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Computerworld - The SCO Group Inc., which began a legal attack against Linux in March, last week announced plans to rebuild its Unix operating system line next year in a bid to make the software a more viable alternative to Linux technology.

Users and resellers who attended the company's SCO Forum conference in Las Vegas said they were heartened by the release of the development road map, adding that it addressed many of the concerns they had about the future of SCO Unix following several years of neglect and ownership changes.

But many IT managers whose companies don't already use SCO Unix said in telephone interviews or via e-mail that SCO's legal assault on Linux—which includes a lawsuit against IBM and threats to sue users of the open-source operating system—have left them unwilling to even consider the company's technology.

"I have no intentions of ever doing business with SCO," said Chad Wilson, a computer support analyst at an Ohio-based hospital that runs Windows servers as well as some Linux and IBM AIX systems. "Basically, with their tactics, they hurt their chance of getting a future customer."

Ronald Edge, manager of information systems at Indiana University's Intercollegiate Athletics Department in Bloomington, was even more blunt. "I feel a harsh, bitter Norwegian cold equivalent to hell toward SCO," Edge said.

Darl McBride, CEO of The SCO Group Inc.

Beyond SCO's legal actions and threats, the dearth of new Unix development by the company in recent years makes it difficult to trust its new product-release road map, he noted.

Darl McBride, SCO's president and CEO, acknowledged in an interview that the Lindon, Utah-based company's Unix technology needs to be revitalized. "It's like a house that hasn't been maintained in a few years," McBride said. "We're going to come back and spruce the place up."

The plans include the shipment next year of a more fully featured operating system, code-named SCO OpenServer Legend, plus other new technologies. McBride said he hopes the new releases will convince users that SCO is still a good bet for the future.

A Unix administrator at a California-based supermarket chain, who asked that she not be named, said at the SCO Forum conference that she's glad to see SCO once again diving into Unix development. The chain recently began testing key applications on Windows NT in case it had to move off of SCO OpenServer, but the administrator said she'll now recommend that the testing be scaled back.

"We should hang in [with SCO]," she said. "What they've got coming is great."

"I'd say I still have some concerns about the legal issues going on," said the vice president of IT at a Fortune 500 manufacturer based in the Midwest, who also asked not to be identified. But, he added, "I do feel better than I did. They're definitely building on the product, so that makes me much more comfortable over the medium term. The long term is the question mark."