Two SCO Tarantella pilot projects are already operational in SA, even though the product only reached our shores three weeks ago. This was revealed during SCO VP of worldwide sales and field operations Dave McCrabb's visit to the country today.
Both clients (one in Natal, one based in Johannesburg) are currently testing the software that SCO developed to take application server utilities into the e-business world.
"People don't want an application server anymore; they want an e-business server, which entails an entirely different set of requirements, including high availability," says McCrabb. They also need to maintain their investment in skills and applications, says McCrabb, which is Tarantella's forte.
The predominantly-Unix software vendor's other products will also help support the vision of supplying a high availability e-business server that can run on a fairly inexpensive platform: "Clustering and 64-bit will help move not only our customers, but other people's customers, to a high availability solution on SCO."
SCO's highly publicised support for Intel's 64-bit Merced will keep costs of hardware down, claims McCrabb. He reiterated SCO's promise to deliver a version 64-bit Unix on the day that Merced ships. Such an inexpensive platform is particularly important to deal with the spikes that Internet servers are prone to, requiring the system to idle well below capacity at most times.
The launch of Tarantella sees a change in focus for the company known for its UnixWare platform. It terms the product "serverware", a form of middleware where the application is totally unaware that it is talking to another program rather than a client. Since the company is planning on porting its clustering solution to a number of platforms, it too will soon carry the mantle of serverware. This serverware area is expected to grow much faster than the OS business, and also promote the company's services wing, which is expected to grow from 18% to 30% of the company's revenue over the next three years.
Another change in SCO's tactics has been its strong relationship with Linux, including a recent tie-up with SuSE, which will result in SCO consultants pushing SuSE to its clients who are considering the open-source option. Its Tarantella offering will soon be available for the Linux kernel.
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