"Sun has helped spark a major controversy within the UNIX community that may have split it into different directions. The controversy began to heat up in October 1987, when AT&T announced that it would license Sun's SPARC architecture as the basis for AT&T computer systems. Furthermore, said AT&T, it was going to collaborate with Sun to develop a UNIX "standard" that would eliminate deficiencies in the operating system--such as lack of features for commercial applications--and be compatible at the binary level across the entire SPARC architecture. Not surprisingly, other companies in the UNIX Community smelled incipient monopolistic practices that would give AT&T and Sun an unqualified advantage in the UNIX market. These moves would effectively make the Sun/AT&T-developed System V and SPARC proprietary standards controlled by the two companies. This perception was bolstered in January 1988, when AT&T announced that it had agreed to purchase 20 percent of Sun by buying shares, in amounts and at times determined by Sun, at 25 percent above current market value." [Sunburst: The Ascent of Sun Microsystems, p. 112-113]