computer with 8Mb RAM, 100Mb disk and VGA graphics as minimum to run. A cut-down, personal version for clients hosted on a network will also be released, which will operate with 4Mb RAM and 40Mb disk, the company says. On CD-ROM, personal Open Desktop 2.0 costs UKP960, the server version is UKP1,950 and a development copy comes in at UKP1,190. Upgrades cost UKP225, UKP450 and UKP350 respectively. Santa Cruz claims some 550,000 installations of its Unix-based products on Intel computers worldwide, and although its Open Desktop business accounted for only 20% of its revenues in 1991 – Open Desktop 1.0 was launched in 1990 – and 25% so far this year, it believes that sales will rocket to account for 60% of its total by next year. Although Open Desktop 2.0 will make SunSoft, Unix Labs and NeXT work that much harder for market share, the longer term future of Santa Cruz’s Unix strategy is somewhat less clear. Its kernel technology lies in the domain of AT&T Unix System V.3.2.4 (what Santa Cruz cheekily calls its Unix Version 4), with System V Interface Definition 3 and Intel Binary Compatibility Standard 2 conformance. It has asserted again and again that it will not adopt Unix System V.4 outright, and even seemed to have thrown in its lot with the Open Software Foundation when the Advanced Computing Environment launched its initiative last year. Santa Cruz’s faith in ACE dwindled even before ACE’s halcyon period began to wane. When development of an OSF/1 implementation of Open Desktop for ACE’s MIPS Computer Systems Inc RISC architecture passed to Digital Equipment Corp, the signs were ominous. Soon after, Santa Cruz withdrew from all MIPS development. Now it is at a crossroads. Before it moves onto Unix Labs’s congested expressway, or the Open Software Foundation’s traffic-free route, Santa Cruz has been meeting with both outfits and is mulling the prospects of either journey. It maintains OSF/1 is still the preferred direction: not surprising as SunSoft and Unix Labs are already distant specks on the System V.4 horizon. Despite this apparent endorsement, Santa Cruz won’t say whether it has ev

en made a decision yet, suggesting that it is still trying to picture a future for OSF/1, given the lack of industry support for it and the shadows cast by the Software Foundation’s re-focusing.