Santa Cruz Operation Endorses UNIX Trademark

By Zee Zaballos and Dick Muldoon
Business Wire

August 22, 1988

Santa Cruz, CA -- The Santa Cruz Operation Inc. and AT&T jointly announced Monday that SCO will be licensed to use the UNIX trademark in calling future releases of their 80386-based operating systems "SCO UNIX System V/386."

The announcement was made at SCO Forum88: The Conference for Developers and Resellers during an address given by Mike DeFazio, director of system software for AT&T Data Systems Group.

The name change will occur with the next release of SCO's operating system, SCO UNIX System V/386 Release 3.2. This product will be available for testing before the end of this year, with retail availability following in first quarter 1989. It will support all 386-based computers built on the industry-standard PC AT architecture or the new Micro Channel architecture.

OEM adaptations will also be available. The UNIX trademark will carry through to all 386-based platforms that SCO supports.

"SCO XENIX has always been based on the UNIX Operating System," said SCO vice president Doug Michels.

"In addition, our product has always included special drivers, compilers, standards conformance, and other added-value features that differentiate it in the marketplace, and it will continue to do. It is fully compliant with the AT&T System V Interface Definition, the X/Open Common Applications Environment Interface, and readily adaptable to the forthcoming IEEE Portable Operating System Interface specification.

"That's why SCO XENIX has become the most popular operating system based on UNIX System V sold today - because it has met the standards of the marketplace. The 'SCO UNIX System V' name will tell it like it is: this is SCO's version of UNIX System V."

"The trademark 'UNIX' is more than a marketing endorsement," said DeFazio.

"It is an acknowledgement that SCO's product meets AT&T's stringent documentation, source and binary compatibility, user interaction, performance, and reliability standards. SCO will continue to adapt the operating system for the business community, while still giving the consumer the confidence that the UNIX System V core has been preserved."

AT&T's licensing of the UNIX trademark parallels the recent industry demand for a single UNIX System standard.

AT&T has traditionally reserved use of the UNIX trademark exclusively for its own products. By working closely with SCO, however, AT&T has been able to specify functional criteria by which it will license the trademark to SCO while SCO continues to make extensions to the UNIX Operating System in the areas of device support, system administration, internationalization, security, and multiprocessor implementations.

SCO has been a leader in recognizing the importance of application binary compatibility, preserving the ability to run any existing XENIX binary on any newer release of SCO XENIX. SCO's latest version of its operating system, SCO XENIX 386 System V Release 2.3, already incorporates UNIX System V/386 binary compatibility.

According to SCO's Doug Michels, "There's no need to wait for next year's SCO UNIX System V release. As always, SCO guarantees that current development efforts will not need to be repeated for any future release. UNIX System V/386 application binary compatibility exists today in SCO XENIX Release 2.3, which is now shipping."

The Santa Cruz Operation Inc. is a privately held company recognized internationally as a major developer and supplier of premier XENIX and UNIX multiuser business software solutions, training, and support services.

To meet the multiuser needs of its customers, SCO has formed strategic partnerships with the industry's leading providers of industry-standard microprocessor-based systems, software, and peripherals.

Founded in 1979, SCO fields a staff of over 700 between its Santa Cruz, Washington and London offices, including the largest XENIX technical team in the world.