Posted on 07/25/2003 7:16:17 PM PDT by HAL9000
Give me a break! I ran SNA channel conversion on UNIX at a quarter of the cost that it took on MS platforms.
Sorry, but MS is still stuck in the 32 bit world, SVR4 has long since been in the 64 bit world. The ONLY thing 64 bit is going to allow MS, more space to load up hidden crap.
Apparently you missed several of my posts above.
Actually, we have long since moved practically all of our 'multi-user' systems to M$ from VMS, Unix, Novell over the last 10+ years. All Quad Dell's, each E-Mail server handles ~500 per, Several Database 1,000+, fileservers 3,000+ connections. Our Unix systems are now all in engineering, where they use them for design, but rarely share data outside of engineering.
This is just the system that has evolved, and it works better than ever before.
This is largely the fault of Microsoft. If NT 4.0 wasn't such a dog as a server they should have had that market sewn up. As it was, it took them forever to get a decent new server OS version together and Linux was an upstart that just happened to be in the right place at the right time.
Microsoft may have serviceable server product now (though a FreeBSD box will still clean its clock), but everyone has already made a huge investment going back to Unix, and unlike MS, they aren't blowing their current advantage. MS gave Linux a window of opportunity, and now Linux scales better and with higher availability than Windows can in addition to owning a fat chunk of the OS share in data centers. I'm sure Microsoft has been kicking themselves ever since. And of course, IBM has seized this opportunity to hammer MS over some old bad blood, which is no small part of the overall equation that has given us the current market condition. It is a healthy market overall.
The dark horse is MacOS X, which with its FreeBSD pedigree and soon to be available 64-bit IBM core could be a real contender on the server side. It depends on what Apple does with it execution-wise, but they are making all the right noises and the platform components (FreeBSD on 64-bit IBM core) are top-shelf.
Ummm... Revenues have nothing to do with market share. Unix is pervasive, but it isn't generating much in the way of direct revenues these days. It is generating a ton of indirect service revenue.
For example, one of the companies I am currently involved with operates one of the fastest growing fiber optic networks in North America and possibly the world currently, and growing like crazy. In fact, their fabric is becoming an increasingly important part of the North American internet. They have a core mission critical database system that controls their global networks and all realtime billing data and so forth i.e. that system is their business. The application runs on "re-purposed" Windows servers that now run Linux which nobody paid for. Using your metric, this shows that Microsoft is "winning" because they sold a license for these servers, and that Linux/Unix is "losing" because nobody got paid for the deployment.
It is worth noting that these guys (a sharp bunch with a very slick operation) could not have attracted investor money (not that they ever needed it) if they were using Windows to support their operation, since it is a 24/7 business. As in, that was actually a question people interested in investing in the company ask.
The important part here is that while both Windows and Linux are being deployed in high numbers, the mission-critical backend is mostly Unix of one stripe or another. The TCO argument for Windows is weak if Linux is pervasive on the backend, and the less-than-mission-critical positions that Windows servers are put in are frequently (but not always) fungible whereas mission critical services are not. In other words, Linux can replace what Windows is currently doing to a great extent, but Windows cannot replace what Linux is doing. The company I mentioned above will be replacing their current core Linux system with some really Big Iron soon, also running Linux. It is worth noting that this system is more powerful than anything Windows runs on -- as I said, Big Iron. Given that they are committed to running Linux since they require servers that are bigger than anything Windows can do, there is a certain amount of efficiency in homogenizing the other servers to all Linux as well where feasible.
And that is the kind of calculus that MS is facing. The number of things that Linux can do on servers that Windows can't is substantially greater than the number of things Windows can do on servers that Linux can't. Given this selection pressure and the low cost of Linux, Windows will slowly be marginalized, particularly since it is getting it ass kicked most severely in the higher-end markets by a product that is cheaper than Windows. Since they don't own the low-end market either, that is an uncomfortable position and they'll find themselves squeezed as the calculus finds favor in Linux many times.
I'm not a particularly big fan of Linux personally for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that I have a LOT of experience with many different operating systems. Still, I can't reasonably ignore the fact that Linux is cleaning house in the data center. Windows may still control the departmental file server market and such, but I don't see that as a particularly secure position if you are incapable of competing effectively in the data centers.
The truth is that one of the reasons closed source is at a disadvantage in this area is in fact the "monoculture" of, for example, Microsoft.
An example? compare the progress of SUN Micro's Solaris and Linux. Solaris grows and improves *MUCH* more slowly than Linux does. Solaris is of course closed source...
Microsoft themselves have paid lip service to the advantage of open source review with their program to allow other groups to "view" their source. but in the typical way microsoft created this program (vis - it was all done by their lawyers) it makes it diffucult and uninteresting for the other party -- microsoft ends up with any changes that the other party comes up with...
Yggdrasil, v1.03!
Mark
Heck, you can get Apache on a lot of different platforms. In fact, Apache is the default web server on Novell NetWare 6.0 and later (although Netscape Enterprise Web Server is still there, if you need it.) Apache is a totally different project and is completely independant of Linux.
Mark
Keep believing that. In many ways, it is more important. Ask Red Hat, who is retreating from markets for the lack of profit they can produce.
http://www.linuxandmain.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=364
And that is the kind of calculus that MS is facing. The number of things that Linux can do on servers that Windows can't is substantially greater than the number of things Windows can do on servers that Linux can't.
Like what? Your blanket statements are comical. M$ is stronger than ever before, while you *nix guys fight it out between yourself. You're only making M$ stronger by supporting the plague of Linux.
No I didn't
'Scuse me. Take it up with the party who wrote that.
Hint: it wasn't me.
Sheesh.
-Jay
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