Unix System Laboratories Inc dropped another shoe last week, announcing, as anticipated, the skeleton of a mass market distribution arrangement for Unix System V.4 with Novell Inc, its largest shareholder apart from AT&T Co. Word of their agreement, currently still only a memorandum of understanding (CI No 1,781), followed within days the acceptance of System V.4 as part of the Advanced Computing Environment Initiative. Novell and Unix System Laboratories said they intend setting up a joint venture to develop and market products and services to enhance NetWare and Unix System V.4 interoperability. Citing Securities & Exchange Commission restraints, the new partners declined to discuss any of the specifics of their intentions – even their proposed division of control over the joint venture – before a definitive agreement is complete, sometime in the next 60 days. All they would say, in fact, was that they will be moving sales, marketing and distribution resources into the new unit, staffing and funding it sufficiently to bring initial products to market rapidly. The money and the manpower are likely issues of further negotiation. Sources outside the two companies, however, believe the venture is being designed to handle Destiny, the internal code name for Unix System Laboratories’ anticipated Unix Lite or Desktop Unix effort, the miniaturised version of System V.4 meant for Intel 80386 and 80486 machines. If so, the venture will be Unix System Laboratories’ first experience of the shrink-wrapped binary market. Destiny is expected to ship in the second quarter and the venture is not expected to be its only distribution point. However, the venture also need not limit itself strictly to binaries, one source speculated, figuring that it might resell source code to some of the OEM customers with which Novell has long-standing relationships. The venture is presumed to be focused on the client-server aspect of the Intel market, which accounts for Novell’s interest in it for NetWare, whose various pieces will apparently be integrated into the venture’s offerings. Novell has some 5,000 authorised resellers on its books considered to be reasonably technically competent outlets because they install networks and are therefore prime candidates to market Unix.
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