The UNIX Wars - "Scott, it was never about technology... it was just business."

In this Series of short articles (installments) on "The UNIX Wars – Confessions of a Corporate Hit Man," I will recount some of the brilliant covert strategies, great flanking maneuvers, incredible sniper kills, war room decisions, and key alliances that were crucial to waging those Wars. I know the inside details of (most) of the stories because, well, I was the guy working behind and across enemy lines (sometimes with allies and sometimes alone) to lead attacks, cause certain critical actions to happen, call in heavy artillery, and keep the enemy off balance… or at least distracted.

No. I wasn’t one of the Generals (they were the Barons of the computer industry) or even a Staff Officer. Those guys don’t typically crawl in the mud or stand in the line-of-fire. Rather, I gave them intelligence from the field, recommended specific actions, and went back to execute their orders, with the understanding that I was told to keep a low profile and assure no one could tie these actions back to them and that I was expendable if things went wrong. That was fine with me – I loved what I was doing and I was very, very good at it.

So, in this series I will explain what led up to The UNIX Wars, who the players were on both/all sides (their roles and why that matters), how specific assaults were initiated and directed, and share some interesting (hopefully amusing) insights from behind the scenes.

While most references to The UNIX Wars on a Google search give it a short and sketchy paragraph, some among you know the real and far reaching affects and consequences. It’s a great story and it changed the computer industry. I invite other veterans from The UNIX Wars to comment or contribute their recollections and reflections from whatever positions you may have held in the midst of the battles. Please follow along in my series (which I will post in LinkedIn and Facebook).

Over the course of this series, I’ll share some of the details of such things as:

• How did Hewlett Packard - which had not been a player in the UNIX market at all - suddenly and mysteriously get named among the “Top Five UNIX Workstation Companies” – before it had even shipped its first UNIX workstation.
• The brilliant flanking attack and sniper shot that killed SUN’s NeWS (network extensible windowing system) and turned a “cluggy campus computer networking Project” from MIT into an “instant industry standard” over a far superior and market-ready technology from SUN.
• How the “Hamilton Group” Meeting came about in Palo Alto and led quickly to a face-to-face confrontation at AT&T Headquarters in NYC with the Chairman of AT&T, James Olson, and his President of AT&T’s Data Systems Group (Vittorio Cassoni)
• Tales from “The Bunker” at the Apollo Computer Headquarters in Chelmsford, MA. The top-secret enclosure where people from several major computer companies were literally locked in and held incommunicado while executives pounded out the Agreement creating the “Open Software Foundation (OSF)”
• Why did nine CEO’s from all the leading computer companies (except SUN Microsystems) assemble for an unprecedented announcement on the stage of the Equitable Center in NYC?
• How the Open Software Foundation got started in Andover, MA (later moved to Cambridge) and how/why it selected certain technologies to declare at “industry standards.”

I know all of these things because I was part of all these events… either the one who pulled it together, or a key participant. I am also the only person who served on both sides of The UNIX Wars; with Hewlett-Packard in the beginning and later at a marketing director at AT&T UNIX System Labs (USL), and for Novell (who acquired USL in 1992 for $335 million), and subsequently President of the UnixWare Technology Group (UTG), a consortium of companies who adopted UnixWare as their desktop operating system.

But, before we can really talk about these events, you have to understand the causes of The UNIX Wars.

So, here’s a quick timeline and overview, without delving into the boring techie stuff… because, as I once told Scott McNealy (a Founder and CEO of SUN) in a meeting in Ed Zander’s office (former President of Sun’s Solaris Group and later COO and President of SUN)… after McNealy wildly sketched on the white board some techie stuff to persuade me that we [I] had killed a vastly superior SUN technology…

“Scott, I knew you had the best technology… It was never about technology – it was just business.”         

Every war ever fought can be traced to some Primal Cause; a person, thing, event, state, or action that produces an effect (response). Something happens that creates anger, or fear, threatens your way of life, your possessions, your survival. Whatever it is, it ignites passions and provides the motivation and justification for attacking the enemy. The UNIX Wars were no different.

