"We have very strict confidentiality agreements with IBM about what they can and can't do" with Unix developed using SCO intellectual property, said Darl McBride , president and chief executive of SCO.

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If users want to use Raw Iron database servers in place of SQL Server on NT, it isn't much different than using Unix or Linux underneath, he said.

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It doesn't matter if you're running some flavor of Windows, UNIX, Mac OS X or Linux -- this isn't about OS wars.

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Competitors are still capitalizing on concerns that Compaq won't support Digital's VMS and Unix operating systems much longer.

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Now that OS X is based on the industrial-strength Open BSD flavor of Unix, that won't happen nearly as much, if ever.

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Observers also say there has been a perception that Net-Ware couldn't handle transactions as efficiently as Windows NT or Unix because it lacked pre-emptive processing.

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Moving from the NT server field to Unix, as Compaq intends to do, won't result in a mixed sales pitch from the company, Yeates said.

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That shouldn't be hard, since Mac OS X itself is based on Unix, assuming there are appropriate drivers available for the Firewire connection on those operating systems.

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