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From: usenet@cps3xx.UUCP (Usenet file owner)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.xenix
Subject: Re: SCO stopping enhancements for Xenix?
Message-ID: <6734@cps3xx.UUCP>
Date: 5 Mar 90 01:25:27 GMT
References: <5118@questar.QUESTAR.MN.ORG>
Organization: Engineering, Michigan State U., E. Lansing MI
Lines: 34

From article <5118@questar.QUESTAR.MN.ORG>, by jeff@hobbes.C2S.MN.ORG (Jeff Holmes):
> In article <1314@polari.UUCP> corwin@polari.UUCP (Don Glover) writes:
> 	This makes me VERY angry. Just 4 months ago I paid $1500.00
> 	for Xenix 2.3.2.  Now to keep current I have to spend another
> 	$1000.00 for 3.2.  This puts me at a grand total of $2500.00
> 	when (unless I'm mistaken) SCO Unix 3.2 only retails for
> 	around $1900.00.  Damn!.  I looked closely at ESIX, but
> 	decided that SCO had a better reputation, and what they
> 	offered for the price was a good deal.  I will be looking
> 	at ESIX once again.

If you bought SCO Xenix just 4 months ago and you're already thinking of
upgrading to SCO UNIX, it's your own fault for not thinking ahead back
then and simply buying SCO UNIX. It was shipping then.....

Overall, it makes good business sense for SCO to drop Xenix. They won't
have the overhead of supporting double the development staff to make a
product to compete against their own other product. I can see SCO
stopping new development on Xenix but still selling it for a few years.
There is a definite market niche out there for a small multiuser system
and Xenix is it. (I'm speaking mainly of those who only need a very
basic runtime system to support a canned application at an end user)

SCO UNIX has to be SCO's main thrust as the various buzzwords of
compliance are what is needed for a deeper penetration of business
markets. 

Yes, it sucks that SCO is moving in a direction of orphaning home
hackers, but that isn't where the money is for them.
 
j                               |%|John Lawitzke, Dale Computer Corp., R&D
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Inquiring minds just wondering. |%|Internet: jhl@frith.egr.msu.edu