Project Monterey
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Project Monterey was an attempt to build a single Unix operating system that ran across a variety of 32-bit and 64-bit platforms, as well as supporting multi-processing. The core of the project was an attempt to create an enterprise-class UNIX for the IA-64, which at the time was expected to eventually dominate the UNIX server market. Announced in October 1998, several Unix vendors were involved; IBM provided POWER and PowerPC support from AIX, Santa Cruz Operation (SCO) provided IA-32 support, and Sequent added multi-processing (MP) support from their DYNIX/ptx system. Intel Corporation provided expertise and ISV development funding for porting to the new IA-64 platform, which had not yet been released at that time.[1]
In May 2001, the project announced the availability of a beta test version AIX-5L for the IA-64, basically meeting its original primary goal. However, Intel had missed its delivery date for the Itanium (the initial IA-64 hardware) by two years, and the Monterey software had no market.
With the exception of the IA-64 port and Dynix MP improvements, much of the Monterey effort was an attempt to standardize existing versions of Unix into a single compatible system. Such efforts had been undertaken in the past (e.g., 3DA) and had generally failed, as the companies involved were too reliant on vendor lock-in to really support a standard that would allow their customers to leave for other products. With Monterey each of the vendors already had a niche they expected to continue to serve in the future: POWER and IA-64 for IBM, IA-32 and IA-64 for SCO. It is not entirely clear what market Sequent expected to serve.
The project rapidly became unmanageable as all involved attempted to find a niche in the rapidly developing Linux market and focused their efforts elsewhere. Sequent was acquired by IBM in 1999. SCO left the Unix business in 2001; in the same year, IBM eventually declared Monterey dead.[2] Intel, IBM, Caldera, and others had also been running a parallel effort to port Linux to IA-64, Project Trillian, which delivered workable code in February 2000.
More recently, "the new SCO" (SCO Group) has made Monterey the focus of an effort to sue IBM for copyright infringement. The SCO Group claims that after the death of Monterey, IBM used several portions of SCO's code in newer versions of AIX on POWER, as well as taking code and including it into the existing IA-32 versions of Linux. Their claim appears to be that IBM started Monterey as a sham, intending all along to fool SCO into providing code to IBM which they intended to put into Linux, with no intention of ever releasing Monterey itself.
This claim appears to be specious; IBM's intentions to use Monterey on POWER were well known at the time, as several press releases from the era note. Likewise, the SCO Group (then known as Caldera) was a member of the Trillian team as well, and therefore must have been aware of IBM's work on Linux.
IBM sold only 32 licences of Monterey in 2001, and fewer in 2002.[3] [4]
[edit] References
- ^ Hughs-Rolwands and Chabib (August 31, 1999). Project Monterey. Project Monterey presentation. Retrieved on 2007-05-20.
- ^ Jones, Pamela (April 25 2005). More Evidence Project Monterey Partners Knew Linux Was the Future. Groklaw. Retrieved on 2007-05-20.
- ^ Borchers, Detlef (2005-08-28). SCO vs. Linux: 32 mal Monterey. Heise Online. Retrieved on 2007-05-20.
- ^ Jones, Pamela (August 25, 2005). 2002 IBM Internal Email on Project Monterey - "No One Wants It". Groklaw. Retrieved on 2007-05-20.