To understand the causes of the UNIX Wars, you first need to know a few things about the computer industry in that period, the dramatic changes that were occurring, the competitive landscape (battleground), and the people involved. But, contrary to what you might think, you don’t have to know much about computers or technology – you just have to know about power, avarice, covetousness, pride, jealousy, egoism, and self-preservation… otherwise known as life in the real world.

So, let me give you a brief history of things that led to the UNIX Wars:

1969 – Two guys at AT&T Bell Laboratories in New Jersey, Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie, created a computer operating system (the code that runs a computer tells it what to do) they called UNIX. Of course, this was back when AT&T was “Ma Bell” and wasn’t selling computers.

1973 – Thompson and Ritchie presented a paper on UNIX at Perdue University where a Professor from UC Berkeley sees it and asks if he can start a project to develop their own version and add some other good stuff.

1975 – A Berkeley computer Grad Student, named Bill Joy, starts working with the UNIX system and develops a version called 1BSD

1979 – DARPA (the Agency of the Department of Defense responsible for developing new technology… the ones who really invented the Internet before Al Gore invented it) adopted UNIX to be developed as a common operating system for government agencies, the military, research, universities, etc.

1980 – DARPA gives Berkeley the contract to head that development and, lo and behold, Bill Joy becomes the Project Leader and develops BSD UNIX

All this time, the big Mainframe computer companies, like IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Sperry and Burroughs (later to merge and become Unisys), NCR, Siemens, ICL, Bull, Nixdorf, and others are still pretty much fat, dumb, and happy building and selling business computers based on their own “proprietary” operating systems. They, of course, know about UNIX, but don’t yet see it as a threat to their business.

1982 – Minicomputers had come on the scene (like Digital Equipment’s VAX and systems from Data General and Prime Computer) and they licensed the original UNIX from AT&T as their operating system. Each computer vendor added its own features and modifications to UNIX.

This was also a critical year on the road to the UNIX Wars because AT&T had been forced by the Federal District Courts in DC to “breakup” into several independent Regional Bell Operating Companies, “Baby Bells”… which allowed and pushed AT&T to get into the computer business.

AND... most importantly, in February of 1982 a start-up called SUN Microsystems (for Stanford University Network) was founded by Bill Joy, Vinod Khosta, Andy Bechtolshein, and Scott McNealy in Santa Clara, CA. They had this crazy vision of revolutionizing computing through an “Open Systems” (non-proprietary) concept, built around that BSD (Berkeley version) of UNIX.

SUN would build powerful “engineering workstations” that were networked together and had high-end graphics aimed at universities, government agencies, the DoD, electrical and mechanical engineers, and software developers… and they would compete against the Mainframe and Minicomputer companies, like Digital Equipment, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Data General, Prime Computer, et al.

SUN had disruptive technology that they knew would change the world, redraw the computing landscape, and "redistribute the wealth of the computer industry." And they couldn't have been more right.

This was a David vs. Goliath moment… and it wouldn’t take long for each of the Goliath’s to recognize the enormous impending threat.

But neither David nor the Goliaths knew that they would soon find themselves fully engaged in The UNIX Wars and forming strategic alliances that would give them both the combined strength and "cover" (shade) to fight the battles.

Though I had not yet joined Hewlett-Packard, I was about to come on board (in 1984) and play a leading role in gathering intelligence, building key alliances, and planning and executing the major initiatives.  

Now the fun begins.

In the next installment, I will tell the stories of How H-P made the “Top Five UNIX Workstation Companies” and of a Crucial Phone Call to Ken Olsen (Co-founder and CEO of Digital Equipment Corp.) from John Young (H-P's CEO) lit the fuse that blew up SUN’s launch of its NeWS windowing technology.

(If you would like to contribute to theses stories as I am writing them over the next several days – Contact me at 919.395.6107 or [email protected])