Unix Suppliers Link Up to Fight Microsoft : Computers: Six firms, including IBM, vow to develop a common standard for their operating systems.

In an effort to head off software giant Microsoft Corp., the six feuding suppliers of the Unix operating system vowed Wednesday to create a common standard to allow Unix applications to run on a variety of computers.

The companies, including International Business Machines Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Sun Microsystems Inc., said the move will solve the incompatibility problems that have plagued Unix users since suppliers began marketing different versions of the operating system a decade ago.

By creating a unified market--Unix sales total about $15 billion annually--the group also hopes to coax software developers into writing more applications for the system, thereby broadening its appeal. While there are scores of word processing programs for Microsoft’s ubiquitous DOS operating system, for example, few have been written for the lower-volume Unix.

“We see this as enlarging the playing field,” said Edward Zander, who heads Sun’s software unit. “Obviously we all compete, but we’d rather compete in a bigger market.”

The question is how much of a market will be left for Unix after Microsoft releases its Windows NT operating system this spring. The world’s largest software manufacturer is counting on the new system to extend its dominance in personal computing applications to more powerful machines, many of which have traditionally been run on Unix.

Windows NT will have many of the same capabilities as Unix, and analysts say it will be a formidable competitor.

“If they didn’t do this, they wouldn’t have a hope,” said David Card, an analyst at International Data Corp. in Mountain View. “But I still don’t think they have much of a hope.”

In any event, for companies that have been stuck trying to patch together workable computer systems and train employees to use several different Unix interfaces, the long-awaited move to a common standard will make life much easier.