Compaq says it will provide technical and marketing support to promote the new operating system. Monterey will be based on SCO's UnixWare 7 and will incorporatehigh-end features from AIX, Dynix Unix, and now Tru64Unix, Compaq's high-availability operating system for data centers. "We want to be the best provider of NT, but we also want to win with Unix in markets we go after," says Tim Yeaton, Compaq's VP and general manager of Unix marketing. "Our role with Monterey is to satisfy the requirements for our volume, shrink-wrapped customers" who prefer Unix over Windows NT.

The Monterey endorsement is consistent with Compaq's strategy, says Jonathan Eunice, a senior analyst with Illuminata. "Compaq doesn't care what the operating system is because at the base level, Compaq is interested in selling boxes, peripherals like storage, and services around them," he says.

The vendors say customers will benefit as more companies sign on to Monterey because it will lead to a less-fragmented Unix IA-64 market, decreasing server incompatibility problems and lowering system and administration costs. But Vien Dang, IS manager at NDS Americas, a Newport Beach, Calif., manufacturer of digital broadcasting products, says Monterey could stifle innovation now fostered by competing Unix operating systems.