The Santa Cruz Operation Inc is killing off its OEM organization, Unix Technology Group Inc, successor to the old Unix International operation, the consortium that came into existence during the height of the Unix Wars to balance the schismatic Open Software Foundation. Ironically, although System V.4 won, Unix International and now Unix Technology Group are dead and the Foundation soldiers on as part of the Software Foundation-X/Open- Open Group triptych. The second of the two votes needed to disband the UnixWare front organization was cast unanimously by the Unix Technology Group board of directors on Thursday June 27. Reports suggest that Santa Cruz was reluctant to continue funding it because of the cost. It will say that it has formed an internal group called the Enterprise Computing Forum or ECF to replace it at the request of Unix Technology Group’s membership who will now be asked to participate in the Computing Forum’s activities along with the narrow band of independent software vendors currently s upporting UnixWare. The Enterprise Computing Forum is intended to evangelize Unix, invite OEM customers to contribute technologies for possible inclusion in future releases, suggest areas of collaboration and evaluate technologies under consideration, as Unix Technology Group and before it, Unix International had done. The Enterprise Computing Forum is also intended to be a vehicle for getting vendor input into the standards and specifications developed by the Open Group and other similarly minded consortia. Santa Cruz will say that the Computing Forum will provide OEM customers with more timely access to new technologies and make for closer relationships. Santa Cruz senior management is mandated to run the Computing Forum but who exactly they have in mind remained unclear at press time. Santa Cruz will promise new OEM and independent software vendor programs that the Computing Forum will play a role in. Although Unix Technology Group managers such as chief executive Larry Lytle and chief evangelist Michael Dortch are expected to be gone by the end of the month, it will probably be the end of December before the Unix Technology Group is completely dissolved. In the Technology Group’s case, there is no hint of the financial disorder that sources reported was fo und when they closed Unix International down. The Unix Technology Group was instrumental in formulating a draft specification for support of large files on legacy Unix implementations which has been forwarded to X/Open Co Ltd as a potential standard. Unix Technology Group members were also in the midst of a review of the market requirements for Gemini, the forthcoming merger of Santa Cruz OpenServer and UnixWare, and the 3DA architecture, which is Santa Cruz and Hewlett-Packard Co’s 64-bit Unix implementation.
