I also worked for SCO (part of IXI in Cambridge) and think I even met you once :-) The name SCO was very deliberate - the folks in Santa Cruz were a different

I also worked for SCO (part of IXI in Cambridge) and think I even met you once :-) The name SCO was very deliberate - the folks in Santa Cruz were a different company but when dealing with Microsoft people in Redmond wanted to seem like part of Microsoft. Consequently "Santa Cruz Organization" made it sound like they were a branch office rather than outsiders. Many don't know what made SCO successful. Imagine you were a dentist. A local VAR would package up a system for you, such as a Compaq server, tape drive (for backup), terminals, SCO Unix, appointment and finance software and install it. SCO Unix tried really hard to be easy to use, ranging from the documentation to the software. (Remember it is a dental employee running backups not an IT specialist). The VAR made their money via a ~15% markup. There wasn't really much competition for small business systems at the time. Trivia: it used to be that the only software for managing a pet cemetery ran on SCO. Caldera wanted SCO for access to that network of 15,000 VARs. The VARs were used to their markup on a $1k or more copy of SCO Unix, but it isn't as attractive as 15% of a $29.95 copy of Caldera Linux. Caldera would have been able to sell for more, but then the VARs would be questioning why they needed Caldera. In the end it all failed, largely because Caldera wasn't needed. The irony is Clayton Christensen (of The Innovator's Dilemma) even spoke at the SCO annual event (SCO Forum) in 1999. SCO at the time was focussing more and more on "the enterprise" where Linux couldn't possibly be relevant :-) https://www.computerworld.com.au/article/51414/sco_forum_technology_disrupts_old_order/ https://www.computerworld.com.au/article/51414/sco_forum_tec...