Tony - Re: " The self fulfilling prophecy of NT swarming
all over UNIX, and eating into it, looks less like an inevitability and more like a happening every day."
I think NT will do as you say in the Workstation Tools area.
However, for servers, UNIX seems to be a better, more reliable and robust OS for most big-time installations.
Unix will continue to command the high end there, while NT eats its way up from the bottom.
In fact, Intel is pushing UNIX at the IDF.
Paul
{=================================}
news.com
Intel pushing unified Unix
By Brooke Crothers
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
September 16, 1998, 8:25 p.m. PT
Intel will work toward establishing common
standards among different versions of the
Unix operating system, a critical requirement
as the company lays the groundwork for its
high-end server and next-generation 64-bit
Merced technologies.
In the creation of a
"unified Unix," Intel
will work with
Compaq,
Hewlett-Packard,
IBM, Sun
Microsystems, and
SCO, among other
companies.
The effort indicates that Unix continues to
play a critical role in the high-end corporate
"enterprise" market, an area where Microsoft
is still playing catch-up in many respects. The
software giant has been pushing its
Windows NT operating system for this
lucrative segment.
Today at the Intel Developer Forum, John
Miner, Intel vice president and general
manager of the Enterprise Server Group,
talked about a strategy aimed at
"accelerating the deployment of Unix on
Intel-based servers as an important element
in the growth of the standard high-volume
server model."
Intel's standard high-volume server (SHVS)
strategy aims to standardize server-related
technologies, which, ideally, drives down
costs.
"Intel is joining forces with leading Unix OS
vendors and peripheral hardware
manufacturers on a mission to overcome the
current interoperability challenges faced by
companies delivering devices to the Unix
market," Intel said in a prepared statement.
The initiative is specifically focused on
drivers, the software that enables a computer
to work with a particular device, such as a
printer or a disk drive. This particular
standard which Intel is crafting along with the
other major computer players is called
Uniform Driver Interface (UDI) specification.
Intel said: "The goal of this effort is to create
an environment where vendors can create
and maintain a single-device driver
implementation that will work across multiple
versions of Unix on [Intel architecture], thus
reducing development costs and enabling
developers to focus on more valuable
product features."
"Intel plans to contribute knowledge of Intel
system interfaces and initiatives, as well as
devote engineering resources to work with
Project UDI to complete a...design of the UDI
framework and common device drivers," the
company said.
Apparently, the idea is not new to Intel.
According to Oracle's Larry Ellison,
now-retired CEO Andy Grove was the driving
force behind earlier efforts to amalgamate
Unix operating system variants into a single
version. Grove was involved in these efforts
as recently as two years ago, News.com
previously reported.
Grove was motivated by his desire to avoid
relying on Microsoft, Ellison said, but the plan
failed because the major players like IBM
and Sun did not want to give up the
competitive advantage of being able to sell
their own "flavor" of Unix. In his view, a
unified Unix did came about because it was
not a matter of "life and death" for the key
players.
Ellison, of course, has been a outspoken foe
of Microsoft. Intel is an investor in CNET: The
Computer Network.
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