The Santa Cruz Operation is pleased with the latest figures from International Data Corp that show it has now become the third largest supplier of all server operating system environments worldwide. However, SCO has usurped only IBM Corp’s ailing OS/2 operating to snag third place, clearly not the real horse to beat, and inevitably trails behind both Novell Inc’s NetWare, and of course, Microsoft Corp’s Windows NT. According to IDC figures, SCO shipped a total of 288,000 Unix server software licenses in 1997, to OS/2’s 266,000 unit shipments. That’s 27% more server software licenses than last year, compared with a general growth rate in the Unix market of 15% – a rate which has remained steady since 1995. SCO’s market share of the overall Unix market, where it has always held the lead on terms of shipments, increased from 36% to 40% over the year, and it shipped more copies than its nearest three competitors combined. Shipments of SCO’s newer UnixWare product grew at a rate of 45.7% over the year, making it the world’s fastest growing Unix system, according to IDC.
