When USL eventually started taking on marketing experts and creating a desktop UNIX product
for end users, Microsoft Windows already had a firm grasp on the desktop market. Also, because
the direction of UNIX had always been toward source-code licensing destined for large computing
systems, USL had pricing difficulties for its products. For example, on software it was including
with UNIX, USL found itself having to pay out per-computer licensing fees that were based on
$100,000 mainframes instead of $2,000 PCs. Add to that the fact that no application programs
were available with UnixWare, and you can see why the endeavor failed.
Successful marketing of UNIX systems at the time, however, was happening with other computer
companies. SCO had found a niche market, primarily selling PC versions of UNIX running dumb
terminals in small offices. Sun Microsystems was selling lots of UNIX workstations (originally based
on BSD but merged with UNIX in SVR4) for programmers and high-end technology applications
(such as stock trading).
Other commercial UNIXes were also emerging by the 1980s. This new ownership assertion of
UNIX was beginning to take its toll on the spirit of open contributions. Lawsuits were being initiated
to protect UNIX source code and trademarks.
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