Unix System Laboratories

UNIX System Laboratories
Company typePrivate
Industry
FoundedNovember 1989 (1989-11)
FateAcquired by Novell June 1993 (1993-06)
Headquarters,
United States
Number of locations
3
Key people
Products
  • Operating systems
  • transaction monitors
  • C++ language products
Revenue$100 million (1991, equivalent to $224 million today)
Number of employees
500 (1991)
Divisions
  • UNIX System V Software
  • Open Solutions Software

Unix System Laboratories (USL), sometimes written UNIX System Laboratories to follow relevant trademark guidelines of the time, was an American software laboratory and product development company that existed from 1989 through 1993. At first wholly, and then majority, owned by AT&T, it was responsible for the development and maintenance of one of the main branches of the Unix operating system, the UNIX System V Release 4 source code product. Through Univel, a partnership with Novell, it was also responsible for the development and production of the UnixWare packaged operating system for Intel architecture. In addition it developed Tuxedo, a transaction processing monitor, and was responsible for certain products related to the C++ programming language. USL was based in Summit, New Jersey, and its CEOs were Larry Dooling followed by Roel Pieper.

Created from earlier AT&T entities, USL was, as industry writer Christopher Negus has observed, the culmination of AT&T's long involvement in Unix, "a jewel that couldn't quite find a home or a way to make a profit."[1] USL was sold to Novell in 1993.

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference negus was invoked but never defined (see the help page).