Caldera would become a more formidable Red Hat rival; SCO would morph into a Linux services company.
SCO Unix weathered the Intel Unix wars of the 1980s and early 1990s. SCO Unix survived Microsoft Windows. What SCO Unix may not have been able to survive on its own, though, was Linux.
The result? Caldera Systems, a leading Linux distributor, is on the verge of buying SCO's Server--aka, Unix--division for a price expected to be north of US$70 million in stock, according to multiple sources claiming familiarity with terms of the deal-in-progress.
If the deal goes through, Caldera will become the proud owner of the operating system that made SCO: its Unix system, SCO OpenServer 5. Caldera also will get UnixWare 7.0, which is one of the foundation technologies for Project Monterey, the IBM-SCO version of Unix that the two are targeting at Intel's Itanium processor. In addition, Caldera is set to obtain Vision2K, SCO's technology for bringing Network File System (NFS), terminal emulation, and X-Window applications to Microsoft Windows environments.
Perhaps of even more importance to Caldera, though, is its gain of what most industry observers consider to be the Unix's industry best software reseller channel. With this, Caldera immediately gets the business of thousands of some of the most loyal Unix customers around the world. Combine this with Caldera's success as a Linux distributor for business, and you have a situation where Caldera has catapulted itself into both the Unix and Linux limelight.
What's In It For SCO?
What does SCO get? A sale of its operating system products would allow the Intel Linux kingpin to concentrate on the one of the few remaining growing parts of its business, namely, services. SCO Professional Services division provides complete integration, implementation and operational support for SCO's own Unixes, SCO Tarantella services, and Caldera, TurboLinux, and, possibly, Mandrake's Linuxes.
Surprisingly, according to sources close to SCO, Tarantella, a wholly owned subsidiary, of SCO, and maker of the popular application server of the same name, may be spun out as its own company, under terms of the Caldera-SCO deal.
Given that the recent deal between Caldera and SCO Tarantella to bundle Caldera OpenLinux and Tarantella into one package was made by the Tarantella, rather than by SCO, it's a possibility that Tarantella may be spun on its own with an IPO. At the same time, though, other sources claim that another company, possibly Caldera or Sun Microsystems, may buy Tarantella.
While Caldera had no comment on the story and SCO did not return calls by press time, sources said that the two had been negotiating for some time. Sources said the deal will either be made and announced, or that it will fall apart, by early next week. Several industry insiders expressed optimism about prospects for the deal going through, however.
