THE SANTA CRUZ Operation (SCO) warned investors late Tuesday that sales will be below analysts' estimates for its second quarter ended March 31.

   ADVERTISEMENT
  

Free IT resource

Open Source Business Conference (OSBC) May 22-23, 2007

Sponsored by OSBC

Free IT resource

TechNet: More ways to know it, share it, and keep it running.

Sponsored by Microsoft

RELATED LINKS
»  Canonical chases deals to ship Ubuntu Server preinstalled
»  Sun delivers first UltraSparc T2-based servers
»  IT trainer offers master's degree for hackers
»  Platforms RSS feed 

IDG ENTERPRISE NETWORK
• More Operating Systems News...  (ComputerWorld)
• CrossOver Office aims to ease a switch to Linux  (ComputerWorld)

TOP NEWS 


IT SOLUTION SEARCH
A reorganization aims to increase investment in the company's Tarantella software and in Linux, and to reduce expenses in the company's core Unix server business. The California-based company expects to report "significant losses" after reorganization costs.

SCO is blaming Y2K-related delays "and other effects" for the shortfall, according to a statement. "I am disappointed that the market for our Unix server software has not recovered as quickly as we expected following the Y2K period," said Doug Michels, SCO's president and chief executive officer, in a statement. Michels said that reseller activity has begun to return to previous levels.

SCO will be restructured into three divisions: Server, Tarantella, and Professional Services.

Tarantella is a server product that allows browser-based clients to access applications running on Unix servers, NT servers, and mainframes. It competes with Citrix Systems' MetaFrame. The new company structure will allow the product to be marketed and sold more effectively, said Mike Orr, who will serve as president of the Tarantella division. Orr said that Tarantella "needed more sales and marketing attention" than it was getting in the old structure.

The new structure also will make it easier for each division to pursue the Linux market, Orr said. The company already has announced significant steps in the Linux market, including professional services and a version of Tarantella for Linux.

Orr said the company now intends to take portions of its UnixWare operating system and market them as layered products on top of other Unix versions and Linux. "That way, we get a bigger market for each product individually," Orr said. Programming interfaces for SCO UnixWare and Linux will be "virtually identical," he said, and added, "Increasingly, we will not care which one you use."

Orr did not say how these changes in plans and in structure will affect Project Monterey, the company's joint effort with IBM to develop a 64-bit Unix system for Intel's IA-64 architecture, and based on UnixWare and IBM's AIX technologies. He did say that a major announcement concerning Monterey is due in May.

SCO will report its quarterly results at the end of next month. The company now expects that revenue for its fiscal year will be "significantly lower" than the original estimates of $250 million in revenue and 60 cents earnings per share.

The Santa Cruz Operation Inc., in Santa Cruz, Calif., is at www.sco.com.