Azzara, Michels Get UniForum Awards

UniForum presented its highest honors to two prominent open systems professionals at UniForum '95 in Dallas.

The UniForum Industry Award, presented annually to an active end user, industry person, educator, analyst, or journalist, was awarded to Mike Azzara, founding editor of Open Systems Today (formerly Unix Today!), and now director of market strategy with CMP Publications. The award was presented to Azzara during the opening keynote session by Michael Tilson, president of UniForum. "The award signifies our recognition of the years of outstanding work Mike has done as one of our industry's most respected journalists," Tilson said.

Azzara spent seven years as a daily newspaper reporter in New York City before he became a computer industry reporter in 1982. He was named managing editor of Communications Week in 1985 and editor of Computer Systems News in 1987. The following year he took responsibility for the overall editorial direction, design, and production of Unix Today!

The UniForum Lifetime Achievement Award was presented during the Wednesday keynote session to Doug Michels, co-founder, executive vice president, and chief technical officer of the Santa Cruz Operation. In making the award, Richard Jaross, UniForum's executive director, told the audience, "No other person so embodies what UniForum is all about. Doug Michels was a founder of UniForum, and has served as its board president and as an officer. Today he remains one of our most trusted advisors, whose vision of what Unix and open systems is, and can be, is an inspirational one to all of us."

Michels graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz, with honors in computer and information science. He worked as a consultant specializing in microprocessor software and development tools. After forming SCO in 1979, he worked to fulfill the potential of UNIX as the operating platform for a portable, open standards-based computing environment. Today Michels is the principal architect of SCO's product strategy and also oversees strategic alliances with software and hardware manufacturers.