SCO developer marketplace goes live

SCO Group has launched a "marketplace" website promoting upcoming projects, the first of three initiatives targeting resellers and third party UNIX developers.

The website, called SCO Marketplace, went live this week with its first set of developer projects at www.sco.com/developers.

All resellers and developers who were registered, authorised or premier partners of SCO were eligible to participate, SCO said in a statement.

Sandy Gupta, US-based vice-president of engineering at SCO, said developers were important to SCO. The company wanted to provide strong UNIX-on-Intel business software.

"Our company's strength is found in the developer eco-system that surrounds the SCO UNIX platform," Gupta said.

Advertising UNIX developer opportunities would help SCO bring "sought-after" technologies to its customers, the company said.

Initial projects included development of device drivers and porting of various open source applications to SCO UNIX platforms. Developers submit bids for the various projects, the company said. 

SCO Marketplace was first announced at SCO Forum, the company's annual partner conference, but was expected to evolve.

Darl McBride, president and CEO at SCO, said future Marketplace additions might include an online distribution engine for business applications.

A "wide variety" of companies and resellers would be targeted, McBride added.