The Santa Cruz Operation Inc is secretly developing a 64-bit version of Gemini, the 32-bit merged UnixWare and OpenServer offering that is due in the middle of next year. Gemini 64, as the stealth project is known, is said to be due around the middle of 1998, which would make it coincide with Merced, the 64-bit chip being developed by Hewlett-Packard Co and Intel Corp. Santa Cruz is producing Gemini 64 by itself. It was not in the original plans and is apparently a late addition. People are being incredibly secretive about it, and canceled appointments with our sister publication Unigram.X to talk about it last week – indeed Santa Cruz claimed on Wednesday not to have heard of Gemini 64. However, following a meeting with Santa Cruz last Wednesday, Samantha Owen, Unix business manager for Fujitsu-ICL Computers Ltd confirmed Gemini 64’s existence. So did a high-ranking source at NCR Corp. Santa Cruz is producing by itself a 64-bit version of Gemini – Gemini 64 – for release some time in 1998, presumably in line with the release of Merced. Owen said Gemini 64 was a known product name. Phil Gerskowitz, Data General Corp’s vice-president of the NUMALiiNE business unit, said he’d heard of Gemini 64 but wouldn’t be more specific. Which raises the question: why is Santa Cruz doing this? Is it concerned that the 3DA work won’t be delivered on time, and so wants to hedge its bets and do a 64-bit implementation of its own, in case Hewlett-Packard rides rough-shod over it? Our sister publication Client Server News last week noted that HP was very anxious to have 64-bit NT ready for Merced, suggesting that 64-bit Unix will be late.
