Twenty years ago when I started in this business, SCO Unix was around. It was a complex little operating system that not many folk used in business. There were, of course, exceptions. For the businesses that found software that ran on Unix, it was a good deal. Dumb terminals at a few hundred dollars rather than PCs at a few thousand.
And for all it's complexity and the steepness of its learning curve, it wasn't bad software. When Linux began to gain popularity, it was easy to prophecy the downfall of Unix, and many did. Novell's purchase of SUSE Linux seemed to seal the deal, but Microsoft's investment in SCO produced a lawsuit against Novell that seemed to be the battle of two insignificant market forces. The SCO lawsuit distracted Novell, and occupied time.
Now it appears that SCO is losing the lawsuit. Perhaps SCO still has a few tricks up its increasingly tattered sleeves, but not many more. We'll see.
For now, this looks like the last stand of an industry icon.
SCO Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection -- The SCO Group -- InformationWeek
