Project Monterey was an attempt to build a single

Unix Unix (, ; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

that ran across a variety of 32-bit and 64-bit platforms, as well as supporting multi-processing. It would allow applications to run across a wide selection of machines, at a time when compatibility between platforms was limited and this was seen as a major barrier to the more widespread adoption of Unix-based platforms. Although it would run on most processors of the era, the main focus of the project was to create an enterprise-class UNIX for the upcoming

IA-64 IA-64 (Intel Itanium architecture) is the instruction set architecture (ISA) of the discontinued Itanium family of 64-bit Intel microprocessors. The basic ISA specification originated at Hewlett-Packard (HP), and was subsequently implemented by ...

, which at the time was expected to eventually dominate the server market. The rise of

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

and the failure of the IA-64 program led to its supporters abandoning the project. Announced in October 1998, the project involved several Unix vendors;

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

provided POWER and

PowerPC PowerPC (with the backronym Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC – Performance Computing, sometimes abbreviated as PPC) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) created by the 1991 Apple Inc., App ...

support from AIX,

Santa Cruz Operation The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc. (usually known as SCO, pronounced either as individual letters or as a word) was an American software company, based in Santa Cruz, California, that was best known for selling three Unix operating system variants ...

(SCO) provided

IA-32 IA-32 (short for "Intel Architecture, 32-bit", commonly called ''i386'') is the 32-bit version of the x86 instruction set architecture, designed by Intel and first implemented in the i386, 80386 microprocessor in 1985. IA-32 is the first incarn ...

support, and

Sequent In mathematical logic, a sequent is a very general kind of conditional assertion. : A_1,\,\dots,A_m \,\vdash\, B_1,\,\dots,B_n. A sequent may have any number ''m'' of condition formulas ''Ai'' (called " antecedents") and any number ''n'' of ass ...

added multi-processing (MP) support from their DYNIX/ptx system.

Intel Corporation Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer components such as central processing ...

provided expertise and ISV development funding for porting to their upcoming

(Itanium Architecture) CPU platform, which was yet to be released at that time. By March 2001, however, "the explosion in popularity of Linux ... prompted IBM to quietly ditch" this; all involved attempted to find a niche in the rapidly developing

market and moved their focus away from Monterey. Sequent was acquired by IBM in 1999. In 2000, SCO's UNIX business was purchased by

Caldera Systems Caldera International, Inc., earlier Caldera Systems, was an American software company that existed from 1998 to 2002 and developed and sold Linux- and Unix-based operating system products. Caldera Systems was created in August 1998 as a spinoff ...

, a Linux distributor, who later renamed themselves the

SCO Group The SCO Group (often referred to SCO and later called The TSG Group) was an American software company in existence from 2002 to 2012 that became known for owning Unix operating system assets that had belonged to the Santa Cruz Operation (the or ...

. In the same year, IBM eventually declared Monterey dead. Intel, IBM, Caldera Systems, and others had also been running a parallel effort to port Linux to IA-64,

Project Trillian Itanium (; ) is a discontinued family of 64-bit Intel microprocessors that implement the Intel Itanium architecture (formerly called IA-64). The Itanium architecture originated at Hewlett-Packard (HP), and was later jointly developed by HP and I ...

, which delivered workable code in February 2000. In late 2000, IBM announced a major effort to support Linux. In May 2001, the project announced the availability of a beta test version AIX-5L for IA-64, basically meeting its original primary goal. However, Intel had missed its delivery date for its first

Itanium Itanium (; ) is a discontinued family of 64-bit computing, 64-bit Intel microprocessors that implement the Intel Itanium architecture (formerly called IA-64). The Itanium architecture originated at Hewlett-Packard (HP), and was later jointly dev ...

processor by two years, and the Monterey software had no market. With the exception of the IA-64 port and Dynix MP improvements, much of the Monterey effort was an attempt to standardize existing versions of Unix into a single compatible system. Such efforts had been undertaken in the past (e.g., 3DA) and had generally failed, as the companies involved were too reliant on

vendor lock-in In economics, vendor lock-in, also known as proprietary lock-in or customer lockin, makes a customer dependent on a vendor for products, unable to use another vendor without substantial switching costs. The use of open standards and alternati ...

to fully support a standard that would allow their customers to leave for other products. With Monterey, two of the key partners already had a niche they expected to continue to serve in the future: POWER and IA-64 for IBM, IA-32 and IA-64 for SCO. The breakdown of Project Monterey was one of the factors leading to a

lawsuit A lawsuit is a proceeding by one or more parties (the plaintiff or claimant) against one or more parties (the defendant) in a civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today ...

in 2003, where SCO Group sued IBM over their contributions to Linux. IBM sold only 32 Monterey licenses in 2001, and fewer in 2002.

References

External links

* {{IBM operating systems Parallel computing Collaborative projects Unix variants Unix history Discontinued operating systems IBM operating systems Power ISA operating systems Computer-related introductions in 1998