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Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!network.ucsd.edu!swrinde!gatech!news.ans.net!cmcl2!prism.poly.edu!kapela From: kapela@prism.poly.edu (Theodore S. Kapela) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd Subject: Re: What has AT&T to lose? Plenty! Message-ID: <1992Jul24.141112.29290@prism.poly.edu> Date: 24 Jul 92 14:11:12 GMT References: <1992Jul23.012046.18604@cshl.org> Organization: Polytechnic University, New York Lines: 34 In article <1992Jul23.012046.18604@cshl.org> pjm@cshl.org (Pat Monardo) writes: >The BSDI product couldn't have come at a worse time. BSDI released BSD386 in beta several months ago. It was *announced* almost a full *year* ago. Where was USL then? I do agree that BSD386 could have an affect on SVR4 sales, but not directly in the commercial market. BSD386 appears to be aimed at the small VAR market, not at large VARs such as SCO and ISC (SunSoft), among others. I also don't see BSDI "luring" customers away from System V. Is AT&T really that afraid of a little competition? If they are, then they should take a long hard look at their own products and give people a reason to CHOOSE (you can't choose if there is only one choice) AT&T products, not FORCE them to buy them. It appears to me that AT&T wants a monopoly. If they can't have it in one market, they'll aim for another. This is also indicated by USL's monumental move of releasing their *own* SVR4 package, Destiny (AKA System V Relase 4.2), aimed directly at the same market SCO, ISC, UHC, Dell, et al have been catering to for many years. Previously, USL (AT&T) only sold source licenses to others, be they universities or VARs. Also note that (as someone else pointed out), USL has made no move to have the NET2 sources removed from publicly-accessable archive sites. It would appear to me that this would be a smaller step for USL. After all, how many unversities have the resources (IE: $$$) to see AT&T in court? USL doesn't want competition in the distribution market. This is their way of pushing out the competitor. -- ............................................................................... Theodore S. Kapela kapela@poly.edu Center for Applied Large-Scale Computing Polytechnic University