January 8, 1989

FORK IN THE ROAD: Sources say that Sun Microsystems has backed out of its UNIX co-development agreement with AT&T. AT&T owns the Unix operating system, popular on engineering and scientific workstations like the ones sold by Sun, Digital Equipment, Apollo and Hewlett-Packard.

AT&T started working with Sun two or three years ago to merge its System V Unix with Sun’s popular Unix enhancements, called 4.2 bsd, authored by Sun founder Bill Joy. That agreement was called Phase I. Phase II, the actual merged System 5.4, has been completed. But Sun reportedly has backed out of Phase III ˆ the major rewriting of a key part of the Unix operating system, the kernel, for what was to become System 5.5.

Insiders say the reason comes down to all the brouhaha created by the Sun/AT&T agreement in the first place. The aforementioned vendors (who have now formed the Open Software Foundation) were aggrieved that Sun might get an early finished version of the upgrade, thus gaining the upper hand in a very competitive marketplace. An opposing consortium, the Archer Group (now known as Unix International), was formed to keep industry support behind AT&T’s version of UNIX. Sun and AT&T are Archer members.

However, some Archers wanted to rewrite the Unix kernel by picking engineers from each company to work on a group project. But software by committee is not supposedly what Sun had in mind, so insiders say it has declared a mismatch and is going it alone.

A Sun spokesman denied a breakup with AT&T. “Maybe that’s a proposal that’s being considered, but we certainly haven’t decided precisely,” said Greg XenakisCQof Sun’s solo Unix kernel project. “We’re going to (contribute to the next generation of Unix) through the Unix International mechanism that provides input to AT&T, just like anybody else.”

But I hear the kernel project is quite far along. Blessed by Bill Joy and Sun’s board of directors, the project is headed by Jim Mitchell, former Acorn Research Centre director who is now Sun’s director of advanced Unix technology, software products division. And the project is no secret to AT&T, which has a seat on Sun’s board, and owns 8 percent of the company.

HOT TIP: Since the last big reorganization at Apple Computer, word is that new Apple USA president Allen Loren has been writing walking papers for many of Apple’s upper-middle management executives. But looks like Chuck Boesenberg, Apple’s senior vice president of U.S. sales, beat him to it. Boesenberg has allegedly accepted a senior marketing position at MIPS Computer Systems, the RISC chip company in Sunnyvale. An announcement of Boesenberg’s departure, his replacement, and (another!) corporate reorganization is expected Tuesday, insiders say.

Apple representative Barbara Krause, who always gives a good-natured groan when she hears my voice, said, “There are rumors about a lot of things at Apple all the time, but we never make comments on rumors.” MIPS also refused to comment.

ACTION ITEM: I got a very nice letter from Tymnet regarding my item a few weeks ago, which alleged that Tymnet’s development network was vulnerable to penetration by outsiders. (The network is known affectionately as Bubbnet, because it started in a building on Bubb Road in Cupertino.) Al Fenn, president of Tymnet’s parent, McDonnell Douglas Network Systems Co. in San Jose, wrote that the item “caught our eye at McDonnell Douglas .Ž.Ž. (and) was sufficient stimulus for us to adopt the same security measures in Bubbnet as we do in our public network.”

Tymnet, which is kind of a telephone-accessible data highway, is split into two segments, one for public use and one for software development. Fenn stressed that despite the prior lack of security on Bubbnet, “complicated gateway techniques .Ž.Ž. would be required” to get deep into the public network via Bubbnet.

“No security system is 100 percent guaranteed, but we try earnestly to make unauthorized access very difficult,” Fenn said in his letter. “Your article, although it didn’t make our day, has impelled us to tighten up our development network security, and to reinsure sound practices are in place and operational in our public network.”

TECHNOVISIONARIES WANTED: If you’re tired of all the small minds where you work, here’s a new title you can try to get on your resume: Strategic Knowledge Worker, or SKO. A recent issue of Business Week Newsletter for Information Executives reports that those fitting the title will be the hot ticket for headhunters in 1989.

SKOs are “information executives” who rank equally with chief financial officers and whose job description is to “use whatever technology you want to ease and speed R&D (research and development) work and to shorten the time needed to deal with international regulatory agencies.”

Headhunters, says the B-Week item, claim that salaries for these positions are skyrocketing. But the jobs aren’t for your average nerd. The demand is for people who can relate technology to the business needs of the corporation.

Denise Caruso