'386 Unix Wars

[Carson Wilson]

I'm trying to build an Intel 80386-based Unix machine for programming, and 
am having a difficult time determining which of the various i386 Unix 
vendors to support with my purchase.

As anyone shopping around for Unix system software soon discovers, there 
is a war on.  At least two or three manufacturers are actively competing 
for the desktop Unix market.  It appears that the Santa Cruz Operation 
(SCO) has grabbed the largest piece of the market so far, but is facing 
intensive competition from Interactive Systems Corporation.  AT&T and 
Intel also market Unix software for the i386, but seem to be less 
aggressive in pushing their product lines.

There is also a product named "Xenix."  Xenix was originally Microsoft's 
tradename for its Unix clone.  The name has now been licensed to SCO and 
probably other firms.  From what I understand, Xenix is a less 
sophisticated, but also less expensive alternative to desktop Unix.  Xenix 
lacks some of the capabilities of Unix, but requires only about 1/2 the 
memory and disk storage Unix needs.  According to a salesperson at SCO, 
though, Xenix is "on the way out" as a system standard.

I have generally found plenty of sales and support people who are happy to 
"inform" me of the relative merits of their software over that of other 
firms, but I haven't seen any discussion of this on Usenet.  I'd like to 
know your views on:

1) Relative merits of Xenix vs. Unix.

2) Experiences of end users with SCO, Interactive, and other firms.

The i386 Unix market is evolving quite rapidly. I feel we should discuss 
this topic far more actively while we still have a chance to determine the 
direction desktop Unix will take.  If we allow market forces alone to 
decide which standards succeed, we may be disappointed in the long run.

-Carson Wilson	[carson at point.UUCP]