Preview: SCO Forum 2004 to unveil latest product strategy

Computerworld - LAS VEGAS -- As hundreds of customers and resellers gather here for the annual SCO Forum conference over the next two days, one big question on the minds of attendees will likely revolve around The SCO Group Inc.'s ongoing strategy while its Linux code infringement lawsuits against IBM, Novell Inc., AutoZone Inc. and others play out in the courts.
Part of that strategy will include announcements of some upcoming products, including the first developer's preview of SCO's next OpenServer release, code-named Legend. The Legend project was first unveiled at last year's SCO Forum, and it's expected to ship in the first quarter of 2005, according to the Lindon, Utah-based company. Legend will increase the number of applications available to SCO OpenServer customers and will include a new developer environment to create a single application for use with OpenServer and UnixWare environments. Legend is also expected to include increased performance and scalability for symmetric multiprocessing and load-balancing requirements.
CEO Darl McBride was expected to open today's sessions at the MGM Grand hotel and casino with a presentation on "SCO Past, Present and Future," while Erik Hughes, director of product management, is expected to outline SCO's product road map.
SCO is also announcing the availability of the latest version of SCOoffice Server 4.1, to provide customers with an e-mail and collaboration server product for small- to medium-size businesses as an alternative to Microsoft Corp.'s Exchange Server 2003.
Also unveiled by the company is the SCO Marketplace Initiative, which is a new feature of the SCO Developer Network. Under the program, customers seeking custom development work for their SCO Unix projects would be able to seek bids from developers using an online bidding process. The SCO Marketplace Initiative will be launched by the end of the year, according to the company.