The SCO Group, Inc. today announced the SCO Marketplace Initiative. This feature of the SCO Developer Network will offer external participants pay-per-project development opportunities to work with the SCO product line. The SCO Marketplace Initiative is designed to facilitate an online bid process for various development services.

Through the SCO Marketplace Initiative, external developers will be given the opportunity to bid on development work related to SCO’s award-winning UNIX products. Each of the development projects offered will focus on delivering complimentary technologies to specific SCO products. Those participants that win a project bid will be compensated by SCO, based on agreed upon pricing and deadlines.

“It’s extremely important that we continue to have a solid developer program around our operating system products,” said Sandy Gupta, vice president of engineering, The SCO Group. “An operating system requires a large base of third-party applications and must provide broad hardware support. SCO has had great results working with our developer/reseller channel, product contributors, and beta testers. Our products are better because of the UNIX community’s efforts, as well as those of our loyal SCO partners. As a company, we want to show our appreciation by formalizing new income opportunities for SCO development partners, who continue to work with us, by paying them for the hard work and the value they provide.”

SCO will formally launch the SCO Marketplace Initiative online bidding site by the end of the year. While the internal engineering teams at SCO are focused on enhancing core OS technologies, a strong external developer initiative will further extend the breadth of solutions available on SCO platforms.

Participating developers will need to register and apply at the SCO Marketplace website in order to qualify to the agreed terms and conditions. Periodically, SCO will list new projects for bid. Registered and approved participants will be eligible to apply for any project on the website. SCO anticipates offering a broad set of development projects available for bid. Details of these projects will be made available through the SCO Developer Network.

“While I enjoy developing technology, my main goal in coding software is to ultimately make money,” said Larry Rosenman, LERCTR Consulting. “This new SCO Marketplace Initiative opens up another avenue to strengthen my relationship with SCO. It also creates a real opportunity to both add value to the products I support, use and resell—and make some extra income in the process.”

Additional information on the SCO Marketplace Initiative will be forthcoming in the coming months from the SCO Developer Network, including the rollout of a formal program name, application criteria, and more.