Who are our friends now?

It's sad enough when friends drift apart, but even worse when they disappear altogether. The buzzards that have been circling above SCO, an old friend of small business, for the last two years, now appear ready to land.

Many only know SCO as the company that has been complaining bitterly about being robbed of millions of lines of source code but unwilling or unable to produce any evidence. This now sad shell of a company once was synonymous with small business multi-user computing. If you wanted multi-user computing in the mid to late ‘80s you needed software from SCO, the Santa Cruz Operation.

Notice I said “multi-user” computing, not hip or graphical computing. Early multi-user systems dropped mini-computer functionality (think DEC and Burroughs and Data General “mini” systems the size of a freezer or two) down to a point small businesses could afford. Need accounting for your small business? Call your SCO reseller; Databases? SCO; Point of sale for retail? SCO.

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It's sad enough when friends drift apart, but even worse when they disappear altogether. The buzzards that have been circling above SCO, an old friend of small business, for the last two years, now appear ready to land.

Many only know SCO as the company that has been complaining bitterly about being robbed of millions of lines of source code but unwilling or unable to produce any evidence. This now sad shell of a company once was synonymous with small business multi-user computing. If you wanted multi-user computing in the mid to late ‘80s you needed software from SCO, the Santa Cruz Operation.

Notice I said “multi-user” computing, not hip or graphical computing. Early multi-user systems dropped mini-computer functionality (think DEC and Burroughs and Data General “mini” systems the size of a freezer or two) down to a point small businesses could afford. Need accounting for your small business? Call your SCO reseller; Databases? SCO; Point of sale for retail? SCO.

One central processing unit, probably with less power than a new iPhone, ran all the software. Users had terminals consisting of a keyboard and monitor showing green or yellow text, connected via serial cables back to the central unit. Way before the Internet made remote communications easy, a remote terminal with a modem dialing back to the central unit provided about as good a response time as sitting in your office, especially if you shelled out the big bucks for 2400 baud modems on each end.

Then management changed and the company started to make few decisions. Now SCO will likely suffocate under an avalanche of attorney fees.

Speaking of bad choices, readers who say I give Microsoft too much grief better avoid the Oct. 1 issue of Forbes magazine. On page 82, Peter Huber labels his story “Blunder 2007” and gives Microsoft plenty of grief about Office 2007 and Vista. He questions whether Microsoft even cares about the low end users anymore.

Since “low end” often means “small business” let me say I agree that Microsoft is no longer the friend of small business. Vista costs up to $399, and Office 2007 costs up to $649 retail. That's not friendly.

Luckily, small businesses seem to be getting new friends from interesting places. Apple, of all companies, finally released a productivity suite with plenty of features and horsepower for small businesses in iWork '08. The suite includes a word processor/page layout application, a wonderful presentation package called Keynote, and now includes Numbers '08 for spreadsheet fans. I haven't played with these yet, but I'm thinking it's about time.

Apple sells the software at a small-business-friendly price of $79. Imagine Microsoft Works with killer, rather than crippled, applications, and with the little Apple touches that surprise Windows users when they switch.

Of course, if you want to stay with Windows but need an office productivity suite that's complete yet affordable, you can always go to OpenOffice for a free software suite. Word processor, presentation software, spreadsheet, and database, all for free, and all Office compatible.