Unix Bridge Products Merge

An updated version of Microsoft’s Windows Services for Unix (SFU) combines the existing separate SFU and Interix products into a single lower-priced product that customers can use to migrate from Unix to Windows or interoperate between both platforms. SFU 3.0 also offers small incremental improvements to the existing features, but customers should realize that successful migration or interoperability depends more on their knowledge of Windows and Unix than on the tools they use.

SFU is strategic to Microsoft because it allows customers to move existing Unix applications to Windows. Microsoft even used these products to move its own MSN Hotmail property from FreeBSD to Windows. Other alternatives, such as the open source Samba product, encourage ongoing interoperability by allowing Unix boxes to access files and printers from Windows systems.

Interix

The Interix environment enables users to compile and execute Unix applications and run Unix shell scripts on Windows NT 4 or higher servers, allowing for the elimination of Unix servers. The environment is compliant with the Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) standard, a set of source-code operating-system standard interfaces based on Unix. Interix supports over 900 of the Unix APIs defined in the POSIX.1 standard, and it provides the ability to run Unix shell scripts by supporting the POSIX.2 standard.