In the past few years, it's kind of become fashionable for Unix companies to

support Linux on their platforms. They weren't abandoning their proprietary

operating systems in favor of Linux, but were adding Linux support on their

hardware. Some of them have also been pumping in huge amounts of money into

Linux development.

The reason cited most often was that customers demanded it. The reason I

believe was that Linux was getting far too popular, and, if they didn't offer

it as an alternative to their customers, probably their customer would have

gone for another hardware vendor.

Companies like HP, SGI, IBM and some of the major vendors were the ones singing

the Linux tune in spite of having their own respective Unix flavors.

Prominently absent was the largest commercial vendor of Unix - SCO - who

maintained that Linux wasn't as scalable as their Unix. Of course, SCO must've

been worried, too, since they were the largest commercial Unix on the x86

platform.

And that's where Linux has been gaining ground. Recently, SCO made a

somersault by announcing they would now be making their own Linux distribution!

Was that a surprise from a company that had once been saying Linux wasn't

scalable enough or enterprise ready? Is it the same SCO which once talked

about its prestigious Project Monetery - the 64-bit Unix?

It must've surprised many. But this was bound to happen! And there are many

reasons for this. SCO had been supporting Linux quitely from the beginning

by making investments in Linux companies.

In fact, the CEO of SCO had met up with Linus Torvalds about a year ago in a

private meeting and was keen on helping Linux. We don't know the outcome of

the meeting. But it was evident that SCO was keen on supporting Linux.

They also wrote a Linux emulator so you could run Linux binaries directory

under SCO Unix. Why would they do that? Simply to get more applications on

their platform as application developers were moving over to Linux. There are

far more applications today on Linux than on any other Unix platform.

They also jumped into providing commercial Linux support a few months ago.

We've also been hearing less and less about the much-talked about Project

Monetery that was supposed to create a 64-bit Unix version for Intel's

upcoming IA 64 Platform.

Industry heavyweights, like IBM and Compaq, were part of the project. But does