 santa cruz operation (sco) was a software company based in santa cruz, california which was best known for selling three unix variants for intel x86 processors: xenix, sco unix (later known as sco openserver), and unixware. eric raymond, in his book the art of unix programming, calls sco the "first unix company". prior to this, some prominent unix vendors had been computer hardware manufacturers and telephone companies. in 1993, sco acquired two smaller companies and developed the tarantella product line. in 2001, sco sold its rights to unix and the related divisions to caldera systems. after that the corporation retained only its tarantella product line, and changed its name to tarantella, inc. caldera systems becoming caldera international subsequently changed its name to sco then to the sco group (nasdaq: scox; now delisted: scoxq.pk), which has created some confusion between the two companies. the company described here is the original santa cruz operation (nasdaq: scoc). although generally referred to simply as "sco" up to 2001, it is now sometimes referred to as "old sco", "santa cruz", or "sco classic" to distinguish it from "the sco group" to whom the u.s. trademark "sco" was transferred. == history == === early years === sco was founded in 1979 by doug michels and his father, larry, as a unix porting and consulting company.{{cite web |title= history of the sco group |work= former web site |url= http://www.sco.com/company/history.html |deadurl= yes |archiveurl= http://web.archive.org/web/20031204183836/http://www.sco.com/company/history.html |archivedate= decemb
1978_establishments_in_California Companies_based_in_Santa_Cruz_County,_California Companies_established_in_1979 Defunct_companies_based_in_California Defunct_software_companies_of_the_United_States Unix